Tag Archives: small loom weaving

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)

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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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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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:

Saori-tunic-shirt-yardage

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

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

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

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.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

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.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

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:

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

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?

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

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.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

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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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?

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

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.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

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.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

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.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

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

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

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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December 31, 2008 · 4:37 am

Inkle Loom Dimensions

Recently, someone asked me about the dimensions of my inkle loom.

So, I’ve taken pictures of my loom and measured it, in hopes that this helps her husband in building her inkle loom.

My husband built mine from reclaimed wood from pallets, and it’s VERY hard wood.

You need hardwood for an inkle loom, as you put so much pressure on it.

I have woven everything from rugs to garments to bags to bookmarks on this loom. I love it.

inkle-loom-6

I am not alone in loving my inkle loom…. my cats LOVE to help me warp it!

inkle-loom-1

inkle-loom-2

inkle-loom-3

inkle-loom-4

inkle-loom-5

All images and content on this blog are copyright and not to be reproduced without permission.

Image source: Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

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December 24, 2008 · 12:13 am

Weaving Words

I love weaving words into inkle woven bands.

tottie-and-dame-julian-3

In this picture, Tottie Tomato is wrapped in the words of Dame Julian of Norwich’s prayer:

And all shall be well

and all shall be well

and all manner of things shall be well…

tottie-and-dame-julian-1

tottie-and-dame-julian-2

I love this prayer and say it allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the time……….

To pay homage to Dame Julian and her wonderful prayer,  I wove the bands that I used to shape her body (and her banner) on my inkle loom. I crocheted her hands and head, and wove the remainder of the elements of the sculpture on various other small looms.

I use a simple pickup technique for weaving words.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I think I should put ‘do a video of  weaving words’ on my to do list!

The images in this blog entry are copyright and not to be used by anyone else for anything else….

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December 16, 2008 · 6:20 am

What’s on your loom for Christmas?

christmas-08-weaving-3

It wouldn’t be a proper Christmas without at least a little weaving!

My daughter and I are co-creating a present for her husband.

I warped up my Cricket (love that loom!) and am weaving up the bands that she is going to use to make him a pair of suspenders.

I wove about 20 feet of really nice bands…. I’ll show you pics when she’s got the suspenders done….

christmas-08-weaving-2

By the way, my husband made me that shuttle one year for my birthday. Isn’t it gorgeous?

He also built me my inkle loom, which I am working with to weave bands that say different things for different members of the family:

christmas-08-weaving-1

That’s for my son’s camera bag…. hope he likes it.

I love doing pickup techniques on the inkle. It’s slow, but satisfying!

So, what’s on your loom for Christmas?

Happy Weaving!

Image source: Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

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November 19, 2008 · 5:10 am

Another healing/prayer shawl made with the mitered loop method

healing-prayer-shawls-qs-4

Last week, I wrote about weaving healing and prayer shawls on my Cricket Loom, using a method that I have developed (the mitered loop shawl). Here’s the link to the tutorial

healing-prayer-shawls-qs-5

This is one of the shawls that I have just woven for my daughter. The colors didn’t show up at all well… sigh. It’s much prettier in person! Much more turquoise-y.

Image Source: Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

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November 11, 2008 · 7:38 pm

Weaving a healing or prayer shawl on the Cricket loom

Recently, my sister-in-law had an abscess in her brain, which is devastating and life threatening.

Her friends and family rallied around her and have formed a loving caregiving team.

I decided that as part of my caregiving, I would weave healing and prayer shawls for her and some of her closest friends.

So, I warped up the Cricket Loom from Schacht (I love this loom…. it’s beautifully engineered and weaves like a dream. It’s small enough to be portable – you can weave in the car, and big enough to handle full size projects.)

Here’s the Cricket warped up for one of the healing / prayer shawls:

healing-prayer-shawls-qs-1

I put approximately 150 inches of warp onto the loom, which is pushing the limit, but there’s a reason for that.

I used Caron Simply Soft combined with some tweed weaving thread from my stash for the warp, and the tweed thread for the weft.

I used 2 strands of yarn in each of the slots and holes. I put the tweed yarn only in the holes and the mixture of yarns in the slots.

After I wove the long strip of fabric, I folded it, and stitched the ends together like this:

tottie-tutorial-healing-shawl-1

This forms a long loop. Trim the excess warp strands to a few inches. If you use a sewing machine, use a zig zag stitch. If you do it by hand, work a Philipine edge first to secure the warp strands

Now, fold the ends into points:

tottie-tutorial-healing-shawl-2

Pin the folds in place, and sew the center seam. Stitch the ends in place, and steam and press.

Voila! a beautiful  healing or prayer shawl:

healing-prayer-shawls-qs-2

Image source: Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

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October 21, 2008 · 3:10 am

Introducing Tottie Tomato

Tottie Tomato began her life on another blog that I used to write, in September 2007.

Tottie has had many adventures, and has undergone several transformations.

She’s just had another one!

Yes…. my spool knitters have been oh so busy! and

TADAH!

here SHE IS!

Tottie Tomato has emerged once again from the Story Door and she is delighted with her new body!

Tottie Tomato and I look forward to talking about all the crafts we love –  spool knitting, small loom weaving, doll making, puppets, crochet, sewing, knitting, tatting, recycling and refashioning…. to name just a few.

Tottie and I will be sharing all manner of tutorials and look forward to visiting with you often – and, oh yes, Tottie loves contests, so there will be contests!

Image Source: Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

Please note that all text and images are copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay, and are her original work. They are not to be copied or used in any way without Noreen Crone-Findlay’s consent.

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