No sooner than I heard the wonderful news that my son and daughter-in-law were expecting, there was a warp on my loom for a baby blanket!
I'd been reading Cally Booker's wonderful blog about designing with twill blocks and thought this would be an ideal project to get to know my Ashford 8 shaft table loom a little better. There are so many lovely patterns that require just 4 shafts but twill blocks require 8! Cally's blog explains how you can play around with blocks and colour to achieve some great effects and I really recommend it.
I'd chosen some lovely neutral colours in a soft, 4 ply weight cotton/acrylic blend and the plan was to weave two lengths each about twice as long as the width and sew them side by side as panels. I was so eager to get weaving I started as soon as the warp was on and didn't make any notes as to the number of blocks each length would require. I just wove. I liked what I wove. I carried on weaving and pretty soon I had no idea how much I had woven so I just wove to the end of the warp and cut it off the loom.
Ooops! I really had miss-calculated!
I ended up with a small and skinny piece of cloth – with quite a few skipped threads and a few treadling errors. I was so disappointed! The only thing I could think of was to re-purpose it for something else but I didn't know what – a tote bag for baby stuff maybe?
And then in stepped one of my customers, the most lovely person who not only weaves and spins but who is also a very good quilter. She took my fabric (skips having been fixed) and attached a backing, a wide border and added some wadding and hey presto – a beautiful little baby blanket! Thank you Shosh for rescuing my baby blanket!
Links
Cally Booker Blog - https://weavingspace.co.uk/warp-space/