Tuesday update.

Once again it is Tuesday! A bunch of us are here at the center working on various projects.

Last week I cleaned, lubricated and tightened up my empty loom, so that this week it would be ready to roll.

Carol had found a warp she had wound who knows how long ago, we found it as we were organizing a bit. She thrust it at me and said "Here, this is your next project." It is for hand towels, with a really sweet rosepath design on one end.

Here it is in the raddle, getting ready to start winding on. Normally I go thru the reed, then heddles and then wind on, but with no room to maneuver in back, I chose to wind on and then thread from the front.

Wally, of course was his usual helpful self. Once I got it wound on I realized that I would need to rearrange the heddles a little on the harnesses, and since there wasn't time to complete that today, I will leave that for next week.

I am always delighted to see what the different wefts do to this rug warp! Here Alan has taken a weft heavy in rust and used it in this blue and brown warp. Beautiful!

Bonnie is making great progress on her lace hand towels.

Here is part of our last carpet warp order. There are 2 more boxes under these! We use it a lot around here. Not only for rugs, but also for place mats and mug rugs too.

I didn't want you to think that Wally sleeps the whole time we are here. Here he is trying to get to me. I had gone away from my loom to help someone else. Imagine that! How dare I! What you can't really see is that he is "sitting" in a box, a broken box now!

We miss those that couldn't make it today, but we keep plugging away trying to empty our looms as fast as our 4 hours here a week will let us, dreaming all the time of the next project we will undertake on that loom or maybe the looms we have at home. We all do have at least 1 loom at home, usually more than that. It is a sickness you know.

Happy Weaving, Tina

Blue Jeans

Blue jeans are wonderful things. I am usually wearing them, wouldn't be without them.

Since I began weaving rugs however, they have come to mean so much more!

I recently bought 75lbs of old blue jeans from a woman in my area. I was going to pay her $1 lbs. We decided however to make it $50 plus a blue jean rug.

So this week finally, I have been processing some of the blue jeans for her rug. Hilary over at Crazyasaloom has a great tutorial about that so I won't go into it in detail. ( You really should go see her blog, she is a great inspiration for us Tuesday weavers)

I have cut up the blue jeans and then cut the legs into strips. I will then sew the strips together, load them on a shuttle and start weaving.

I have wondered if I could sew the rectangles of the pant legs together first, and then cut a continuos strip. I have got to try that!

After I have cut the big strips, I end up with a couple of smaller strips that I will use in placemats.

Tonight Lou Ann and I will go to the Lenoir City Jamboree. We missed it last time because of the weather. This is the first time for us, so we are going to check it out!

Then it will be back to blue jeans for me! Yep, the tub is full too!

I keep seeing all those saggy baggy jeans some of the kids are still wearing, and I can't wait for them to go out of style and into my rugs!

Happy Weaving, Tina

Today is the first day of the rest of my life!

I have been working to get the studio ready to be productive, and I really am making progress; the looms
are in place, the shelves are up and full, the table is there where I want it, (though it has new bags of fabric on it, that I don't want the pup to get).

Across the hall I have a shelving unit for my spinning stuff and a shelving unit for my knitting stuff, both of which are full to capacity. ( It is there behind all my daughters stuff.)

In the hallway between the two rooms is a bookshelf full of knitting books, spinning books, gardening books, and home improvement books. All of it is looking really good. There are still some things in the hall that need to go to the goodwill or the dump, though we have already made one trip.

So today, I have hemstitched a rug I finished weaving weeks ago, next on that loom (Leclerc Mira), some bluejean rugs. Last week I bought 75lbs of Blue Jeans off of Craigslist. I was going to pay $1.00 lb., but we decided $50 plus a rug 2x4. The woman I got the jeans from used to work for Levis. She thought it would be cool to have a rug from the jeans she helped to make. Cradle to grave kind of thing.

I also need to finish warping Lillian for the breadcloths. I only have one section done. I am winding a warp on the board, and then using a tension box, that doesn't really fit well on the rounded back beam, then winding on each section. I don't have enough spools to wind onto to use the spool rack. Bummer!

I had to get the rooms in order before I could really get going. I suppose, now that things are pretty much done, I just have to do it! It is a little scary this producing to sell thing. I know I like to weave and I enjoy what I weave, but is it good enough?

I am constantly learning new techniques, and having new ideas, so much so I almost don't know where to start!

Today I am taking pictures of the items I have to sell online, I suppose that is as good a place to start as any, since I am the one who has been telling everyone to send the specifics to Bonnie so she can set it up for us!

Here is to new adventures!

Happy Weaving, Tina