It's Time to Weave

I was talking about weaving and looms with my husband the other day and I realized while talking to him that one of the reasons I had felt sour about weaving lately was the migraines that I had been dealing with. Between the two of us we realized that every time I worked with weaving yarn, it triggered a migraine that lasted 2-3 days. Well, no wonder I didn't feel like weaving for the longest time! I don't know if you have read about what can trigger migraines, but there's a long list of things, so it can take some time to figure out what's causing the problem.

Lately I've been missing throwing a shuttle, and watching a new cloth emerge. So I decided to try a new way of working with weaving yarn by prewashing everything. I measured the yarn out with cotton gloves on and then soaked it to hopefully remove whatever chemical was on it. Well, for the first try I gingerly sat down, took my cotton gloves off and set up one of my looms with the freshly washed yarn. No migraine even after hours of working on the loom. Hurrah!

This work is an example of making lemonade out of a lemony situation in which one loom was advertised by a fellow weaver, while a totally different loom was shipped out. This is the first project on the Louet W40-8 loom, and in progress on this loom is an eight shaft cotton warp for dishtowels using variegated 8/2 cotton yarn from Webs for the warp and an 8/2 navy cotton yarn for the weft. The threading is a Dornick twill from the book, A Weaver's Book of 8 Shaft Patterns. And it feels wonderful to be throwing the shuttle once again, headache free.

One day I felt like working on a small project, so I pulled out some leftover handwoven cloth that I had saved from a dishtowel project. After cutting the cloth into small rectangles, I added some Velcro for an easy opening and then sewed the other edges together to make small handwoven cachets filled with my dried lavender from my garden. Hmmmm, it smells so lovely.

Just off of my knitting needles is another pair of soft, warm Merino socks knit from Smooshy Dream in Color yarn in the Charged Cherry colorway. I buy Smooshy sock yarn from Eat Sleep Knit, which is a great place to buy from as they are so fast in shipping yarn out. If you haven't knit with Smooshy, you're really missing out. The yarn feels wonderful on my feet with my favorite clogs :-) Who can resist hand knit wool socks??

Here's hoping that you have time for fiber/fabric today,
Judy