Meanderings of a Mermaid

A sunrise is a beautiful thing, and recently they have been on my mind a lot. While at camp I easily see the sunrise each day. As the time to head back home approaches, I really miss my sunrise time. The above image is from the Arizona desert, but the colours really impressed me.  An early season sunrise is portrayed in this photo taken at camp. You can see snow on the ground. And there is always a difficulty in taking good sunrise photos there, because the forest is still dark and the pictures generally come out underexposed. But you will find some nicer sunrise pictures on this blog if you search for them. When it came time to think about what to do with the very plain wood of this new-to-me loom, I still had sunrise on the brain . This is the Rio Grande Kit Loom, or Rio Grande Walking Loom. Since I bought it I have sanded it twice and stained it twice with the two shades of aniline dyes. There is one coat of a clear polyurethane on top. I used a shade called ...

Both sides of this completed rug are displayed here. And both sides can be used. It is about 6 feet long with a linen warp and wool weft. The linen is only visible at the ends where I tied fringe. We drove to the San Saba River where I took these pictures. Normally by now the land is greening up, but due to drought conditions all is still grey and beige, I think you can see where I got my inspiration for the colours of this winter rug. I am not sure yet where I will use this rug. Maybe it will travel to Canada. I made it on my Harrisville Rug Loom with the shaft switching device.

 This is the second small rug piece I wove on my new-to-me Harrisville rug loom. It measures 15 by 28 inches and uses a variety of materials. The warp was linen and the light grey weft is cotton. The four other colours are churro wool. I believe I will use this as a table topper, like an oversize hotpad or even on a coffeetable.  And here is the third piece completed. I had wanted to use this as a rug, but because I was trying to cram a lot of weaving in a short warp, I could not use normal binding off techniques. So I do not think the edges would have held up to heavy traffic. It graces my office wall right now. It is 26.25 X 33 inches. Both of these rugs utilize shaft switching techniques and equipment.

Here are the first three little rugs that have come off the Harrisville Rug Loom. The very first one I wove is the furthest back. For all three I devised the pattern charts and chose I great variety of old stash yarns.  In the picture above you see the side of the rugs that I saw as I was weaving.  In this second photo you are seeing the reverse side of the rugs. The exact opposite color is found on the back. This is the side that was underneath as I was weaving. This is an interesting fact about the technique I am using; that both sides are equally usable.  In the third photo you can see both sides of the second rug I made. It is quite modern compared to the two others.  The fourth rug is an expanded pattern based on the first one. It was really fun to weave. And what a good stash buster project! For the orange weft yarn I held three different yarns together. And for the black weft, I also held three yarns together. The three p...

Well I decided on the name Bright for my new-to-me rug loom. The name came from a piece of contemporary jazz by Peter White that was playing while I was cleaning up this loom. The music was enchanting and the loom was glowing in the sunshine and lights. Here is the bench that came with Bright. The legs were after market and just bare wood, a very white wood at that. Next to the mellow maple and mahogany it was too jarring to my eye. So two tones of teal fixed that for me. The belly bar on the chest beam also got the darker teal since it was also unfinished wood. After playing with the treadles and establishing a shed on all lifts I was eager to get weaving. Yes I can make the sheds better, but for now I was keen to get going. I am using up piles of old yarn that has been around for awhile. The beige weft is alpaca and I matched it with a more greenish gold wool from a cone. Then the black/dark brown threads are a combo of wool and some cotton too and mystery stuff (four stran...

Since the end of September my loom acquisition hormone is in overdrive. On the last day of September I purchased a used Leclerc Colonial loom. I named the loom Cecile, after the previous owner. It is a counterbalance type. It resides at Home North.   In the three images above you are seeing different views of the same loom. Introducing "Bright", my Harrisville Rug Loom. I also purchased this used ( in November 2016)  and it is a vertical countermarche type. It can weave up to 45 inch width of cloth. This loom is ideally designed to produce rugs, being very heavy duty: heavy beater bar and the warp extender tensioning system. The bags hanging there are the remains of a warp that the seller kindly left on for me. So at least for this first project I will not have to fight with the trickier threading.   And so I currently own three large floor looms and they are one of each type:  jack, counterbalance and vertical countermarche. I am pleased to think that...