{"id":20208,"date":"2019-10-15T09:49:01","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T13:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/?p=20208"},"modified":"2019-10-15T15:40:05","modified_gmt":"2019-10-15T19:40:05","slug":"adventures-in-weaving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/adventures-in-weaving\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventures in Weaving"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Aside from crochet, my other craft interests wax and wane &#8211; you may have noticed that I love to try new crafts and learn new skills! A few months ago, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kpwerker\/status\/1145419032293707778\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Kim Werker tweeted<\/a> that IKEA now sells an inexpensive weaving loom, and a plan started to form in my mind: a way to experiment with a completely new-to-me craft, and use up some of my excessive yarn stash at the same time&#8230; <\/p>\n<h2>Getting Started<\/h2>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ikea.com\/ca\/en\/p\/lustigt-7-piece-weaving-loom-set-00387054\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">IKEA Lustigt loom<\/a> costs only $20 and is marketed for kids, but all you need to get started in weaving is a sturdy frame with something at the top and bottom to loop the warp threads around, and the IKEA loom is just as good as any other frame loom. <\/p>\n<p>So, one trip to IKEA later, I was ready to start learning how this weaving thing works. I checked out all the (five) weaving books from my local library and got reading. If you&#8217;re as new to weaving as I was a couple of weeks ago, here&#8217;s the 5-second primer:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To weave, you first set up a series of vertical threads, called the <em>warp<\/em> threads.<\/li>\n<li>Then you pass another thread (the <em>weft<\/em>) over and under alternate warp threads, going back and forth across the warps in rows, so the fabric starts to build up.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;ve decided I&#8217;m most interested in the traditional style of tapestry weaving (where the warp threads are completely covered by the weft). It takes longer, but makes a sturdy fabric and it&#8217;s perfect for drawing pictures with yarn &#8211; the weaving equivalent of <a href=\"\/punchneedle\">punchneedle embroidery<\/a>! <\/p>\n<h2>Tapestry Weaving Sampler<\/h2>\n<p>I found the book <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2ouJcqS\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">&#8216;Tapestry Weaving&#8217; by Kristen Glasbrook<\/a> had the best instructions and most techniques from my borrowed collection. Her included sampler pattern looked like a good way to get started and learn lots quickly, so I followed the instructions and got started&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/tapestryweavingprogress.jpg\" alt=\"tapestry weaving in progress\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Excuse the colours, they were the nicest trio from the cheapest worsted acrylics in my stash. This is only a practice piece, so it doesn&#8217;t need to look pretty!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And here&#8217;s the end result:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/tapestryweavingsampler.jpg\" alt=\"tapestry weaving sampler\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a bit wonky, but I think it&#8217;s pretty good for my first attempt at weaving, and now I know which techniques I like the look of (the dots near the bottom and the outlining at the top are my favourites) and which I don&#8217;t (I&#8217;m not a fan of the distorted weft, second from the top). And I now know I definitely won&#8217;t be using this type of yarn for my real tapestry projects &#8211; I don&#8217;t like the look of it at all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Things I learnt:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The IKEA loom is incredibly easy to set up and very sturdy. The wooden bars that cover the pins at the top and bottom probably aren&#8217;t necessary, but I found they stopped me getting my weft yarn caught in the hooks, so they are quite useful.<\/li>\n<li>The warp thread IKEA provides with the loom is pretty weak. Save yourself some heartache and use a decent cotton instead! I&#8217;m using size 10 crochet thread and it seems to work fine.<\/li>\n<li>Tapestry weaving produces a lot of ends! (Here&#8217;s a pic of the back of my sampler after weaving in all the green and pink and some of the grey&#8230;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/tapestryweavingback.jpg\" alt=\"back of tapestry weaving sampler\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>What&#8217;s Next?<\/h2>\n<p>I&#8217;m really excited by the possibilities here! Now I understand the basics of tapestry weaving, I&#8217;m going to try designing something I actually like the look of &#8211; I want to try weaving simple animal pictures instead of abstracts. <\/p>\n<p>I have no idea how that&#8217;ll go, but I&#8217;m looking forward to experimenting, and I&#8217;ll report back here so you can accompany me on this weaving journey! <\/p>\n<p>Have you ever tried weaving, or has this post intrigued you? Do let me know in the comments below \ud83d\ude42 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aside from crochet, my other craft interests wax and wane &#8211; you may have noticed that I love to try new crafts and learn new skills! A few months ago, Kim Werker tweeted that IKEA now sells an inexpensive weaving loom, and a plan started to form in my mind: a way to experiment with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weaving"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}