The last shawl took me months to complete. But this one is nearly done in just over a week; as far as I can work out, the difference has been down to;
1) a longer needle. I don’t know what the technical name is or what it was originally for, but this needle is over 12″ long, straight and quite sturdy with a big eye. I’d have said some kind of knitting implement, maybe? The only problem is that it has a sharp point; a blunt one would have been better for this job. I swapped to a “proper” weaving needle towards the end as the big one was too long for the far corner.
2) the “loom” is much less wobbly than the hardboard square was. It has stood up to the weaving process very well, in fact, and I expect to be able to use it again.
3) not using eyelash yarn – that was a total nightmare to keep track of…
4) moving the loom around to adjust the working height; on the floor when I was working near the top, then steadily moving it up onto first a chair, then on top of the budgies’ cage towards the end. Said budgies went very quiet, though I can’t say the same for the cockatiel, who evidently thought it was all very funny.
It is now finished and off the loom; tomorrow I will “full” it and see how it’s turned out. There’s rather more rescued yarn in there than I realised, too; about half, in the end.
The pure new wool hanging down from the top came from a charity stall at the market at the weekend; I only wanted to buy the plain undyed stuff but he insisted I took the whole lot for the same ridiculously-low price. My neighbour trotted off happily with three skeins of black, I kept the three skeins of assorted blues, and we spent a happy afternoon “handpainting” the three plain ones with Kool-Aid sent by kind e-friends in the States. Excellent fun! The blue wool will be appearing in another weaving project soon; not sure what we’ll do with our gloriously-technicolour handpainted wool, but I’ll think of something. Not to mention the three black fleeces I’ve “won” on Freecycle this week and have to pick up at the Market tomorrow…
Wish me luck with the fulling, tomorrow!
A recycled lifestyle... 