I’m an avid knitter and I’m an avid reader. I love books and all of the fiber arts, however when it comes to weaving and knitting I prefer to work from charts. I find that charts are easier to process. A good chart is worth a thousand words, especially for knitting and weaving (crocheting, too).
I love Interweave Press Piecework magazine. The Jan/Feb 2010 issue has an interesting chart called, Diamond Basketweave, in the article, A New Pattern Stitch from a Knitting Legend, by Barbara G. Walker. I pulled out two skeins of cotton yarn and got to work.
The chart is 32 stitches both ways. I cast on 52 stitches on size 5 straight needles and knit 5 rows of garter stitch and 5 rows of stockinette stitch. I slipped the first stitch of each row throughout the whole dishcloth. Row 11 began with a slipped stitch, knit 4, knit 6 (purl on wrong side), then worked the pattern, as charted, two times. I knit 5 rows (purl on wrong side) opposite of the top, and finished with with 5 rows of garter stitch before binding off.
I knit the second dishcloth with the same beginning and ending, with a twist: I turned the chart sideways and got a neater basketweave that shows up better on the wrong side.
The orange dishcloth was knit first. The motif shows best on the right side. The real one was knit with the graph sideways and shows best on the wrong side.
I know I promised to do a video of me making dryer balls, but when I get hella busy, I don’t do much blogging or video recording. I wrote a post which was pretty much a brief tutorial on how I make my dryer balls (https://mrsdsfiberodyssey.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/this-is-how-my-dryer-balls-are-made/). So, after several months of being super busy and finally moving into a nice studio space, I am now, finally making good on my promise.
My new studio space has made a huge difference for me in production! The laminate flooring makes it super easy to clean up after and God knows I can be very messy at times. It has tons of natural light, which I crave and need in order to create beautiful woolly and fibery things.
When you’ve finished watching the vid, you can scroll down and take a peek at all the fibery things I’ve been creating!
Green Bay Packers dryer balls
Bright colored dryer balls
Green Bay Packers dryer balls
the coat tree I turned into a yarn tree for display
close-up of the coat tree I turned into a yarn tree
A couple of weeks ago, I started warped my loom for another running leaves card woven band/strap/belt. It turned out to be too wide to be a dog leash, so I’ve decided that it will make a great guitar strap or belt.
These pictures are of the 3 yard warp; on the loom (a standing rug/navajo weaving loom); and the first few inches woven.
Cut off the loom and almost finished.
This is 2 inches wide and 6 feet long.
The next card weaving project. This is a green, gold and black, dragon breath weaving on 22 cards. The finished strap will be 3 inches wide and about 6 feet long.
Here’s what was accomplished Monday & Tuesday.
I think I’m going to experiment with the dragon’s breath pattern for awhile because I really like the way you can customize it!!
Thanks going out to Guntram and his fantastic card weaving Thingy that he invented to make all of this creating possible!!
There’s a lot of talk and publicizing of card weaving and tablet weaving right now. This is something I’ve been doing for the past 4 or 5 years and I knew it wouldn’t be long before it would be swinging its circle back to being popular again. I’m always amazed at how cyclic the trends are and how everything old and suddenly becomes ‘new’ again.
All that said, I figured I’d just do up another blog post, with all the pictures of nearly all of my card weaving endeavors, including my hand-made cards. I’ve also shared a couple of tutorials I’ve published in the past.
This is the first guitar strap I made for a friend in Milwaukee. It measured 6 feet long by 3 inches wide when it was finished. He requested acrylic yarns only because he didn’t know much about wool yet. I originally started out with playing cards cut into weaving tablets.
This was a 2-sided (exactly the same on both sides) Anglo-Saxon braid card weaving that I did next. It became an adjustable belt. It’s 100% from my hand spun, hand dyed wool yarns! All of it is Suffolk from the Ahrens’ Suffolk sheep!
At this point, I considered buying some weaving tablets/cards because the playing cards pretty much wore out after about 5 weavings. I made another set of playing card tablets and then I started playing around with all of the plastic containers we had around the house. A year after I perfected something I liked, I created this Instructable for them (http://www.instructables.com/id/Card-weaving-how-to-make-your-own-cards-from-rec/). Cat litter jugs and milk jugs work the best!
As you can see, I use a rug loom to do my card weaving. I prefer standing and I prefer weaving top down. The skinny ones became dog leashes and the wide ones became belts or guitar straps. The last one, on the triangle weaving cards was acrylic (another special request).
I also discovered that I love triangle weaving. That patterns that can be created are unfathomable, but that will have to be for another post while I learn more with the triangle cards. Both of these became dog leashes also. The first one is acrylic. The 2nd and 3rd ones are my hand dyed, hand spun wool yarns.
During all the madness, I decided I needed a more portable way to card weave, so I made a back strap loom and designed and built a wooden, portable card weaving loom.
This first one didn’t work out so well because I realized I needed to be able to pass the shuttle back and forth, unimpeded.
This ‘minor’ modification, using a jigsaw, turned out just right (and yes, I still use playing cards to weave with because it seems I end up selling off my recycled plastic ones.
Here is the video of me demonstrating triangle card weaving. I did all of the editing with help from my friend, Azharuddin Khan!
Also, a special thanks goes out to Guntram for creating awesome, free software to design all of those designs you want to create. His software comes with a bazillion preprogrammed patterns, but also allows you to design your own and save them all. The software is called, Guntram’s Card Weaving Thingy!
As always, if this prompts you to want to start card weaving and you’d like some nice, slippery cards that don’t tip over while you’re weaving (unless you want them to), see my etsy listing for them.
I have a customer who really likes toe socks, otherwise known by the brand name, Injinji. I’ve been knitting them for him in every color he can think of. They do take a while to dye up the yarn and knit them, but it’s very peaceful work.
His first order was for 1 pair of orange crew length toe socks and 1 pair ankle length toe socks.
His second order was for the same, but in a bright turquoise blue.
Now, I’m knitting him 2 pairs in a blend of green apple/lime green color!
Mrs. D's Fiber Odyssey - The Blog 