Weaving Again, Finally !

I am counting and wrapping threads & yarns , making warps ( sounds like a Star Trek adventure ! ) to thread my looms for fall and winter weaving. I find myself humming as I count out the wraps on my warp board. Does this sound like a foreign language to you ? Simply put, I am making a warp, that is what I thread onto my loom so I can then begin to weave. This is my table loom taking up space on my dining room table. I intend to weave a table runner on this loom.

These are bags full of loom ends from the Pendleton Wool Mill. The scraps left over from that Pendleton rug, jacket, shawl ..weavers buy these bags of wool ends by the pound and they are very cheap. Worth it for many of us to travel there to buy them to weave into rugs.

Here is a close up of a bag of wool ends. I will be weaving them into rugs very soon.

My floor loom is on my staircase landing. Here is one view. You can see a basket of hand-spun yarn , one of my spinning wheels, weaving shuttles, and bags of mill ends from Pendleton. I love the cheerful turquoise mill ends with splashes of red, orange, and white . The rugs I can weave from them will be bright and cheerful.

A glimpse of my floor loom ( far right of picture ) with spools of warp thread lined up on my window sill. I have my audio books from the library to listen to and I have already begun to warp ( thread ) my loom. I am so excited to begin weaving again. My calendar is cleared and the week of weaving will begin, finally !

Delilah's Rugs ~ Wool Transformation !

I started with her, Delilah, my Jacob / Romney sheep.

Delilah was sheared, her wool was skirted, picked, washed & carded into rovings, meaning the wool was turned into strips ,( shown above) then woven into rugs on my loom.

Here you can see the roving becoming a rug on my loom.

Done!

Turning the wool from my sheep into rugs seems like magic.The wool was simply washed and "brushed" to make it ready for weaving. Nothing was added, the wool is still all it was before it was sheared off the sheep ( minus the dirt & debris) , yet it bears little resemblance to the sheep now. I never tire of working with the wool from the sheep I love.Each fleece is as unique as the sheep the wool comes from.I think Delilah's wool makes a pretty nice rug.

"Transform:to change in outward shape or semblance ." Webster's "..be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." Romans 12:2

Kitten Playground

Our granddaughters' kitten. 'Bubba', looks so cute playing with my weaving while it is still on the loom, but cute got out of hand quickly... This is what happened when I went to get myself a cup of coffee. I came back to a kitten wedged in the warp & heddles of my loom. I had to open the heddles and help him extricate himself. Of course I did take a moment to capture a few pictures.

This really can't be good for the warp threads, or the kitten.

He kept playing under the loom and in the weaving, climbing my legs too. OUCH !

After this picture I put him in the craft room and closed the door, somebody had to get some weaving done and it wasn't going to be him.