First set of rugs

It's been a crazy day on the Internet. I am not computer savvy!! I take pictures with my iPad. So this morning my iPad decided to not have an Internet connection. At all!! Since I use my cell phone minutes there was no reason it shouldn't have worked. 

Then just now DH came home from work...and it miraculously worked. What is it about things like that. They don't work til a responsible person comes and then magically it works? I have no idea but I'm typing fast while it does.

Saturday I delivered over 20 rugs to a shop in Gatlinburg. It's nice to have them out of the house but they were fun to figure out. Oh, also DD came by before I took them and wanted one rug. Just one. Took her forever to pick. She took 3 of them home!!   

The first warp I wove was narrow. The shop had asked for some rugs that were 24 inches wide so I wove several of the "birch" rugs in the narrow width. These are from the last batch of loopers that LouAnn had stored in her garage. I know she's glad to be rid of them. I spent hours shaking the lint out of them earlier when we had nice warm weather. I have a ton left so there will be more rugs.

The other few rugs that were on the warp were woven with a knit strip that I got from Kalamazoo MI. The stripes on the strips are so cheerful. The fabric is rather stretchy so it takes a careful hand to weave them so they don't buckle. I screwed up the last one on that warp. Trying to force the last few inches is not a good idea. I ended up taking it apart and wove that bunch on a new warp today. It's on a black warp. I'll take pictures of it when I get that warp done. I think I may keep the new one.

The rest of these pictures are from the second warp. It's a natural warp and I used selvedges for all of these. I had a bunch of the selvedges from last year plus the 4 bags I brought home in July. So there was plenty to pick from. Each rug is different and cheerful in its own way. My general width for rugs is 30 inches so that's what this warp was.

This rug was all one ball of selvedge. I took a closeup so you can see the primary colors on this rug. 

After 4 or 5 rugs, I had to cut off the woven rugs because here wasn't room on the cloth beam for more. The pile was also so heavy that it was much easier to carry a roll of 4 rugs than a roll with more. I also serge the raw edges before pinning and hemming the rugs. Always be careful to keep weight off the needles on the machine. It's easy to mess up the timing on your serger and sewing machine.

When I finished the rug above, I didn't have enough warp to do another one 30 inches wide, so I cut 3 inches on each side and wove another 24 inch rug. The blue is much more cheerful than the picture indicates. It's that typical blue and yellow combination.

I can see why DD couldn't make up her mind about the rug but this is just a part of the rugs I wove. I took pictures of them all because each of them is different. I'm still weaving rugs but will start doing some regular production between rug warps for awhile. I am trying to weave up all my selvedges and some fabrics that I have in stock as well. I keep saying I'm not doing more with selvedges but I suspect that when I drive north, my van will just veer off toward InWeave to pick up more as I drive north! But, maybe I'll be strong.

So it's just a few more rugs before I vacuum under the loom and put on a warp for some clothing again. It'll be nice to have a change.

 Until next week, keep weaving!

Carol