Tag: Glimakra Ideal

Tools Day: Why You Need Sample Cards

Karen

Make sure you have sample cards from yarn and thread suppliers because you never know when your daughter will get engaged. She finds her perfect wedding dress, and three weeks after that you find your mother-of-the-bride dress. A light and airy dress with a ruffled hem that is perfect for a romantic outdoor wedding under hundred-year-old oak trees. Now, all you need is a light and airy shawl to cover your shoulders. In a specific shade of coral. Then, your friend says, “Why don’t you weave a shawl? You have time.” Really?? Seven weeks before the wedding?! Okay, I can do this. A word of encouragement has amazing impact!

Sample cards make finding the right color easy.
Sifting through yarn and thread samples from Yarn Barn of Kansas to find just the right thread in just the right color(s).
Sample cards for various linen and cotton threads from Bockens.
Sample cards from Bockens, a Swedish company. I use Swedish threads in most of my weaving. There are several good suppliers in the United States. The sources I turn to most are Glimakra USA, Vavstuga, and Lone Star Loom Room.
Yarn Store in a Box from Halcyon Yarn for design and color inspiration.
Yarn Store in a Box from Halcyon Yarn is a visual and tactile delight. I often pull out these cards for design and color inspiration.

I laid out all my sample cards, and quickly found a perfect match on a sample card from Yarn Barn of Kansas. I picked up the phone and called in my order. Three days later I had this beautiful Xie 10/2 Bamboo thread in hand and started winding the warp!

Ready to weave mother-of-the-bride shawl.
Getting ready to weave Mother-of-the-Bride shawl in the perfect shade of coral. I found a delicate huck lace draft for the shawl in “Happy Weaving from VävMagasinet.” I am choosing dark coral for the warp. One shawl is using lighter coral for weft; the second shawl is using hot pink for weft. The best color combination wins!

So, make sure you have sample cards from your favorite suppliers so that you are ready for any happy surprise that comes your way! And, be that encourager that tells a friend, “You can do it!”

May you have what you need at your fingertips.

With Plenty of Time,
Karen

Sharing Threads

Karen

When I started weaving these towels my daughter was not yet engaged. I had color and texture in mind, not bridal shower gifts. Now, with the wedding only a few weeks away, I am fortunate to have a set of handwoven towels to give the new bride! As if I had planned it that way. Next up, a shawl for me to wear at the wedding, but that’s a story for another day.

Towels just off the loom, not yet washed. Karen Isenhower
Just off the loom, cotton towels have been cut apart and edges serged, ready for washing. When washed, the texture of the cloth will “bloom,” showing off the distinctive structure, a 3-shaft twill with warp floats.

There are many things I have given my daughter without trying: my height and stature, similar laugh, interest in world cultures, musical talent, brothers (does that count?)… Melody and I have a lot in common, so I will give her a set of these towels as a symbolic gesture of the threads we already share.

You and I have been given an extraordinary kind of love from our Heavenly Father. The Father has given his kind of love to us, that we should be called his children. Like a daddy, he has passed his traits to his kids. In which case, we like to hear, “You look just like your Daddy.”

May your best traits be found in your children, or in the young people you influence.

With love,
Karen

Made to Fade?

Karen

You will always come back to what you love. I came back to this arrangement of stripes because I love the harmonious way the colors work together. Now used as a weft sequence, this is one of the color wrappings that I did when planning this towel warp. (You can see the rest of the color wrappings HERE.) But really, it’s just towels, it’s just colors, it’s just things that wear out.

Color wrapping used to inspire weft sequence. Karen Isenhower
Color wrapping for possible warp arrangement is now used as weft sequence. Except, since I ran out of light blue thread (remember THIS?), I am using dark blue in its place.

Everything we can touch and everything we can see is in the process of fading. Physical things deteriorate over time; they just do. The handwoven articles I so carefully make may last a human lifetime, or maybe longer. But eventually they will be no more, and any meaning they have now will be lost. (Even with my grandmother’s quilts and rugs, like THESE, I don’t know what they meant to her, and she’s no longer around to ask.) It doesn’t make sense to love things. Sure, we can touch and see them, and our me-first self wants them. But they are all going away.

It does make sense to investigate the non-physical things that never decay. When we align with the desires of our grand weaver and discover the plans he has had from the beginning of time, we are investing in heavenly pursuits that carry rewards that never fade. Ever.

May the work of your hands outlast you.

101 Thanks! Thank you, dear friend, for coming to my virtual weaving studio again and again. If you are one of the small handful (there are about eight or ten of you) that started with me 101 blog posts ago (HERE is the first post), a BIG thank-you to YOU! If you are one of the more recent guests, helping to grow this space to more than 1,200 guests a month, I am HUGELY grateful to YOU, too! You are welcome here. I am so glad you came!

Gratefully Yours,
Karen

Quiet Friday: Rag Rug Finishing

Karen

How many people get to have a handmade article right under their feet? You come in from the world, with your feet dusty and weary; you look down, and the rug says, “Welcome home.”

After the weaving is complete, the only thing left is finishing. For rags rugs, that means securing the warp ends, and finishing the ends with fringe or stitched hems. I prefer the look of hems over fringe, so my rugs usually have turned-under hems (occasionally, I do a bound hem, but I’ll save that for another time). The hem area is woven with narrower strips (about 1/4 in. or 1/2 cm) than the rest of the rag rug, to make it less bulky for turning under, and it lays nice and flat on the floor. Ah, rosepath rag rugs, I shall truly miss seeing you on the loom!

Rosepath Rag Rugs rolled up on cloth beam. Karen Isenhower
The end is the beginning. The end of the warp means the rugs are ready to be unrolled from the cloth beam.
Rosepath rag rugs unfurled from the loom.
Rosepath rag rugs being unrolled and cut from the loom. This always feels like the moment of truth: I ask myself, “How do they look?” (Note, this view is the underside of the rugs.)
Upholstery needle helps separate warp ends from header to secure ends of rag rug.
Step 1. An upholstery needle helps separate warp ends from the header. A clothespin keeps finished ends out of the way.
Securing rag rug hem with square knots.
Step 2. Secure the hem with square knots. Four ends at a time, pulled out of the header, are firmly tied into knots.
Finishing rag rug with square knots, and trimming warp ends.
Step 3. Trim the warp ends about 3/4 in / 2 cm from the knots.
Steps for finishing rag rug hems. How-to pics.
Step 4. Fold hem edge to the back side of the rug, keeping the knotted ends inside the fold. Press. Fold again to complete the turned hem. Press.
Stitching rag rug hem. Steps for finishing rag rugs.
Step 5. Stitch close to the fold of the hem. Stitch the side edges of the hem closed. Be sure to use sewing thread in the needle that matches the underside of the rug, and bobbin thread that matches the top of the rug.
Rosepath rag rug. Karen Isenhower
Rosepath rag rug, hemmed and ready, with the look of a breath of fresh air.
Rosepath Rag Rug. Welcome home! Karen Isenhower
Let’s call this one the “Welcome Home” rug. We’d love to have you stay a while.

May weary feet find your home to be a welcoming place.

Still being finished,
Karen

I Wonder Which Wefts Will Work

Karen

You see the bare warp. How will the finished towels look? We won’t know until the weft is chosen. I will hold an audition for colors and fibers in my stash, and find the most worthy candidates. Questioning and testing in this way, by sampling, helps me discover the best possible options, before committing to the whole 7 1/2 yards (6.8 meters).

Glimakra Ideal being dressed with cotton warp for towels.
Cotton warp as it is being beamed. The threads come over the back beam, and down to the warp beam, as viewed from the back of the Glimakra Ideal loom.

Apparently, human beings are hard-wired for discovery. We like to search things out, understand, and discover hidden treasures of insight and knowledge. Why is that? Why is a weaver interested in figuring out which weft color will show off a warp to its best advantage? We all seem to be made with built-in questions…

We are created to find our maker, to discover who he is and what he is about. Surely, this accounts for our endless quest for answers about everything. In searching for the answers to the deepest questions, we feel our way toward our creator. And we find him waiting for us with open arms. He’s been near all along.

And the winner is… Drum roll, please… Color wrapping #5, will you please stand up! (Click HERE to see what the commotion is about. Be sure to scroll down to read the comments.)
Thank you for your vote. It made me feel good that my first choice received the most votes; and my second choice, #3, received important votes, as well. My husband’s first choice, #2, also received a vote. So, we all win! Yay! (It is not too late for you to leave your opinion. We’d love to know what you think.)

May your questions lead you to joyful discoveries.

With you,
Karen