Noreen Crone-Findlay is an author, designer, workshop presenter, doll maker,and fiber artist and small loom weaver and designer. She is the creator of Tottie Tomato and loves the fiber arts in all it's glory.
I needed to make a long narrow piece to fill a gap in a woven piece that I am working on.
I thought…. why weave a rectangle, when I could weave a whole string of little fishies!
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A few years ago, I figured out how to weave Cluny knots or Clunies, which are little woven circles or ovals, on the potholder loom.
While I was doing that, I thought that I could probably figure out a way of weaving fishies instead of circles. This thought has been lingering on hold in the back of my mind for years, and so, today, I decided to go for it.
I also decided that the Martha Stewart loom would work even better than the potholder loom, because you can just put in whatever pegs you want, wherever you want them. Brilliant!
So, I wove and un-wove and wove and un-wove and wove wove wove wove and came up with some pretty darned cute little Swishy Fishies!
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They are about the size of a penny. You can weave one little Swishy Fish, or a whole line of them.
The fish can either be used individually (earrings, perhaps?) or can be woven as a continuous strand to make trim for wall hangings, towels, pillows, bags, hats, vests, coats, mitts, totebags, cards, journals, scrapbook pages or whatever your heart desires!
Here’s how to set up your Martha Stewart loom:
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Here’s the video:
What do you need to weave Swishy Fish?
1] A Martha Stewart loom
2] Craft needle and a finer darning needle
3] Warp: A ball of smooth yarn that is medium weight
4] Weft: Each Swishy Fish takes at least a yard of yarn
5] Beads for eyes, and needle and thread to sew them on.
Here are some diagrams to hopefully explain things even more….
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Here’s the warping path:
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On a sad note: 😦 This video is dedicated to a very sweet little fish who lived in my daughter and son-in-law’s fish tank for 5 years, ‘Won Ton’ was a friendly little goldfish who was always interested in what was going on outside the tank! (I wove the little white fish in memory of Won Ton for my daughter.)
Sadly, Won Ton went to swim over the rainbow bridge while I was making this video, which struck me as a sad bit of synchronicity.
Swim on, little Won Ton!!!!
And, may weaving these little fish bring delight to weavers where ever they may be!
A lady on Ravelry is having trouble making Edward Bear’s foot, so I am going to show some step by steps on how to do it:
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Here is Edward Bear with his head and one leg stuffed.
His foot is turned up and the stitching is started along one side of the foot.
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Here’s a closeup of measuring the foot- Stitch the edges together around the fold to stitch the foot to the leg- around the sides of the foot and across the top of the foot.
About a year or so ago, I wove up quite a few yards of very playful fabric.
I love the gentle Saori philosophy of creative freeform weaving that is an expression of creativity and an exploration of imagination.
My plan was to use this fuzzy Saori inspired fabric to make a soft, cozy wrappie jacketie sort of a thing to keep me warm in the studio when winter wails away outside.
BUT- I just couldn’t settle on how to use the fabric.
After much teeth gnashing, I thought: ‘Aha! I am going to make it into one of my most favorite things: A shrug!’
So, I laid out the fabric on my cutting table, cut it in half (it was about 3 yards long and only about 14 inches wide).
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I sewed the 2 halves together lengthwise to make a wider, shorter piece of fabric.
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Then, I cut a slight curve at the top for the neck, and curves under the arms.
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And then, I folded the shrug in half, and pinned the living daylights out of it.
Looked at it and groaned…. I had pinned it together the wrong way.
Sigh….this is why I pin pin pin pin pin…. pins have saved my bacon more times than I care to remember!
Okay, unpinned, flipped, re-folded, and pin pin pin pin pin pin pin pin….. and stitched the under arm seams.
Then, I pulled up the selvedge strands of a long narrow piece (about 6 inches wide by about 3 yards long) to gather it into a gentle ruffle. This length of fabric was one that I had woven on my Cricket rigid heddle loom – originally for another vest (but I saw how perfect it would be for the ruffle, so I ‘re-purposed’ it for the shrug 😀 )
I stitched the ruffle around the outside edges of the shrug, forming a collar, front facing and lower back edging.
I sewed the short edges together at the lower back edge.
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Here’s the back view:
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The cuffs are 6 inch by approximately 18 inch lengths that I gathered by pulling up a couple of warp strands at the selvedge.
I stitched the short ends together, and stitched them onto the sleeves. Voila! Bell shape cuffs.
By pulling the warp strands up to gather the trim piece and the cuffs, I was able to avoid cutting the hand woven fabric any more than was necessary.
I stitched the shrug together on my machine, with a stretch straight stitch and zig zagged the edges of the seams to add a little more security.
And, there you have it- a VERY playful and cozy one of a kind, hand woven freeform shrug!
This morning, bright and early, much earlier in fact, than I was planning on starting my day, the doorbell rang.
The courier took one look at me and apologized several times for waking me up (there was no faking, the “I’m really awake” thing… nope. No chance of that). He then assured me that it was -20 and truly horrible and I should go back to bed.
I did.
We had been out monstrously late at an annual event that we cherish- dear friends of ours who have the hospitality gene big time, have a gorgeous gathering once a year. It’s their ‘Chocolate Party’. They make fabulous handmade chocolates and then invite their musician friends and spouses to make and enjoy gorgeous music and eat heavenly chocolate.
I ate too much chocolate and enjoyed the bliss of spectacular music and promised myself a late start to Monday morning.
Which didn’t quite happen, but believe me, the package that arrived was worth hauling my post-chocolate weary self out of bed for.
See what I mean? Wouldn’t you jump out of bed, no matter how few hours you’d slept and how much chocolate you’d eaten the (verrrrrry Late) night before?
If you knit, you want this book.
If you don’t knit, you will want to learn.
The VK Stitchionary is better than chocolate, and that is saying a lot.
Although…. I have to warn you that it may interfere with your sleep, as it is a real page turner and ‘Ooooh…. gotta have that, gotta do that….’ is certainly going to be a theme as you browse through it.
Yep. It’s a winner.
And, of course, the usual declaration: Yes, I did receive this book as a review copy and no, I do not profit in any way by telling you that I love love love it. (To be honest, if I receive a review copy of a book and I ~don’t~ like it, I just won’t review it. I know how hard it is to create a book, so I am not going to say anything that will hurt the other author. So, when I review a book, you know that I DO indeed like it, or in this case, LOVE it.)
Yesterday, a lady who had just bought my Rosie Recycle doll book (link)
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asked me a very good question. (I love good questions!) 🙂
She said that she always wears pants to work, and would like to be able to make pants for her Rosie Recycle doll, too, and how could she do that?
Using regular fabric to sew them would be a real pain, so how to do this?
Like I said: Great question!
Here’s one answer: Weave a tiny pair of pants on a 2 inch square loom.
I used a vintage Weave It loom to weave two 2 inch squares with embroidery floss:
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Stitch the 2 squares together for 1 inch to make the first body seam:
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Fold one of the squares over, and stitch the leg seam.
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Fold the other square over and stitch the second leg and the remaining body seam. Weave in the ends.
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Thread a strand of embroidery floss through the waistband, pull up to gather and tie a bow.
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And, there you have it! A pair of pants for Rosie Recycle.
Actually, they are a touch short, so for the next pair, I would either make her legs a little shorter, or crochet cuffs onto the pants.
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Vintage Weave It looms can be hard to come by (they are really pricey on eBay), but luckily, there are loom makers who are building lovely little 2 inch square looms (and other sizes, too). The one in this pic came from Dewberry Ridge looms
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I love it when people ask questions….. 😀 (Well, not ALL questions, but you know what I mean!) 😀
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