Winter Woes Wiped-out by Weaving

[LeapFeetFirst]

After dealing with approximately 20 months of winter in Wisconsin, I decided that our new house needed some added color, fiber, texture, and fun - and this challenge came along at just the right time! Kismet!

Before I go into the fun progress shots, here is the finished art yarn weaving hanging on it's wall, bringing joy every time I enter or leave our house. ***EDIT*** I forgot to mention that this piece is about 10 inches wide by 3 feet long.

Finished Weaving


I knew that I want to incorporate more fiber art into my house, and luckily I had just dyed up some locks this fall. So, I combined those locks with some of my hand-dyed roving and used my new drum carder to make the squishiest batt.

Apparently I love bright colors:


I love my Fancy Kitten drum carder!


Squishy roving strips ready for spinning


I then handspun the roving into thick and thin singles that I then plied toghether to make a super bulky art yarn.

Singles


Plied Yarn


And another shot of the yarn becuase I love it so much!


After this, I wasn't sure how I was going to proceed. I had thought about making a loom using a picture frame, but I decided against that. Then after doing some Pinterest browsing, I decided to create a loom using a piece of wood. I wanted a weathered piece of wood and we just happen to have a set of stairs we are demolishing on our property. After breaking off three bits trying to get a board loose, I gave up on that idea and decided to use a piece of plywood leftover from another project.

I then marked out 1/2 inch spacings, hammered in some brass nails, and strung the nails with some handspun yarn.

First run at warping the board


However, this yarn was way too sticky so I decided to switch the warp with a thinner commercial yarn I had in my stash.

So now I was ready to start weaving my wall hanging. I used the hand-spun yarn as well as roving, bamboo fiber and hand dyed locks to create a piece that is full of texture and color. It only took me a couple of hours to weave and I learned so much. I can't wait to make another!!

Here are some close ups of the finished art

[Patraw]

This is definitely a very colorful and visually interesting piece! The thicker, more 3-dimensional fiber weavings remind me of fungal growths on tree trunks.

[kittykill]

This is so wonderful! I love the bright colors.

[Mistress Jennie]

Very cool!  I love seeing the whole process from carding to spinning to finished work. 

[Abbeeroad]

It's absolutely beautiful LLF!! Love the colors and WOW! So much work behind the scenes.

[craftylittlemonkey]

That is gorgeous! I actually like the thin black warp threads better than I would have the white, it offsets the bright colours without being too eye-catching itself. Beautifully done and I really enjoyed seeing all the steps.

[LeapFeetFirst]

That is gorgeous! I actually like the thin black warp threads better than I would have the white, it offsets the bright colours without being too eye-catching itself. Beautifully done and I really enjoyed seeing all the steps.

Thanks! That is another reason why I switched warp threads. The white yarn dominated the weave and I didn't want that.

[LeapFeetFirst]

The thicker, more 3-dimensional fiber weavings remind me of fungal growths on tree trunks.

Me too!!

[pottermouth]

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!

[LovelyMiss]

BEAUTIFUL!  I love it!