Continuous Strand Weaving

I am taking a class on breed specific wool on craftsy. It is really fun and FREE. What has been eye opening for me is the differences from one breed to another. For my swatches of the breed yarns I am knitting.. But I might also try some rectangular woven swatches, at least with the Jacob. This breed of sheep are so beautiful. Here is a picture of the natural yarn   Beautiful isn't it Below is a knitted swatch of Cormo. I got this from elsawool and have s skein of woolen spun and worsted spun yarn. This spinning has nothing to do with the worsted weight..that is a separate quality. What a difference in the two types of yarn. The woolen spun is fluffy and springy whereas the worsted spun is silky and smooth. I think for continuous strand weaving I prefer woolen spun yarn... I will swatch the worsted spun just to be sure. Swatch of Cormo Woolen spun yarn from Elsa Wool in worsted weight.    

Wool top.. Midstates Wool Growers has great prices on wool top..11$ a pound.. They also sell merino top in a bunch of beautiful colors but my skill levels are not there yet and the merino is more expensive. This a picture of what I got.. It is sooooo soft and really beautiful..you will fallin love with it. I think you could make some nice yarn for a shawl out of this. I ordered two pounds worth and here is an idea of the size...      

Well I have been busy spinning yarn on a spindle. I think this would be. Great way to get yarn for continuous strand weaving. It is relatively easy to create bulky yarn this way you can create as much or as little as you want. Sort of like a painter with his/her palate. Even if you do not want to psi urn you can easily make your own yarn by plying commercial yarn together. It is helpful to have a spindle to ply with.. You can make one for less than five dollars with materials from hobby lobby and home depot. Here is a picture of some spindles. The one on the far right is a store bought spindle from louet. Here is a picture of my first yarn    

I am still working on my latest shawl with the Viking yarn.   I guess I am a little frustrated that I can't seem to get my rows perfectly straight.    I just need to bite the bullet and finish.   I think I might do fringe on this one.    The yarn is beautiful. All this work with yarn has made decide to try spinning.  Actually I am learning spindling.  It just seems like the best way to learn to make yarn first.  It seems like if I can learn to easily make yarn with a spindle then I can do it with a wheel.   Plus spindles are much cheaper than spinning wheels. I ordered a spindle online.. but asked my husband to help me find some old tinker toys.    It seems like you could make a cool spindle out of those.  Also online there are instructions for a yarn swift out of tinker toys... how cool. I am using the craftsy course to learn to spindle.   They had a great deal going on when I signed up.      So f...

I have started another Project. This time I am using Viking Balder Yarn. It is very soft and fun to work with. I have tried to upload pictures of it .. The yarn on and off the loom. I had no idea the variable color yarns would look plaid on the loom. Still at the early stages.....

It took me over a week but I have woven my first shawl on a seven foot loom. Wow you get decent exercise doing this. I used a bulky cotton yarn, probably should have used a wool. But I love this yarn. I found one tool to be a life saver in the end. It is a crochet hook with a needle hole at the end. For the last fourth of the project this really helped. You can buy one on Carol Leigh's web site. I have a picture of my shawl before fulling.    

I have just started working on a large tri-loom for the first time.   At first I was not sure if I liked it compared to the smaller ones.  After the first couple of rows I started to have fun again and I love it.   For me it is a much different experience. Some of the differences are, for the first couple of rows I found that I had to have some significant tension to keep my yarn from low sagging.   I am a little nervous about this since on the small looms I tried not to overdo the tension.  I am using a cotton yarn and it gets stuck more easily than it did on the small 18 inch loom.   It is still doable but just something to be aware of.    One thing I do like is it is a lot easier to use your fingers to weave the yarn.   On an 18 inch loom I found using my fingers hard and clumsy.. but this is not the case on a large loom.  It is actually fun to weave the yarn with your fingers.  I sometimes use a crochet hook but sometimes use ...