FiberArts Magazine

I couldn't resist picking up the September/October issue of FiberArts magazine. My eye was caught by the banner on the front cover that read "Plush Art: toys for grown-ups. The article begins on page 40 and is titled Crammed Organisms. I found the article so much fun I checked out the websites listed and have posted a banner on the sidebar of the blog. Here is what it looks like:


I think it would be totally fun to create my own plush toys from handwoven scraps, in fact, I plan to! If anyone else decides to do so I would be happy to post a picture of it on the blog too. Check out the Crammed Organisms website!
In the meantime, I have a new project going on the loom.
The yarn is the 24/2 Zephyr in a color called "fern". It is a greyish green. I picked the cone up at one of those weaver's sales for a dollar or two. Zephyr is 50/50 wool and silk. As I have so much going on I decided to weave four yards using draft #47 out of A Weavers Book of 8 Shaft Patterns. I have used this draft before and liked the fabric I got with it.
In the future I will be getting back to creating my own drafts but with all that is going on I didn't want to have to fuss with it. If I end up with enough fabric I will make a light weight jacket out of it. We shall see what I end up with.
I am just about finished threading the warp which is sett at 30 e.p.i. and is threaded in a straight draw pattern. I do plan to sample this warp to see if I need to adjust the sett. So, how did I determine this one? Zephyr is one of those yarns that pop up on yarn sett charts and is well known. I used the sett listed on one of the charts.
For some reason the second comment on the previous post did not get published until this evening. My apologies for the technical glitch.
The comment mentioned that I could also just take half of the number of wraps that were crammed together. Well, yes and no! It is a good point but I must confess I just got lucky on the number of wraps that I had crammed together and I wasn't too precise on that one. In addition, if I were to use a different width of yarn for my weft, I would need to leave a space wide enough for that in my wrapping. The structure of the weave would also need to be accounted for. Those aren't addressed when the wrapping is all crammed together. Like I said, it is one of many methods and is a starting point. Sampling (yep, the dreaded 'S' word), as I will be doing for this current warp, is the best way to get the fabric you are trying to weave.
I deeply appreciate the supportive comments on the selling of our house. Thank you all so much.
Stay tuned for more...
-Renee