Plate Weaving at Rheged

During the half-term holidays, the week that the Harris Tweed exhibition began, I was asked to pop along to Rheged Centre and do some crafts for young folks.

I decided on Plate Weaving, as Harris Tweed is woven, and I needed something to fit in with the theme of the exhibition.

I also added little woolly hats as a side in case they finished their plate weaving early.

As it happened, they all seemed to want to go for the mini woolly hats first !!

But how cute are they?  And they sit perfectly on the top of a pop bottle  (or wine bottle for the parents  :) )

But plates were also weaved -  in and out, round and round with colourful yarns.

I did three sessions in all, one after another. It was quite tiring but a great day.  Can't wait to go back!

Have you ever been to Reghed?  It's close to the M6 at Penrith, only a mile or so down the road.  The centre is kind of hidden in a grassy dome and there is loads to do for children there.  Check out the website and find out more.
www.rheged.com

Weaving class Day 1

This week I am going to a 3 day "Weaving Summer School" with Jan Beadle at Truly Twisted Yarns.

I've been to a couple of day classes to learn to weave, but as this is a three day event it includes things like learning how to dress the loom, which will be very useful if I ever decide to buy one for myself.

You can see my earlier attempts HERE.

This was Monday, day 1.

My friend Lezley, and I went together.

I had happened to have popped by the shop a few days earlier & saw all the looms set out. I wanted the red one. When we got there this morning most of the other students were already in, so I thought the red one would have been shaped up, but it wasn't so I grabbed it :) (Lezley didn't want it).

I went off to the wool store to choose my yarns. For some reason I picked shades of cream & gold. Unsure why as I was going to run it with purples, but there you go.

I did change to reds though further in. I'm such a flibberty gibbert!!

The orange at the start is just a starter thread & will be removed when the piece is taken off the loom.

I tried a load of new weaving patterns too.

Lunch time, nom nom, jacket spud & cottage cheese.

Then it was time to sort out my warp for the next project. This involved having two warping pegs 4 meters apart and walking back and forth, winding the yarn over 168 times! That is a total of 672 meters, very nearly half a mile!

I pulled it into a chain ready to thread onto the loom in the morning.

Lezley picked a nice blue/lilac warped loom this morning, and added some wonderfully bright colours.

Neither have been taken off the looms yet, so check back tomorrow to see what we made :)

Weaving Class Day 2

What a lovely day today at weaving school, it's such a nice course to do and Jan is a wonderful teacher.

Today we learned to dress our looms - well, what a job that is!  It took quite a long time.  Apparently it takes Jan about 45 minutes per loom, but it took us about 3-4 hours.

After sorting the warp thread out, it was a case of pulling, untangling, threading, more threading, knotting, winding and tying.

I chose a very dark navy blue yarn with a silver sparkle to it, as I had something quite specific in mind. At first it was proving to be a bit of a nightmare as it has a bit of a slippy texture, but Jan, bless her, persevered with trying it help me sort it out & we got the loom threaded up, or 'dressed' to use the correct terminology.

Adding some colour, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see what it is :) (or can you guess?)

Lunch today was Beans on Toa.....well, bun!

After lunch we had a fabulous our around the mill, which is over 100 years do and still going strong. Linton Mill produces fabric for Victoria Beckham and Harrods, amongst others.

Let me share some photos with you....

It's our last day tomorrow, the time has flown by, as it does when you're having fun.

I forgot to take a photo of yesterday's weaving, so I'll show you that tomorrow along with todays efforts. Here is Lezley's amazing colour-scheme though - ***yarn envy***

Weaving Class with Jan Beadle

Last Saturday I did my second Weaving Class with Jan Beadle at Truly Twisted Yarns in Carlisle.

This class was "Collapsible Weaving".  In essence, during the weaving of your piece, you do a few lines of Lycra, which when plunged into hot water once your piece has finished, will collapse, pulling the woven piece into a ruched effect.

The first time I did a class I rushed to get the loom that was dressed with purple/blue warp threads, as these are very much my colour.  This time I hung back, hoping to take something on that was outside my comfort zone colourwise.  In the end I got a choice of three, the same one I had the first time (which you can read about HERE) or a lime green mix, or an orange.

I opted for the green one, I still wasn't brave enough to take on an orange - perhaps next time  :)

Off I trotted into the Truly Twisted Yarns shop to choose my yarns.  Oh, the choice, this must be the hardest part of the day.

As you can see, some purples accidentally fell into my hands.... and a nice hot pink.

As my last attempt was very random and had no pattern as such, I wanted to try and stick to a design of sorts this time, so chose my yarn and stuck with it all the way through.

See where that textured yarn lays?  Well the Lycra is each side of that, just to add a little interested to the fabric.

Quite pleased with this one, although the material needs to be washed and softened down quite a bit now.

See, it didn't turn out very green after all  ;)

Learning to weave

Accidentally stumbling across the Carlisle yarn shop, Truly Twisted Yarns, after joining Ravely, of course I went to visit and found out there was to be a Weaving class on that very weekend.

Should I, shouldn't I?  Well, of course I should, so I did  :)

The class was held in the work area next to the shop by the lovely Jan Beadle.  The looms were all set up (or  'dressed' as I believe is the correct terminology) and ready to go.  We were working on an Ashford 4 shaft table loom and I now want one of my own!

After a little demo on how to thread our bobbins, how to insert a bobbin into a boat shaft and of course how to use the loom, we were set to play.

Off we went to Truly Twisted Yarns next door with one of those massive supermarket reusable shopping bags to fill them up with our chosen yarn colours.

I picked these, but I did add a few more colours throughout the day.

I did an inch or so under Jan's watchful eye to check I wasn't totally messing up then I was off!

This class has been running for a little while and the aim today was to learn a new stitch/technique - as I was a newbie I chose just to do a little of this and concentrate on the weaving itself.

The technique was "Leno Weaving" which is basically twisting the warp threads with your fingers.  It looks something like this.
 

I used it on my borders.

Lunch was included at the marvellous Bobbins Café which is part of the mill shop. You could choose from the vast menu, I had a yummy Brié and Cranberry granary roll.

Then back to it.  I cannot believe how quickly the time flew by, all too soon it was time to take my scarf off the loom.

 When you are weaving you only actually see about 5" of the work as it gets rolled up, so it's a lovely surprise when it all gets unrolled and you get to see it for the first time.

I have to say I was quite impressed with the way my pattern had turned out considering it was so random.

I trimmed off the stray bits - this was difficult for me, being a knitter/crocheter, I wanted to darn in the ends, but apparently they are fine just trimmed.  I think I will be forever expecting it to fall apart!

Now time to remove a little edge thread, put in place to stop it all fraying, and tie the fringing.  I decided I wanted it just knotted, although you can rope the ends or plait them.  So I did a loose knot first, then tightened them all up nice and neat.

All that is left to do is to trim the fringe and wash the scarf.  You need to give it a good hand wash to allow the yarn to "bloom". I was told that yarns on cones often have oils on them due to machinery and other things that I cannot quite remember, but when these are washed out the yarns puff up and become fluffy and full.  Looking forward to that bit!  There was quite a different in feeling our newly made scarves and ones that had been made and washed.

I thoroughly enjoyed this class, so much so that I have booked to attend the next one which is 18th May (if anyone is interested in having a go, contact Sue on sue@trulytwistedyarns.co.uk 

Off to look on eBay now for a loom.......:)