WiP Thursday

As usual these days, I’m a day late and a dollar short.

There hasn’t been a ton of free time, but here’s where it has gone:


My Love Actually cowl is marching right along. Got about four rows into the third set of hearts. I’m so ready for this to be finished!


I got my doubleweave blanket sleyed into the reed. Next step is threading heddles. If I’m lucky, I’ll get that done on Sunday.

And, because that cowl is starting to make me twitch, I’ve swatched for my Dublin Tee. Oops.

WiP Wednesday

Ahh, another super-busy stretch with the part-time job. My regular job has re-started too, so there has been very little free time. Zoom!

But, between all of the crazy, there has been a little crafting here and there. I’ve gotten a little bit done on my Love Actually cowl. It’s a little hard to tell, but I’m into the third row of hearts!


The Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival was last weekend, and my cowl got to hang out at the SpaceCadet Creations booth while I was hanging out with the Hubster for his birthday on Saturday. So I busted out my Nittany Lions scarf and did some work on it. I’d say I’m awfully close to halfway through the second skein of each color.


In other news, I’ve been preparing a warp for the loom. I’m lucky to have lots of great extended family, but my Aunt and Uncle in Pasadena, Calif., have been fantastic about letting me crash at their house whenever I visit the left coast. So I’m making them a doubleweave blanket!


A little over a week ago, I caught a destash of a warping mill at a really great price, and I’ve used this project to make friends with it.


The warp is wound, and when I have a little time I can get it on the loom and start weaving. There are two chains, here’s the blue/green chain…


And all four colors together…


If you remember my blog post from my Doubleweave Blanket Class two years ago, this blanket is going to be very similar to the tweedy-looking blanket that Hedy made in class. The cobalt (royal blue) color is going to be the weft. I hope I can get it done quickly and it’s a big hit!

Christmas Crafting

Exactly one person got something handmade for Christmas this year. My dad. I decided in August that I wanted to make him a double weave blanket. Some time in September, I dropped off color cards for Harrisville Highland at his house and he gave me a little bit of direction to pick colors.

Again, the lovely and talented Sara at The Mannings helped me along with project planning. My notes from my Double Weave Blanket class were a little uh … lacking … so I guessed a little wrong on some dimensions, but it came out just fine in the end.


The warp was wound and chained by mid-November. And I went ahead and wound the first cone-worth of weft thread onto bobbins.


I sat down to start weaving on Sunday, December 2, and immediately stopped. Because I clearly had a problem.


See that great big gap in the fabric? Between the orange threads?


Oh yeah. I missed a dent. And, of course, it was squarely in the middle of the reed.

I un-wove the weft I’d already put into the blanket. Out came the knots on half of my warp, and I moved each thread over one hole in the reed. And then I sat down to start weaving again.


Crappers. Apparently, I got distracted before I totally finished the job. Stopped again, un-wove again, fixed. Again. At least then, it was off to the races.


The above craptastic photo was taken just before the blanket was wet-finished at my friend Dianne’s house. You can clearly see the fold line, running horizontally across the picture.

And, you can see a good look at the pre-washing fabric here.


Sadly, I’m a dork and forgot to take a fabric close-up after washing. Oops. Before the Harrisville Highland was washed, the spinning oils on the threads led to an extremely translucent fabric.


And, the last stop before the blanket hit water was in the repair shop.


In an effort to use as much of the warp as possible, I had a really crappy shed for much of the last few inches. Those gigantic toe-catchers were the result. Thankfully, my awesome teacher made sure I knew how to fix this before I left The Mannings two summers ago. No harm, no toe-catchers on the final blanket!

After a bath, the blanket was much less see-through…


The fabric fulled nicely and turned into a really great fabric that my Dad will hopefully enjoy for years.


I still enjoy double weave blankets, and I’m already plotting my next one!

Double Weave Blanket for Dad 

Thread: Harrisville Highland 

Colors (# of cones): #2 Red (1), #65 Poppy (1), #39 Russet (1), #66 Melon (1), 

#52 Toffee (weft, 2 cones) 

Width on Loom: 31” in reed (unfolded to roughly 60")  

EPI: 8