Wondering Where We Went?????

Well, it's certainly been a While and you're about to see Why

and Watch out for  those W's, it seems that a theme is developing...

Weather, Weaving & even Owls Who "Whoot".

The weather since we returned from our Four Corners outing

has been unbearable, so Whether I liked it or not, I stayed
within the rooms of our house, and started Weaving...

Once I wound my warp on my warping
board, I started weaving some mug rugs
using tapestry technique.  The design is placed
under the warp and used as a guide as I weave.

When I finished winding the warp
and weaving, I ended up with 16
handwoven coasters.

which I will be selling at an arts & crafts show in Dec.

And what does a weaver do when the warp is all
woven... wind another warp and WEAVE something new!!

The Wards invited us to their new home
and while watching the desert from their patio,
we were rewarded when a "whoot owl" (artistic license)
did some fancy  posing...

and wondered who we were looking at!!!!
(You're on your own own now.)

Well, back to the loom.  As you walk into the weaving
room you can see that I'm "warping" the loom.  The
warp has been wound around the back beam (left), over the top
and I'm ready to sit at the front (right) to continue.

Weaving is an interlacement of threads that are either
up or down.  These wooden bars are called harnesses
and I have 12 on this loom, but am only using 4.
The threads must be threaded in a certain order...
in this case (l-r) the first thread will go thru the eye of
the heddle on harness 3, then harness 1, then 4, then 2.
  This "repeat" repeats for the width of the warp which
is 24" wide with 20 warp threads per inch.
You got it. that's 480 warp threads... 

Weaving is a multi step process and each step
has to be completed without errors or the next
step will give you grief... This hook makes the
warp threading process easier.

The first 4 Warp threads have been threaded correctly,
only 476 more to  go... 

Whew - warp threaded and tied in bundles to hold them
in place for the next step.

All those warp ends are threaded thru a reed.  This
reed has 10 slots per inch so I carefully thread  threads 2 per  slot
and then tie them to the front of the loom.  

Now the fun begins, the Weaving.  All those cords
hanging below the cloth are tied to my foot trreadles. 

The weaving instructions
are on the diagram taped to the front of my loom, which
tells me which foot treadle to step on in which order and
which color Weft should be on the bobbin and currently
in the shuttle.  

I've warped my loom with 5 yards of thread,
enough to weave 4 kitchen towels!!!
Welcome to the Wonderful World of Weaving

Thought I'd "wind" up this blog with  the weather,
which has done a 180... from blistering hot to Monsoon...
with wind, rain, thunder, lightening & flooding.

Water washed the streets... The Phoenix area gets
about 9" of rain annually.  This monsoon brought
our area 2.56" in 24 hours and Phoenix got over 5".

A benefit, cooler temperatures.  Today we had
a low of 67 and a high of 83... and I welcomed
the wonderful temperatures on my morning Walk.