Not long after I finished the Cozy Memories blanket, I had the (possibly insane) idea to try crocheting a blanket with all of my leftover of handspun yarn. Perhaps my reasoning was that crocheting was faster, so certainly I would finish this blanket faster than the last one, which took one and a half years to complete. If that's the case, I was right on the money, because I started this on July 31 of last year, and it was completely done and blocking by the end of June!
I used a large crochet hook (size N, or 9mm) and just alternated single crochet and double crochet as I pleased while using whatever random bits of handspun yarn happened to be nearby. The crocheting part was finished by the end of April, but I spent most of May procrastinating weaving in all of the ends. Finally, I decided that if I took it on our road trip to Kansas City last month, I would probably weave in all those fiddly ends out of boredom - another notion that ended up paying off.
I always have tiny scissors in my purse, but they must have gotten lost at some point - I discovered somewhere in the middle of Illinois (or maybe it was Iowa?) that I was completely scissorless. No matter, the gas station we'd stopped at had some very affordable nail clippers, which can work quite well in a pinch. Curiously, I remembered to pack the wool needles that are ideal for bigger yarns, and so I returned home to Chicago with all of my ends woven in, feeling like I was REALLY winning at life. Small victories!
Although I have only been weaving since January of this year, I decided it was time to attempt an all-handspun weaving project. I warped my loom with some 100% merino I'd spun for last year's Tour de Fleece (if memory serves) and used a superwash merino weft spun from a few hand-dyed braids from Cloudlover that I'd been hoarding (more on that here).
I had a lot of tension issues in this project, mostly of my own making - I didn't do a great job of separating my warp while winding it onto the beam, and the paper I used was too thin and crinkling in unfortunate places, which only added to my list of problems. If I had to do it over again, I would have used card stock or perhaps even some pick up sticks to keep warp separated and the tension even. Live and learn, right?
Despite these circumstances, the resulting warp looks pretty darn good. It's big, soft and warm - just hat you need this time of year, right?!
Thanks for stopping by. Have a crafty weekend!
I used a large crochet hook (size N, or 9mm) and just alternated single crochet and double crochet as I pleased while using whatever random bits of handspun yarn happened to be nearby. The crocheting part was finished by the end of April, but I spent most of May procrastinating weaving in all of the ends. Finally, I decided that if I took it on our road trip to Kansas City last month, I would probably weave in all those fiddly ends out of boredom - another notion that ended up paying off.
I always have tiny scissors in my purse, but they must have gotten lost at some point - I discovered somewhere in the middle of Illinois (or maybe it was Iowa?) that I was completely scissorless. No matter, the gas station we'd stopped at had some very affordable nail clippers, which can work quite well in a pinch. Curiously, I remembered to pack the wool needles that are ideal for bigger yarns, and so I returned home to Chicago with all of my ends woven in, feeling like I was REALLY winning at life. Small victories!
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| Kind of a challenge to get this entire thing in frame! |
I had a lot of tension issues in this project, mostly of my own making - I didn't do a great job of separating my warp while winding it onto the beam, and the paper I used was too thin and crinkling in unfortunate places, which only added to my list of problems. If I had to do it over again, I would have used card stock or perhaps even some pick up sticks to keep warp separated and the tension even. Live and learn, right?
Despite these circumstances, the resulting warp looks pretty darn good. It's big, soft and warm - just hat you need this time of year, right?!
Thanks for stopping by. Have a crafty weekend!
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