Natural Wools For a Pod and Weaving
I made another bird pod last week, this time using various natural grey wools. The pictures aren’t the best because when I went to take photos yesterday afternoon, it suddenly went really dark, then we had the most epic hour long storm with non-stop thunder, lightning, wind and torrential rain (basically the whole city shut down for hours because of it). So, I had to redo the photos this morning, and they’re a bit flat.
I mentioned in my last post I was getting a spinning wheel, and it came last week (yay!) but I’ve not been upto having a go yet, so I did a bit of spindle spinning and then weaving. I thought it’d be nice for fairs or the well being classes to show how hand woven yarn can be used. This first one was made with fairly neat (by my standards, anyway) yarn, just single ply, and I didn’t wet and set the twist or anything, just wound it onto an old broom handle from the spindle. I wove it on a little kids loom I bought:
I was doing some of the weaving at night watching Parks and Recreation and thought I was using all naturals, but it was obvious in daylight I’d used some yarn I made ages ago from hand dyed Merino (green over orange, I think), but I think it matches alright.
Since not everyone has a loom handy, I thought I’d make a few pieces with cardboard looms, so I cut some rectangles and then marked out sections and cut notches in the bottom. I also used some yarn I’d made from my carding scraps – the really wiry, scruffy, short and matted bits – and some coarser wools like Herdick (the bits I used looked like unpicked Brillo pads) and a couple I got from Wollknoll which look like shredded wheat, to show that yarn, and weaving, can still look good even if you don’t make smooth, even yarn. This is a tall one I made:
That’s a dried pepper keeping it flat, I’ll probably have to wet and block some of these becasue they want to curl! Close up:
This is a really small one I made:
This is the larger of the cardboard looms I made:
And this is a photo of the loom above with a smaller cardboard loom (it already has the warp thread wound on it) and how they compare to the kids’ loom I have. That is probably smaller than A4/printer paper:
Do you remember the inside of my bag from last time? Well, I was watching Neighbours last week (an Aussie soap, for those who don’t know) and a character was wearing a jacket, just like my bag flap!
11 thoughts on “Natural Wools For a Pod and Weaving”
Good work on all the weaving Zed, love all the yarn textures, I think they all look amazing. Glad you weathered the storm. Do agree on the Jacket matching the inside of your bag! Have fun with your new spining wheel.
Thanks, Jane 🙂
Fingers crossed I can even set the wheel up, let alone make miles of yarn!
Sounds like a doozy of a storm. The weaving is really cool. I love all the different textures. That is my favorite kind of weaving. I look forward to hearing about and seeing the new spinning wheel. Perhaps you should send the soap opera a photo of your bag and tell them it matches 🙂 LOL!
Thanks, Ruth 🙂
It was a great storm, one of the best I’ve ever seen! I love texturey yarn/weaving too. I hadn’t thought about sending the soap a photo, I wonder if they’re on Facebook?!
I would think so, no harm in giving it a try 🙂
She is defo wearing the inside of your bag!
The weavings are great and the green over orange blends in nicely. Blocking certainly makes a difference so might be worth the effort.
It’s fun making things like cardboard looms – got any piccies?
The new bird pod looks snuggly for our feathered friends. Shame about the weather at photo time though.
We escaped the storm down here – it was hot and sticky and we had a few fat drops of rain but that was it. Lovely today with wall to wall sunshine and low humidity.
Thanks, Lyn 🙂
I’ll get some photos of the looms and add them to the post later. We had extremely hot and muggy weather yesterday, it’s meant to be hotter today and chances of the storm again. Maybe I should get one of the pods out for the birds!
Loving the pod! I’m sure birds would appreciate it as well (and kitties, if they were tiny :D)
Can’t wait for you to try that wheel! You’ll have to much yarn you’ll beed to buy a proper loom to start weaving with!
Thanks, Leonor 🙂
Hopefully I can try the wheel today, it’s supposed to be cooler so that will help if I start getting flustered! I’ve been wanting a loom for a long time, so I’m sure it won’t be too much longer!
You’ve been busy! Wow a wheel! What are you using to do the weaving? It all looks good!
Thanks, Marilyn 🙂
I made those weavings just as samples really, our well being group are having a stall at a local event soon, and as well as selling some things, I wanted to show what’s possible with fibre, spread the love and get people interested.