Having started weaving again has become a little addictive.  It has been a whole new way to play with colours and palettes, so it's all I've wanted to do lately.  Luckily for this week I do have some fun developments in technique for weaving as well as some news to share!

Let's start with the tool/technique that has made it easier to set the warp for my ongoing weaving obsession.

Here at my apartment I don't have a proper dining table, let alone one that's long enough to set a decent sized warp.  Lucky for me, I do have this long board (Home Depot- about $15) that was once a stand in for my old bed.  Propping up the end that holds the post, and setting the other end against one of the bars running horizontally on the bottom of my loom, I am able to set a long and consistent warp.  

 Now to the news!  

Scarves like this one will soon be for sale on my website.  

I will also be looking into setting up an Etsy shop, as a lot of people have recommended that for the ease of buyers and better visibility of my products.  Don't worry though!  Everything I make and plan to sell will be posted here first.  I deeply appreciate all of you who read my blog, and would like you to get the best opportunities and advantages.   With the amount of craft-crazy ramblings you take in, you deserve it.

I am also going to be experimenting a bit more with the weaving in the upcoming weeks, and hope to share some fun trials and errors with all of you, as well as finding some innovative ideas that may make an appearance in the shop.

Now back to this lovely scarf! 

This dear darling was quite the lesson in paying attention to different weights of yarn in weaving.  I wanted to experiment with two starkly different weights and found that it can create a funky and beautiful "bubbling" effect in the places where the heavier weight yarn was paired with itself in contrast to the lighter weight yarn.  

I plan to block a bit to make it a tiny bit more even, but overall it is quite a fabulous texture to the scarf that gives it a lot of life.  Having the two weights didn't make it inconsistent on the sides of the weaving, but still had a noticeable effect on the shaping within.  

Don't forget to follow the Sweet Crafterlife on Instagram if that's your cup of tea, and either way:

Stay sweet, stay craft, and stay tuned.

After seeing my first attempt at weaving a scarf, my magnificent mother requested that I make her a woven scarf as well out of some luscious purply grey sock yarn and some of her magical handspun yarn.

I did the warp all in the sock yarn so that when it came to the weft, the beautiful variation and colour could be fully appreciated all on its own.

It was magnificent to work with the variation in this yarn- though I will warn any weaver that works with handspun yarn that single ply will in fact try to pull the sides in and make the project look rumpled and sad when first pulled off of the loom(even when it's such a beautiful colour).  

Do not accept defeat though, if you choose the path of single ply.  A little bit of water and acupuncture into a blocking board can save this rumpled, bumpled friend. 

Then you can simply sit back and appreciate the rich and vibrant colours you've put on display.

When this scarf was blocked and had dried, my mother was thrilled and quickly made it clear that it's hers forever.  After all the creations she made that I.... claimed...  I figured that was only fair.

Stay sweet, stay crafty, and stay tuned.

With my knitting, sewing, spinning, wood burning, drawing, and newly founded embroidery among the countless other crafty and artsy skills that I've acquired over the years I realised something......

I could really use another thing to do.

Years ago my mother got me a loom, because at the time I did a lot of weaving on those itty bitty kids' looms and she thought I might want something a little bigger for when I was older.  Sadly I got distracted from weaving and ended up investing more time in sewing than just about anything else.  Yet, being a smart woman, my mother kept the loom- knowing in the way only mothers do that someday I would return to this old friend.

I lit a candle for ambience and to connect my nylon cords to finish assembling the loom, and with the might weaving spirits watching over me I set to work.

However, the weaving spirits appeared to be angry with me (or at least wanted to give me a hard time for giving up the noble art) for as I commenced setting up the loom, problem after problem ensued.  The first being that I burned my fingers dreadfully when connecting the ends of the nylon cords together.  The directions I was following ensured me that I should be fine to press the molten hot nylon together to make the long strand one continuous loop, but they were sorely mistaken.  Then again, maybe they think purple thumbs is a good time- I'm not one to judge.

My next issue was that I had the case of the missing dowels for the loom.  Everything except one wing nut and the dowels were present, so I had to raid the house for a dowel and hope that the wing nut was something I could temporarily live without.  Lucky for me my mother has a plethora of dowels and generously parted with one for me.  

Then with the wind in my sails I began to set the warp for my loom.  

Most of the warp was easy to get ready, except for the part where the weaving spirits gave me a dose of humility by letting me skip one of the slots on the loom.  I only had redo 20 rows, but I did start to feel concerned that the weaving spirits would show no mercy for me.  

Not to be discouraged though, I persisted well into the night to finish setting my warp and rediscovering this amazing art.

Feeling foolishly confident I got ready for the next step, only to realise that this dowel I scavenged was far too long to wrap around with the warp.  

At this point it was 3 in the morning, and I thought wielding a hand saw maybe wasn't my best decision after the series of mishaps.  I went to bed and decided to leave the wood working for the morning.  

In the morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I grabbed my family's hand saw and went to town on the dowel.  

I could tell that the weaving spirits were starting to humor when I sawed the dowel so that it would be small enough, and left enough of the off piece to hold the other ends of the warp and still be able to wrap around the warp beam.  

All I had to worry about after it was sawed off was to sand it down, which is not a problem!  

I rolled the warp in on the warp beam and got ready to start thready the warp into the eye holes of the reed.

I started getting excited, though a little envious of how easy it was to thread these eye holes compared to the sewing needles I use.  Working with the baby alpaca yarn soothed my heart and made me feel a little more confident about how the weaving spirits felt towards me.  Perhaps they had forgiven me for my absence.

Next I sectioned out the warp inch by inch, knotted the ends at all the same length, and prepped myself for the first weaving I've done in almost 10 years.

I used some thick cotton garden post thread to start out and get the warp where it needs to be, and then set up my shuttles to run my sweet baby alpaca yarn through.  

I messed up a couple of times in the beginning by missing the warp in a few places, but eventually the weaving hands remembered and took over.  

After a great deal of practice to work out the kinks I hope to get to a point where I can put the woven creations in my shop here- so keep you eyes pealed!  And as always-

Stay sweet, stay crafty, and stay tuned.