Our first winter storm arrived last night. Wind and rain. It makes me feel like snuggling up in my living room and knitting. And what could be better than to snuggle under a brand new handwoven blanket?
A couple posts ago, I showed you a view from under the loom. This is what came off the loom a week ago. I wanted to make another one right away, but time just won’t allow it. This project finally makes me feel like I am a Weaver.
The technique is shadow weave, using a dark and light component to create the design. It takes 2 shuttles to alternate the 2 colors with each row. The pattern uses 8 shafts and is done in Lamb’s Pride worsted. The blue is an extra that caused some concern about how it would look, but I’m quite happy with it as an accent.
I took the Shadow Weave class from Linda Hartshorn last April and May in order to learn how to use a countermarche loom. It was a long and difficult process to get the loom warped and tied up, but the time and effort was so worth it. Linda was very patient with my procratinations and I managed to finish this the day before her next class started. Whew!
Now I need to transfer the process over to my own loom at home, a lovely countermarche that looks much easier to warp than the one at the studio. I hope so! I find myself perusing drafts (patterns) to start as soon as I can find a couple free days. What I really want to do is make another shadow weave as complex as this 8-shaft design, but my loom is only a 4-shaft. But I started looking more closely at my loom after hearing of some people adding shafts or harnesses to looms that weren’t called “four now four later.” I saw there was room for more, so I emailed the Louet company and found that I can add four more shafts to my loom. Something to look forward to! I’d love to make more blankets just like this one.
On the knitting front, I am working on hats and scarves, bit by bit. As soon as one hat in particular is finished, I’ll be casting on some mittens for my grandson. I’m headed to see him in a week, so I need to get busy on that! If you are reading this and you are near Kansas City, let me know what the weather is so I can pack the right clothes.
I’m so excited to see my little guy, who is no longer little! He will turn 7 while I’m there, and I haven’t seen him in a year and a half. I have to confess to my knitter’s shame, though. I have never knit anything for him. Not one thing. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe partly because I knit so slowly and children grow so fast. I don’t think he likes knit garments, and I see him so rarely, but I’m going to give it a try and see how this goes. Mittens are a small thing.
I was thinking about kitten mittens, because he loves cats. Then I thought skull and crossbone mittens, because he likes pirates. Guess which ones I’m going with? 
I hope I can remember to take a picture before I give them to him.
Stay warm and cozy. And knit a few.
(Blanket pattern can be found in the book 1000+ Patterns Shadow Weaves by Marian Powell. Page 233, draft 8-26-1. Tromp as writ.)