Planet Ruby Starrs

Its so lovely to learn new skills even when you get to pension age!  I've had a very rewarding 10 week class at The Weaving Rooms in Darlington learning to weave on a tabletop loom and today in my tenth week, I managed to finish my first big piece of cloth...  I had previously made a sampler for practice and to learn basic weaving techniques, never having been on a loom before - see earlier post. And then, with the expert guidance and patience of Becky, I embarked on a larger more substantial - allegedly 'planned' piece of cloth with the intention of using it to make something 'useful' with. I had looked at various projects on the go around the class for inspiration.  Most of it way beyond my capabilities!  One person came in with a lovely bag she had made using a pattern called a shadow weave or 'log cabin' and I decided I would like to try doing something similar.   I picked two contrasting colours and under tuition I warped up the loom (daun...

I've been back to the Weaving Rooms for more weaving.  Its been a interesting and, given present state of mind, quite a challenging experience, but one that allowed me to immerse myself into learning something new and letting my mind concentrate solely on the task in hand.  That task being warping up a loom from scratch for the first time and tying in all the threads to start a new piece of cloth. I picked two contrasting coloured yarns, 100% Shetland wool - an almost gaudy shade of lime green and a contrasting blue to warp up in alternate rows to make a shadow weave pattern.   I want to make a piece of cloth that I can use for something practical so the warp is 20 inches wide and hopefully about two metres long... there's my age showing - mixing metric with imperial!!! What that practical article will be is yet to be decided!! process of warping First I measured and then wound the warp into a large hank and then began the slow laborious but soooo satisfyin...