Saturday, November 05, 2016

Handwoven sweater fabric off the loom and ready for fulling


The 6 yards of fabric for my jacket are woven and heading for the washing machine.  Although it was quick to weave, I found it difficult to see the pattern as I was weaving.


It's like one of those magic eye pictures, where I have to unfocus my eyes and will the pattern into existence.  Things will be much better when the cloth is fulled.  I just hope it doesn't shrink too much.  But if it does, I have more yarn and can always weave more cloth.

6 yards seemed like a lot of cloth to me.  I was worried that being a table loom, it wouldn't all fit.  But my worry was needless.  Lots of room leftover.  I think I could probably get 24 yards of fabric at this weight.  Maybe more.



I have no idea if this project will work out.  I've been making it up as I go along.  But I did make a similar sweater from an old wool blanket and that's very comfortable.  This one will be the same shape.



The other thing I'm not so sure about is blogging again.  In the last few years, blogging has become a monetary activity.  Advertizing, Pinterest-ready photos, all that fancy stuff that makes blogs more a job than a journal.  Bloggers are celebrities now and I don't know if that sort of thing is for me.  It's just something to think about.  What do I want from my blog?  Do I care enough to modernize and monetize it or keep it as it is, or rebel and make it more my own style.  Then again, I do pay money to keep my blogs online.  So I should try at least to make it pay for itself... or should I?  Maybe my blogs don't add anything useful to the internet and they should just fade away.

1 comment:

Josiane said...

From what I can see, it looks like you chose to beat the weft lightly. I'd guess that the cloth will full nicely, while retaining a lovely drape. I wish I could have touched it before and after fulling!

As for your blogs, well, you know I enjoy reading what you choose to share, in the way you want to share it. Your blogs have been (and still are) useful to me, and I really appreciate that I got to meet you (both virtually and in real life!) thanks to this blog.
I've seen the trend towards the professionalization of blogging, too, but I firmly believe that there's space for all kinds of things on the internet - and really, when I come to your corner of the internet I'd rather find you in your own style than finding a shiny, fancy, and carefully curated version of you that was a chore for you to create and maintain. Of course, there's the matter of the cost which has to be factored in how you want to move forward… Whichever way you decide to go, rest assured that if you keep writing, I'll keep reading!