sweetgeorgia

Handwoven Rug

I’ve been quite infatuated with [Peter Collingwood](http://www.fiberartgallery.com/pages2003/mayjune.html) for a while now. Maybe it’s that he left medicine to be a weaver. Maybe it’s that he wrote [the bible on rug weaving](http://www.petercollingwood.co.uk/trw2.htm). No idea. Or maybe it’s just that fiercely beating a weft into submission is pretty darn enjoyable.

This rag rug was woven on the 45″ Leclerc countermarche loom at Place des Arts. The warp is 132 ends of plain ol’ white cotton butcher string and the weft is old jeans ripped or cut into 1/2″ strips. Sometimes, I cut the jeans with sewing scissors… other times, I got tired and started ripping the cloth… and other times, I used a fancy Olfa rotary cutter. There were a couple different colours of denim and they all blended together and created a bit of a mottled result. I wove for about one yard and cut the rug off the loom, finishing the ends on a sewing machine.

It’s such a good feeling. Save your denim. Recycle something. Get a workout. All at the same time!

I think it took only about three short sessions of weaving at Place des Arts to weave this up. At times, I think the loud banging from the loom as each shot was whacked into place frightened the other students in the class. I heard someone whisper, *”Felicia Lo. She can beat the snot out of you.”*

my bags are full

Vancouver has a new yarn store, hurrah! Yes, we went to the grand opening at three bags full on Saturday morning… see the view:

The shop opening was packed with friendly knitters, flipping through pattern books and scrummy yarns while snacking on the cutest little cupcakes. There’s a computer terminal set up near the back of the shop where you can look up knitty.com and double-check yarn requirements… so handy. I bumped into fellow weaver, Barb, as well as Astor, the local knit & crochet instructor and knitwear designer.

Oh oh oh, and I bought myself Norah Gaughan’s new book “Knitting Nature”. So many things I want to make now…

Afterwards, we headed over to Nat Bailey Stadium for a friend’s company picnic/BBQ. With over 700 people at this picnic, there were plenty of activities planned from wallclimbing to bocce to… get this… _human foosball!_

You strap yourself into this velcro belt which doesn’t allow you to move from your “post”… so it really is just like foosball!!

Ok, back to fibre. Via Louisa’s blog I found out that Hannelore from Sun Bench Fibres is retiring and she sold all her inventory to Birkeland Bros on Main Street. So, if you go by Birkeland Bros right now you’ll find some weaving yarn, yummy Ashland Bay spinning fibres, and some weaving/spinning/knitting books. I don’t know if Birkeland is going to keep on with supplying weaving stuff, but it would be wonderful… to have a walk-in shop in Vancouver where we could buy weaving yarn and shuttles, rather than having to order everything by mail-order. Bah. Oooh, someplace like my beloved Weaving Works but in Vancouver.

And speaking of weaving, I’ve decided not to take the fall weaving class at Place des Arts for now. I’m so short on time these days and plus I’ll be missing nearly half the classes because of our upcoming trip to China and Japan. It’s two hours of driving from Kits to Coquitlam and back and that’s time that I could plug into doing actual weaving. I already have several projects planned and several warps ready to go… I just need the time to sit and weave. But to make sure that actual weaving occurs, I’m going to designate one night to weaving (or knitting, or spinning) — no work, no email, no television, no interruptions.

Once I get through these plain weave, twill, and log cabin projects, I’m sure I’ll want to learn something new. Maybe I can sign up for class in January… but that’s a long way off. But if you can take classes at Place des Arts, you should — it’s really the very best place in the Lower Mainland to learn to weave. The facility is incredible and I’m always so grateful for their generosity in lending equipment and resources — so essential to learning and practice.