Ok... I think I am going to start out with something easy... a recap of my last few projects.  Sorry if this is redundant to those who read my G+ feed.


This one was a lot of fun and some challenges:

This was part of a set for a friend who was looking for something handmade for her nieces birthday.

She originally asked for 4 placemats  and then she decided she wanted a table runner too.  After a fun trip to the textile center, she decided on the quarry (teal-ish) for the mats and the same color with silver for the runner. And there the adventure began.

I was able to do up the mats with little issue.  They turned out pretty nice in a nifty huck lace pattern.  I apparently neglected to get a picture of those once they were completed, but here is a shot of one on the loom:

Once I got the placemats finished I geared up for the runner.  I made it a little wider than usual, due to my friend requesting it 'as wide' as the placemat.  I was moving along nicely when ... boom!... ran out of the teal.  Not a problem.  Just order another pound and all will be well.  So I did... and waited the week.  Once it got there, I eagerly pulled the loom back out and started on my merry way... only to discover that there IS a dye lot issue... the teal was not the same teal.  If you look with lazy eyes, you can see the top few rows are different from the bottom ones.

 So only one thing to do... I took the new stuff out and finished off the existing runner right where it was, which left me with a third of the silver warp.  Not a problem.  I had some pretty burgundy left over from a previous project, so I just used up the warp with that.  It actually turned out kind of nice, if a little short.

So, I figured with this pattern, almost as much of the warp shows as the weft, so I went ahead and warped with the new teal and wove the 83 inches required by the formula to get the 75 inches I needed for the runner.  It looked pretty good.  I actually liked it with the teal for the fringe instead of the silver.  Unfortunately, while in theory it would seem like it would not be a big difference, switching the light and dark yarns really did make a difference... having the silver as the weft really did make a much lighter fabric and she wanted the darker look.  Not to mention that for some reason I got a LOT more shrinkage than expected, so it was a few inches shorter than the expected 75".  Also not to mention that when my friend said she wanted it as wide as the placemates, I took that to mean top to bottom... she meant side to side... heh.  Apparently her niece wants to use the table runner ends as two more placemats.  I was off by about 3 inches the long way and by about 6 inches on the width.

Ok... so now I have three table runners of differing sizes and colors is anyone needs one :P but I have learned some valuable lessons.... dye lots with this brand DOES matter (no matter what the the store clerk tells you) and ALWAYS verify details with your client.

So I continued... ordered more yarn of both colors, which turned into an adventure of its own.  Between using a new supplier and the manufacturer having shipping clerk errors, I finally got the yarn 2 weeks later.  By this point I am way overdue on the project deadline and getting a little panicked.  But, to my surprise, warping and dressing the loom went very well!  Too well apparently... the lords of weaving decided they needed to take me down a notch.  As I get a few feet into my weaving, all of the sudden one of my threads on the edge (floating selvage snaps).  Ok ... not a problem... fixed it.  Then a couple feet further, it happens again... huh... fixed again.  The it happens AGAIN!  I start really watching it and what is happening is that my sides have pulled in almost an inch on either side and so it is putting a strain on that side, causing the thread to fray and snap.  I try everything I can to alleviate the problem, but end up just babying it and fixing it when it snaps the rest of the way through.  I think the reason I had never had this particular issue before on the other runners, is that I had not tried anything this wide on this loom before.  I was pretty close to its limit.  So, other than one other thread issue (a manufactures knot I missed), I was able to work my way through the project and get it done with only one other crisis.  Remember how the last one shrunk almost 10 inches?  So I added 10 inches onto this one to accommodate that... and this time it only shrunk 5 inches!    ARGGGGGG!  So now the runner is 5 inches longer than she wanted.  Which apparently is ok.  When she uses it on the shorter table, having the fringe handing over the ends will be good for her intention to use them as additional placemats and when she extends the table, it should look just fine.  :)

So all in all, I think everyone will be happy.  And I got to learn a lot of valuable stuff.  I have never had to fix warp threads on the fly and now I am pretty good at it  :)