At The Inkle Loom

Posted on February 26, 2014 by artpodstudios

STRINGING UP A GUITAR STRAP

Late last fall I started warping up this Inkle Floor Loom to make an earthy colored guitar strap for a friend.

I hate to admit, it is still very much in the beginning stages of weaving.

Last fall I made about 10 table runners in an overshot pattern for Christmas gifts and pretty much “forgot” about this guitar strap. Hopefully I will get a chance to get back to this project and finish up. Especially when you see from the pictures below the results of my last two guitar straps I did get finished for gifting…..

……hope this inspires you to make something beautiful today!

Until next time…..

……I wish you Peace

Shimmering Warp

Posted on February 19, 2014 by artpodstudios

Normally for me, winding a warp for a weaving project is at best,

mostly

“ho-hummm”.

But today the room I was working in was flooded with sunshine,

a plus in itself considering this is the middle of February!

Winding the warp for this scarf has been pure JOY !!

As I turned the warping mill round and round

the sun beams caught the metallic threads and seemed to

literally dance like little fairy dust across the warp.

I immediately pictured a little odd figure of a man, Rumplestiltskin,

spinning–spinning–spinning

all night long to make the gleaming golden threads.

The warp is now being added to the loom and I can’t wait to see the finished scarf filled with

Magic Fairy Dust !!

May your days be filled with JOY !!

Until Next Time……

I wish you Peace….

Knit One, Crochet Too!!

Posted on February 12, 2014 by artpodstudios

With all the cold and snow we have been getting this winter I have been crocheting some gifts for this Valentine’s Day. I really had not crocheted in several years, but with a quick review of the stitches, it all seemed to come back to me pretty quickly.

The following pics are some of the projects I just finished.

These are some of the fingerless gloves that I made recently.

I got the pattern from the bobwilson123 you tube page, under the title fingerless gloves tutorial.

I did change them a little bit by adding a double crochet border to the bottom of the glove and a scalloped border at the top of the glove.

This is a great pattern because the gloves are reversible.

As you can see in the above pic I have turned one of the gloves “wrong side out”. I love the look either way, and have already worn them both ways. As green is my fav color I couldn’t resist keeping the green pair for myself.

I also made several “Bob Marley” style slouch hats from a pattern I got on Etsy from the vendor Pixiebell. It was a very easy to follow pattern and I have already made about 4 hats. She uses the thick and quick yarn for the pattern, but because I wanted to make a set of gloves with matching hat for some of my gifts I just used the yarn that I made the gloves out of, but used double threads on the hook.

The picture above is from the Pixiebell Etsy page.

Another quick to make crochet project I made for some Valentine gifts were these

cute little mug cozy wraps, or as I call them, Mug Belly Warmers! I got the pattern for these and for the embellishments, the mustache and the flower, from the bobwilson123 website also. Here’s a close up pic…..

of the mustache embellishment,

and this is what it looked like on the mug.

These were really quick to make and soooo easy!!

Well I hope we will not have too many more of these days….

but if we do…..

there’s always a quick crochet project just waiting around the corner to warm our hands and the hearts of those we gift them to!

Until next time, I wish you Peace…..

BRINGING A NEW ‘BABY’ HOME SATURDAY!!

Posted on February 12, 2014 by artpodstudios

Just ordered my new loom and will be picking it up on Saturday!! I purchased the 36″ Mighty Wolf by Schacht, an 8 harness, 10 treadle Floor Loom. As I researched this loom I was quite impressed by the features. The treadles are not a direct tie up style.

There are slots in the wood of each treadle so that you just slide the tie up cords into the desired treadle slot to “tie it up” to that particular shaft (harness). So easy! Another feature I though would be great is that each of the heddle shafts can be completely lifted out of the loom to add in or take out extra heddles. It can be laid on the table to work on, so no more finagling with the bars while the shafts are on the loom and consequently dropping heddles on the floor or worse, realizing you have missed threading one of the heddle bottoms after you have finished putting them on. Of course, that always ends up being the 50th heddle out of the hundred that you have put on, way back in the middle of the shaft! Hate to admit it but, yes, that has happened to me a couple of times with the Wolf Pup loom.

I already own the Wolf Pup, 4 harness, 4 treadle, 18″ loom by Schacht (pictured above). It has been a great little workhorse, but I am looking forward to the ability to do more complicated patterns with the 8 harness model and the much wider 36″ loom. Like the Wolf Pup the new loom has the ability to be folded up for storage with or without a warp on the loom. For anyone that has limited space for their equipment this is a great feature.

New pics to follow soon…..

until then I wish you Peace……….