Category Archives: Loom & looms & small loom weaving

December 5, 2011 · 12:23 pm

New video tutorial on how to weave smooth edges with 2 colors on Martha Stewart loom

I was asked a very good question last week.

A lady on Ravelry was having a hard time with wonky edges on the Martha Stewart loom, when she wove with more than one color. How to fix this?

2 color weaving on Martha Stewart loom by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c

By the way in the photo above, I couldn’t resist including the yummy cupcake my daughter made for her little one’s birthday – I don’t recommend eating while weaving! 😀
Here’s the link to the video tutorial that shows the nifty trick that I have figured out for making lovely edges when weaving on small looms.
And yes, this technique works great for potholder looms, too!

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Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, tutorial & how to, Uncategorized

Tagged as Martha Stewart loom, Noreen Crone-Findlay, potholder loom, small loom weaving, video tutorial, weaving technique

November 29, 2011 · 7:42 pm

More photos of projects from the Lily Speed-O-Weave loom book

A lady on Ravelry just asked for more of a preview of what is in the Lily Speed-O-Weave loom book (link to page on my website)

Lily Speed-O-Weave Loom book by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c)

The first two sections of the book teach a ton of useful and neat techniques for working with the Lily Speed-O-Weave looms- there are several different ways of wrapping the looms, how to tie the intersections, how to weave more than just hexagons on the hexagon loom ( half hexagon motifs and triangle motifs), how to make easy linings for projects, how to spool knit edgings over a core, how to make butterflies and hearts on little triangle looms (don’t have a small triangle loom? I’ve made a couple of video tutorials on how to weave triangles on the potholder loom. See Potholder loom page ), plus the special hexagonal grid paper that I drew to be able to design with the hexagons. (Hexagons are tricky critters until you unlock the code on them! 😀 ) As well, there are instructions on how to work with the square and rectangular Lily Speed-O-Weave loom. And a whole lot more….

Then, there are 19 different projects:

Lily Speed-O-Weave Loom book by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c)

How to make hexagonal AND square baskets from upcycled fabric strips from torn up clothing- of course, you can use yarn, roving, string or cord to make the baskets, but I really enjoy using fabric strips, so I did the baskets with them.

Lily Speed-O-Weave Loom book by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c)

I already wrote about this freeform stole: Link

Lily-Speed-O-Weave-monster-designed by Noreen Crone-Findlay (coppyright)

and Monster Dear and Little Bunny: Link

Lily-Speed-O-Weave-Snuggle-Bunny-designed by Noreen Crone-Findlay (coppyright)

And then, there’s the coat that is so awesome that someone bought it the first time I wore it!

Lily Speed-O-Weave Loom book by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c)

And this elegant and cozy capelet

Lily Speed-O-Weave Loom book by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c)

I love stoles and shawls, so I design, make, and wear a lot of them:

Lily Speed-O-Weave Loom book by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c)

And, I love vests:

Lily Speed-O-Weave Loom book by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c)

The Lily Speed-O-Weave loom is great for potholders and placemats:

Lily Speed-O-Weave Loom book by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c)

And, bags! Lots of bags! (and I also included a pattern for making your own wooden handles)

Lily Speed-O-Weave Loom book by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c)

I could keep going : ‘But wait! there’s more! ‘…. but I think that you get the picture- the book is full of wonderfulness!

Order link: Lily Speed-O-Weave Loom book by Noreen Crone-Findlay

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Filed under eco crafts & green projects, Loom & looms & small loom weaving, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as hand woven, Lily Speed-O-Weave loom, Lily Speed-O-Weave loom book, small loom weaving, woven bags, woven basket, woven placemat, woven shawls, woven stole, woven toys

November 28, 2011 · 3:50 pm

Free pattern for Courier Bag woven on the Martha Stewart loom

My new design for a Courier Bag woven on the Martha Stewart loom has gone live on the Lion Brand website 😀

Courier bag woven on the Lion Brand Martha Stewart loom designed by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c)

Here is the free pattern for the Courier Bag woven on the Martha Stewart loom:

[ Lion Brand ‘Yarn Play’ about Noreen Crone-Findlay’s new design for the Martha Stewart loom ]

I am in love with these looms!

Last weekend, I made a video tutorial, showing how to weave a triangle of any size on the Martha Stewart Loom:

You don’t need it for this bag, but it’s VERY handy for other designs! 🙂

And, happily, I have more designs for these great little looms in the works!

🙂
Happy Weaving!
🙂 Noreen

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Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, tutorial & how to, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as bag, Courier bag pattern, free pattern, hand woven, Lion Brand, Martha Stewart Looms, small loom weaving, weaving pattern, woven Courier Bag

November 22, 2011 · 9:58 am

Monster dear and snuggly bunny on the Lily Speed-O-Weave loom

I am a dyed in the wool doll maker. No matter what loom or fiber arts tool I am working with, it doesn’t take long for me to wonder how I could use it to make a doll.

So, it’s no surprise, that as I was designing projects for my new book on the vintage Lily Speed-O-Weave loom, (that’s a link to my website to see more) I had to come up with some fun dolls and stuffies.

Lily-Speed-O-Weave-monster-designed by Noreen Crone-Findlay (coppyright)

Monster Dear was inspired by a book that my daughter loved when she was a very little girl.

It was about a monster who was afraid of the dark. She loved him, so of course, I had to make her one.

This is a new version of ‘Monster Dear’. I think he’ll chase away bad dreams!

And, a ball of squishy soft yarn inspired me to make the snuggly Bunny dolly:

Lily-Speed-O-Weave-Snuggle-Bunny-designed by Noreen Crone-Findlay (coppyright)

I’ve always loved rabbits and bunnies, so I’ve designed and made countless versions of them over the years.

These two fuzzy friends delight me. Ah, the joys of yarn- it’s endless!!!!

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Filed under doll & dolls & dollmaking & doll making, gifts & easy to make gifts & presents, Loom & looms & small loom weaving

Tagged as dollmaking, dolls, Lily Speed-O-Weave loom, soft toys, stuffies, toy making, toys

November 21, 2011 · 7:40 pm

Fanciful freeform stole with Lily Speed-O-Weave motifs, crochet, spool knitting & inkle bands

I am just so happy, as I have been working really hard for the last 9 months on a book that has taken years to create. AND, today, I released it!

It’s: The Lily Speed-O-Weave Loom Book: Fab New How To’s, Designs & Projects For a Vintage Classic Loom (click on the title for the link to my etsy shop)

It’s full of how to techniques, including nifty things that I figured out, like how to weave half hexagons and triangles on the hexagon loom, so you can make awesome stuff. (like baskets and coats and vests and bags and and and)

Lily Speed-o-weave freeform stole by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

One of my fave inspiration pieces in the book is a Freeform stole that I made using hexagons from the Lily Speed-O-Weave loom, as well as crocheted motifs (lots of fairies, flowers, hearts and butterflies), spool knitting, inkle band weaving, potholder loom motifs, and tatting, all connected by crocheted chain stitches.

I wanted to inspire people to think outside the box when they are playing with small loom weaving, and to feel brave about combining it with crochet, tatting, spool knitting and, of course, their Lily Speed-O-Weave loom motifs.

Lily Speed-o-weave freeform stole by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

I couldn’t resist putting in the pic of our greyhound. As soon as I laid the stole down to take pics, he was on it.

He was sure it was for him!

LOL

This stole drapes beautifully and is wonderfully comfortable to wear. Hope it inspires you to play with your yarn in new ways!

😀

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Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as crocheted stole, freeform, freeform weaving, Lily Speed-O-Weave loom, spool knitting, tatting, wearable art

May 21, 2011 · 12:02 pm

Small loom weaving in springtime

All the looms in my studio have been full of happy warps.

As well as working oh so hard on a couple of new books (one on potholder loom weaving and one on Lily Speed-O-Weave looms) as well as designing for magazines, I have been weaving up a storm.

Here’s a little of what’s going on:

I am working on a new freeform weaving jacket that is all in creams, whites and naturals. This is the first sleeve.

There are several yards of the jacket fabric on ‘Patient Zillah’, my ‘paper doll’ manequin- the jacket fabric is the widest, plain cream, highly textured layer under amost a hundred yards of narrow strips of fabric. I wove the jacket fabric on a rigid heddle loom.

I am also working on a tunic or shirt for me and am going to be piecing strips of narrow fabric together for it.

The narrower lengths of fabric were woven on my Structo loom.

I am madly in love with small loom weaving, and dearly love my old vintage looms.

I have had to do some fixing up to make it work, but it’s been pure delight to get it fully functional again.

I put really really long warps on them and have had a delightful time playing with clasped wefts as well as different patterns.

I love the freeform philosophy of weaving- it’s all about feeling free to play and express your creativity in any way that ignites your imagination.

So, when I was learning the ins and outs and ups and downs of the Structo looms, I felt quite free to change my flight plan whenever I got bored with a pattern or became interested in a new one. It’s all about the learning process and I love that.

My shirt/tunic will be a record of some very playful weaving.

I am hoping that he will let me break loose and weave him a much ‘jazzier’ vest to go over the serene shirt!!!

I wanted to do a beautiful, artsy photo of the miles of fabric, draped over the branches of the apple tree that is right outside the studio window. It’s heavenly – stuffed full of glorious blossoms, and oh so beautiful!

BUT!

The mosquitoes are so vicious and the clouds of them are SO intense, that I am barely able to go outside, let alone be draping miles of fabric in the tree! so, you’ll have to use your imagination, and just envision all kinds of lovely fabric strips hanging in this tree:

Would you like to see a little of what I have been up to with my potholder looms in the last year, as I work on the new book?

This is the ‘Gossamer Wings Woven Butterfly Shawl’ to weave on the Potholder loom.

I love this shawl so much that I decided to release it as a stand alone pattern.

You can read all about it, and order the pattern, if you’d like, 🙂 at:

http://www.crone-findlay.com/Crone-FindlayCreationsPotholderLoomWeaving.html

I decided to take a little break and finish the book on weaving on the Lily Speed-O-Weave loom.

I’ve been working on this book, on and off for several years, and finally, after a whole bunch of people have sent me notes, asking for it, I decided: Okay… Just do it!

Of course, I totally under-estimated how long it would take to do it, as I have been re-writing, re-photographing, photo-shopping, then re-doing it all over and over… you know how it goes in the editing and polishing… and besides, I got all inspired and excited and came up with a whole bunch of new projects.

One of the things that struck me this week, is that I really needed to put in at least one project that shows a traditional pattern on the Lily Speed-O-Weave. I have been so busy with coming up with innovative ways of working with the looms, that I forgot that there will be people who want some of the ‘classic’ stuff, too.

So, here’s for the fans of the ‘classics’…. the standard flower pattern…. although, I present it in a way that is a heck of a lot easier to understand than some of the old old booklets.

So, there you have it! A little of what’s been going on in my studio!

Happy springtime and happy yarntime!

And, as always, big hugs all round 🙂

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Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as hand weaving, handwoven, handwoven clothing, Lily Speed-O-Weave loom, Noreen Crone-Findlay, potholder loom, small loom weaving, Structo loom

February 27, 2011 · 4:04 pm

Another woven Gypsy Jacket done

I decided it was time to finish weaving the pieces for the new Saori style Gypsy jacket and get stitching them together.

So… I pulled the plug out and got to work.

Which pleased Ms Kitty enormously.

I like to do most of the stitching by hand, but do re-enforce the back neck edge with machine stitching, as it takes the lion’s share of the weight of the jacket.

After 2 days of stitching away on the jacket, I thought… oh oh… what if I don’t like the jacket…. or what if it doesn’t fit?

I assumed that since the first woven jacket fits just fine, that this one would, too…. and then had the ‘yikes’ about it….

It fits the furgrandkid beautifully, with a little room to spare…

At first I thought that the new jacket was a little shorter than I wanted it to be…. but, my husband disagrees…. he thinks it’s just the right length.

If I do decide to add more length to the hem, it’s easily done. Just weave up a band, and stitch it on.

Alright… this jacket is done… now back to work on the new book! 🙂

The pattern for this jacket is based on pattern # 51 in the Saori pattern book – available from your favorite Saori weaving studio.

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Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as handwoven. handwoven clothing, woven jacket

February 10, 2011 · 10:01 pm

Clasped weft weaving for handwoven Gypsy Jacket

People kept asking me how many hours it took to weave my first “Gypsy Jacket”. See: First Gypsy Jacket

So, I thought that I would set myself a challenge.

I decided that I would weave another one and log in, keeping track of all the hours I put into weaving a Gypsy Jacket.

I logged in an absurd number of hours of weaving time, and decided that I just didn’t want to know anymore just how many hours I put in.

Why did it take so long?

Because I was using a very slow technique, of working with 2 sets of clasped wefts to get more color play into my fabric.

I only used one shuttle, but had yarn on cones to the right of the loom, and yarn on spools on a spool rack to the left of the loom.

The shuttle comes out of the warp strands between picks and sits on the surface of the web, about 6 inches from the left hand edge.
The first motion is to open a new shed, pass the shuttle into the shed, take it out to the left, go under the strands of yarn that are hanging from the spool rack, pull them into the shed with the yarn from the shuttle.

Bring them into the place where you want them to end. There is a double strand of that set of weft strands.
Now, the shuttle goes to the right hand edge and out , and goes under the yarn that is on the cones. The shuttle goes back into the shed, and is pulled up, bringing the 3rd color as far as desired. The shuttle then is moved back to it’s exit point, the shed is closed, beaten, and the next shed is opened. The whole process is repeated.
It’s slow, but you can create pretty intense colorways this way.

Of course, it’s faster to just use one set of clasped weft yarns, but by clasping from both selvedges, you can get some pretty gorgeous patterning.

So far, I have used 5 different looms for this jacket, and still have a couple more that I will be working with to complete the weaving of the parts of the new Gypsy Jacket.

One section was woven with a cradle loom and a small rigid heddle.

And, one section was woven with a small Goodwood frame loom. I love frame looms, and used another frame loom for other pieces of the jacket.

More weaving to go…. and then the sewing.

Would I sell the jacket? Well, yes, actually. 🙂

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Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as clasp weft weaving technique, handwoven clothing, rigid heddle loom, small loom weaving, weaving, woven Gypsy Jacket

January 24, 2011 · 8:30 pm

Hurrah! My Gypsy Jacket is done

Last summer, I bought a huge cone of variegated red shaded mohair at one of our fave thrift shops.

Ever since then, I’ve been thinking: Ooooh…. gotta weave myself a red jacket with that yarn….

Just before Christmas, I thought- Mmmm… why don’t I warp up that neat red mohair and weave myself a new jacket to wear to Jim’s Christmas concert? (My husband, Jim, is a jazz musician extraordinaire, and his trio always does a jazzy Christmas concert every year).

So… I got warped, and wove and wove and wove…and wove up 2 yummy lengths of freeform weaving yardage for the jacket.

I had scissors clutched in my hand, poised above the yardage, about to cut it out, using a pattern that I had never made before.

Luckily, my little inner ‘Oh Oh Voice’ popped up and asked if I was nuts, and shouldn’t I consider making the jacket up in commercial fabric first before I slashed my way through my yards of handwoven treasure?

I went… oh… what a good idea.

I whipped up the jacket in some stash fabric and was aghast to discover that it looked truly horrible on me! Yikes!

Luckily, it looks fab on my daughter in law.

I was so put off by the whole thing that I folded the fabric up, plopped it on the top of a shelf in the studio and carried on with Christmas-ing.

Last week, when I realized that the concert that the ‘Road to Django’ concert that Jim was playing in on the 23rd was a really important one for him, I thought: I need to make something really spiffy to wear to it!

And discovered that I didn’t have anywhere near enough fabric, as I am quite tall and that means that there is a lot of me to cover!

So, I warped up and wove the 2 sleeves for my Gypsy Jacket.

And then, started snipping and stitching it all together.

Did I take pics of the process?

No… my camera is stuffed full of step by step photos for my new book, and so I didn’t want to take the time to deal with those while I was frantically building the jacket.

As we were racing out the door to the concert, I had to leave one pocket still on the loom.

Just not enough time to finish the weaving, and to get it stitched onto the jacket.

I had some doubts, as I was putting the jacket together…. I wasn’t sure that it was going to work.

BUT… I love it!

It is the MOST comfortable jacket – and it’s just plain fun to wear.

NOW… I can hardly wait to get warped up for the next one!

Here’s a larger view of the jacket:

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

What looms did I use? A 24 inch rigid heddle loom, an inkle loom, a potholder loom, a frame loom, and a 2 inch square vintage weave-it loom.

I stitched it all together by hand, but did use my sewing machine to zig zag the cut ends of the fabric.

Yarns: Mohair, silk, wool, cotton, chenille.

Today, I finished weaving the second pocket and stitched it onto the Gypsy Jacket.

By the way, the concert was FABULOUS!!!

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Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as freeform weaving, Gypsy Jacket, hand woven, handwoven, one of a kind jacket

December 30, 2010 · 7:54 pm

Weaving Goddess tapestries with my cat

For weeks and weeks, I have been avoiding working on one of my Goddess tapestries.

I just couldn’t summon the courage to weave her face…

The metaphor or pun is, of course: I couldn’t face her.

Well… I decided yesterday, that I am going to finish weaving her before this year is done.

So, I got out the lovely new sketchbook/journal that my daughter gave me for Christmas, and the gorgeous aquarelle watercolor pencils that my son gave me, and started sketching: