Out with the Blue in with the Red

Finished my blue warp a couple weeks ago, got them finished, priced, measured and photographed. Spent the next few weeks listing and now finally have all but about 7 rugs listed. Now it is on to the next warp. I am pretty low on Red rugs right now so that will be my next batch of rugs. I have my first art fair at the end of June and need to build stock.



This is the truest picture of the warp wound on the the sectional beam of the loom. It is a red and black Log Cabin pattern





This shows the warp all laid out. After I wind on the required amount of warp I pull the threads up over the beam and double check to see that they are all accounted for. I arrange them in the correct pattern and tape the threads to the beam to keep them in place





My husband or daughter help me pull the threads through the heddles and we can get it done fairly quickly once we get into a rhythm. Once that is done I sley the reed. That means pulling each of the threads through the reed. It has gotten to be rather challenging now that I am relying more and more on my glasses to see the dang slots. I did mess up and skipped one slot, but it was close to and end thank heavens and after I took everything apart it was not terribly difficult to fix. They always say that if you want to teach someone to weave have them do the weaving first to get them hooked and then teach them to warp up the loom. If you had to warp up a loom before you had ever woven anything I rather think no one would take it up. :)





I just added this little picture to show the lovely gears on my loom. It is dusty and industrial looking, but I really love my loom.

In between warping I have been sewing rags together and cutting rags on my Fraser cutter. It is a hand cranked cutter which uses human energy to work :)

Lots of stuff to do

Started off early and got another rug named and described. It is such a dang process.. I will be ever so happy to have it up to date. I have been cleaning up some of the earlier rugs I uploaded and adding their invoice numbers so that it wont be total chaos if I sell any at my art fairs which are fast approaching.

Got a wild hair up my you know what and decided to take some ETSY advice on business cards. The claim is that people just stash cards and never take another look at them. I guess I do the same thing and I have been handing them out for years. A suggestion was made to be creative and one idea was making magnets to hand out. I decided to investigate the idea today. I had to drive to Janesville anyhow to get kitty food and some other things so I planned on Hobby Lobby.

found some magnets at the local Outreach along with some sheets that will be great in my next batch of rugs, bought some paper to print off some designs and ended up finding some printable magnetic paper at Hobby Lobby after all.

Got home and put all my stuff away then set about making my magnets. They turned out pretty good so I hope they end up being useful. One batch was a little off color until I cleaned the nozzles on my printer, but after that they looked pretty good.

Finished my Blue Warp

Got my blue warp finally off the loom this past week during Easter Break. Managed to weave a couple nice long rugs. A Hit or Miss 9 foot runner and I think my biggest blue jean rug ever at 16 feet.

I finished the warp off on Wednesday then spent the afternoon knotting and pricing. My husband Puck helped me get all the rugs photographed along with some of the runners I have not been able to get pictures of on the dining room table... I only have so much length on the table although it is pretty under the rugs. I like the outdoor light, but the weather has not been cooperating too much lately :)

Now I have a nice big pile of rugs to get loaded on to ETSY. I figure I can do two or three a day and keep my creativity going although I am running out of names for green rugs LOL