What’s this one going to be? Well, I’m not sure, but I know it’s going to be colorful. The repetitive nature of cutting out fabric all the same size can be soothing.
It allows for the gentle progression of a project without a ton of hard work. But it could be fairly boring if it was done in all one color.
I thought this combination of color was very punchy—a soothing palette of blues and grays interrupted by a core of strong yellows. Most likely this will be a pillow…cutting out all those strips might be soothing but I have my limits.
Finally, after four months, the Chicago Weaving School was able to reopen, although to a much smaller class size. The sampler I had been working on was abandoned on the loom when we all had to shelter in place back in March.
But it was still there on the four shaft table loom just as I had left it. And I finally got to finish it and bring it home.
I knew that as a sampler with lots of mismatched designs and colors, I probably wouldn’t want to use it as is. And after wet finishing it in the washing machine, the finished dimensions were just enough for several small projects.
The first of which is an insulating sleeve for the large glass I drink hot tea from. I layered the wool woven sampler with Soft and Stable batting and a narrow piece of quilting cotton. I joined the two ends with two wide bands of elastic.
I try to avoid hand-sewing at all costs because I think I hate it. But it turns out that it was much simpler, and faster, to finish the last seam by hand instead of trying to cram it under the sewing machine. I guess I don’t hate hand-sewing.
And now I get to peak at all the different weaving techniques I learned over several weeks while sipping my black tea every morning. Tomorrow the loom gets warped with a new project and I’m so eager to learn new techniques and start a brand new textile!
Max & Wolf 