Old School

(I am taking the Thursday post today, Lou Ann will do the Friday post.  I am going to Maryland Sheep and wool with my daughter tomorrow!  We are so excited!)

There are several yards left on this blanket warp. It is natural 8/4 carpet warp, and I have already woven 2 warps, in overshot,  that were 40 yards long.  This one was  40 yards long too, and I am ready to do something new.  I had thought I would try to do a rug with it, but I am just not sure that this is the loom to use to make a rug.  I  may be wrong, but I don't think I can beat the weft in firmly enough for a rug.

I started to look around for another pattern to do, something different!  I really did not want to do  more overshot right now.

I looked through the Handweaver's Pattern Directory, by Ann Dixon, and found something that I found interesting, even if I would have to use 2 shuttles!

Monks belt is an interesting weave that I have not  taken the time to really explored.   I have recently read a  new to me blog that had a picture of a monks belt blanket  that literally blew my mind!  (warpedforgood.com)  Karen had changed the background color as well as the pattern color, and not at the same time, I was amazed!  I really need to get out the colored pencils and see what I can come up with using the colors I  already have on hand.  (Karen also does rag rugs that are inspiring!)

Anyway I settled on this pattern, and I wanted to see what my borders might look like.  To help me I decided it was time to search out the Pike's Peak weavers guild  weavedesign program.  I had downloaded the program years ago onto my PC, but  I no longer have that PC, so I thought I would download it again.

I tried and tried to download the weavedesign program, and I could not get it to work.  I figured it was me and called in my computer person to help me.  He quickly told me that the Weavedesign program was not compatible with apple products.  Rats! That is all I have!

There was nothing else to do but pull out the graph paper and a #2 pencil.  I soon had an idea of what I wanted to do and set to work threading the loom.


I did a quick sample and I figured out that I would really like to make the border a little narrower.  I think I will add a half repeat of the pattern on each end. (Or I may rethread and add a complete patter on one side, which might look better.)

Now to get out that graph paper again and colored pencils this time, to see what sort of combinations I can come up with to make this  run of blankets a very colorful example of Monks Belt.

Until next time, Happy Crafting, Tina