I say this a lot, but I’ve been having so much fun at Fern’s workshop learning more about the techniques involved in weaving and setting up a loom. In past weeks, I wrote about getting the warp onto the loom, but now I can talk about how to make a warp!
Continue readingtechnique
#405 – Turkish Cast-On
I always think knitting is so interesting because everyone has their own unique way of doing things. This can result in a terrifying amount of cast-on and cast-off techniques, but they are often fairly similar at the root of it. When I saw this Turkish Cast-on, which is a new-to-me approach, it instantly made me think of a simpler version of Judy’s Magic Cast-on!
Continue reading#401 – Warping a Loom (Beam the Warp)
Three weeks of volunteering later, and the warping process is finally over! As always, I am so thankful to Fern for her patience in teaching me, and also for letting me tackle this process instead of doing it herself at a much faster speed. This week, we were able to wind the warp on to the back beam, and we are hoping to start weaving next week!
Continue reading#400 – Warping a Loom (Thread Heddles)
I’m still over the moon that I get to live out my weaving dreams by volunteering at Fern’s studio, so here is another blog post that attempts to digest my new knowledge about weaving in order to summarize it into a blog post. This week, I got to move past the reed and on to the heddles.
Continue reading#399 – Warping a Loom (Sley the Reed)
A few weeks ago, Fern posted a call looking for volunteers at her studio, and I instantly jumped at the opportunity. If you can imagine a “pick me” moment, complete with hand straight up in the air, that was pretty much me. Thankfully, Fern welcomed me into her studio, and I’ve loved learning from her since that time.
Continue reading#398 – I-Cord Edge
I know that I’ve already posted about the standalone i-cord and the i-cord bind-off, but this was the first time I had encountered the i-cord edge! It helps to provide a neater edge to the fabric, which was especially nice in this design as the edges formed the neckline of a dress. I could also see this edge looking really nice on the edges of a cardigan or cropped jacket.
Continue reading#387 – Crochet Cast-on
Despite having started in crochet before diving into knitting, I had never heard of the crochet cast-on technique. It turns out that this cast-on more closely mimics the cast-off edge than a backwards loop cast-on or knitted cast-on. Given that this is a blanket, I really wanted both sides to look as similar as possible, so this seemed like a great technique to try out.
Continue reading#386 – Fringe Twisting
If you made it through my previous post with all of its weaving terminology, I salute you. This is going to be a lot less dense, I promise. As part of the final steps of finishing the rug, we had to secure the warp ends after they were cut from the loom. We ended up tying them into a super cute twisted fringe!
Continue reading#368 – Zipper Sewing
I really want to get better at sewing. Honestly, the thought of adding a zipper shouldn’t fill me with fear, but sure enough, I avoided this step of the project like the plague. Thankfully, there were a few handy YouTube tutorials, and I think that I managed a passable finished project!
Continue reading#356 – Continental vs. English Knitting
I have historically been an English knitter. However, I’ve seen the argument made that continental knitting is less tiring because the movements are smaller. As a result, I’ve been trying to make the switch. If both of these terms mean absolutely nothing to you, then boy howdy, do I have a quick summary post for you.
Continue reading