Back to knitting, spinning and a little tablet weaving.

Well now that the table runner is finished I am going back to knitting and spinning but in the meantime a little tablet weaving practice.

Here is a photo of the band.

I know I have one card in that tablet weaving that isn't quite threaded properly but its just a practice band , once again to learn from errors and get a feel for it using my newly made plastic cards. I am pretty happy with them in general and they are not to hard to handle.

The knitting that I am doing is my alpaca blanket.
I have designed a graph of alpaca and translated it into a written knitting pattern.
So far its going really well.
I chose a basket weave pattern and the row of alpaca's will go about midway up and it will be finished with the basket weave pattern.
Here are the photo's of my progress

 The picture above and below show the little hoof's and bottom of  legs on the alpaca's

 This is the basket weave pattern.
The alpaca has been carded and handspun by me and the fiber is from a work friend who have three beautiful boys with the most gorgeous fiber. I have 10 different shades of alpaca fiber that I have bought whole fleeces of but I believe there are at least 22 different shades.
I wished I had more colours.

and this is the graph that I painstakingly made before recounting and translating it into a written pattern.
Lap Blanket has 187 stitches , so it may take a while as its still fairly hot here in Australia. Nights are getting a little cooler. Gorgeous weather I adore it.
So thats about it.
Family coming for a Roast Pork tonight. Must get cracklin'

Wedding Table Runner Finished - Part 3

The table runner is for the centre of the main wedding reception table. I can't believe i finished it.


 Finished Table Runner . Measures 2 meters long and 28 cm wide.
My dining table is an eight seater.
Cotton Acrylic warp and weft. It is as soft as velvet to feel but has heaps of body and firmness.
It is a warp faced weave.

 The pattern on it is a baltic pick up pattern. I altered it to suit the design and theme of Sarah's wedding. She is getting married in Fiji on an island  far away from the mainland.

 The band on the end was a pattern that I made up as we wanted something very simple and we felt that there was enough patterning on it.
This band was inkle woven in the same yarn and was very thick to sew on , but a little perseverance paid off in the end.

In total it took about 8 weeks to finish, countless hours and sore arms, was it worth it, Yep it was most definitely.

Warp faced Wedding Table Runner-Part 2

Here is a small video of me weaving the table runner for my daughter on my handmade loom that has been modified all the way through the process. It is been the best learning experience to date with my weaving. I have learnt so much.  Next post are of the finished item.
I am so proud of myself as to what I have achieved.