Fibery Day with Rugs and Socks and Yarn

I have been sorely neglecting my fibery blog readers here.... it's been SO busy around here with working on the house projects and 2 new grandsons and doing our open houses.  I heartfully apologize!  Thanks for hanging in there with me and waiting for something -anything- relating to fibery creations!

First of all, because of selling some of my looms, I had projects on them that had to get woven and cut off quick.   I didn't do much finishing of fringes until the other day, during our boring rainy Open House.

I started beefing up the fringed areas on these two rugs, so the fringes were colorful and thicker.  (the warp was natural white... not a good color to have as just all plain fringes on a colorful rug)

I beef up each section with doubled over strands of other colors to match the rug....  using a wide eyed needle.  Once the colors are added, I then tie the knot with one huge overhand which includes the original warp threads and the newly added colored threads.    So instead of all white fringes, they now blend in and match the header and the rug.

This woven rug is called a "3 end block weave" pattern, similar to double binding technique.  Here is the rug.. it's reversible and has the opposite pattern on the back side. I call it my "Ticked Denim" design, because the light areas are a heavy cream and blue striped mattress ticking, and the darker block blue sections are denim fabric.  I have done a number of these rugs, and am finally at the end of the fabric of mattress ticking.  It was a HUGE roll given to me by friends Norma and Jim Burkett of Beloit, WI.

The next set of fringes I worked on was for this rug... which is made with blocks of black/tan  and blocks of green/white.  Kinda wild, eh?  I added threads of green and black to the cream warp.

I also used this same fabric combination in a plain weave striped rug.  

They would make a cool pair! 

The above rugs were all cut off the bigger Newcomb Studio loom, right before I sold it to Ellen Houseward from Illinois.  When she bought the loom, she also got the rest of the warp that was wound on there, so I am hoping to see some pics soon of more rugs she made on that lovely loom!  

Speaking of Ellen, she sent ME a box this week.  Oh me oh my, it was like Christmas in May!  The box was chock full of sock yarns that she said would never get around to using!   Some were custom dyed and others were fancy commercial brands I can never, ever afford to buy.  It's hard to make a pair of $20 socks for sale when the yarn costs $15.99 a skein!  

I already started cranking some last night and got a pair of socks done and another pair underway.  See the pretty socks on the right side?  ooooooohh laaa laaaah!

 THANK YOU, ELLEN!!!!

A few weeks ago, I had cut off my last two Birch Tree Rugs from the Union loom before Rosie took the loom out the door and back to Missouri with her.  I finally got around to hemming the ends up.  Instead of tying knots, on these two rugs I did a hemmed edge. 

These Birch Tree Rugs take a while to make. 

 They are recycling at it's finest!  

Commercially-made factory socks leave behind a loop of knit material when the toes are stitched and the excess is cut free.  These loops normally end up in landfills!   But--- smart weavers soon learned we could loop them together to make very interesting thick and thirsty rugs!  My good weaving buddy Barb Barnett sells them by the pound. She hauls huge bales from the factory over to her NE Iowa Weaving Loom Museum in Plainfield, Iowa. She then bags them up and sells them via mail to weavers around the country.  Here is her website:

http://www.barnettsheepwool.com/

It's a messy process to prepare these loopers, so I chain them up outside.  I prefer the double loop thickness like in the photos, but some weavers like the single looping chain, making for a thinner rug.  I set the loom at 8epi and weave them up in no time flat.  The prep work takes the longest.



One of the last blankets I cut off the big LeClerc Nilart loom, before it went to it's new home with Lisa, is finally getting it's fringes twisted.  I am also "beefing up" the warp threads with another piece of the bumpy boucle yarn doubled over in the header area.  The photo of the basket shows the fringes on the left are already twisted, but the bottom tassels below the knots are not trimmed yet. I will do those after washing.

When I say "twisting fringes" I use this little device, made by LeClerc.  

• Clamp on the sections of yarns, 
• twist them up in one direction,  
• knot the end,  
• let it twist back onto itself like a little rope! 

Okay, this blog is long enough.  Time here to get off the computer.  Today is bill paying day, then finish up these socks and clean up the livingroom.  I am trying to keep the house "show worthy" in case we get more calls for private showings.  

This afternoon I am going to help my friend Rosie with her GoDaddy website.  We both changed over from the Office Live program for our websites to have GoDaddy host us instead.   We will work toegether over the phone and finish up all the business parts of changing over the domain and starting the new site on her nameserver.  

Here is mine I got up and running already

(just started it, I need to add more fiber stuff)  ....  

www.kareninthewoods.com     

I have our house for sale on the first page for now.  But I will add more of my rugs, socks, and other fibery things.   I have the About Me page done, and will hope to get it up and running with all of my things soon. 

I also sell my items on Etsy:  

http://kareninthewoods.etsy.com/

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