Harvest what you craft

I have been weaving in the car for years now.  I was always the driver for years since being American put me way more experienced then my Latvian country man who got his drivers licenses when we were together.  I already had ten years on him at that point!  But now I am very happy to be the co-pilot, navigator, backseat driver and weaver (which makes me be not so good at the first 3.  When I began I would tie a knot and close it in the glove compartment (who puts gloves in there now?).  That worked but less...

The final harvest was two weekend ago.  One ton of apple juice!  Thanks to a bunch of friends that came over to help it was relatively effortless.  Now we to try to drink it all is the challange, or not. Since the major harvesting is over around the house and the cold air is blowing in, craft season has begun. I have finished four bands in two weeks.  And those weren't left over projects from last winter (hah those are still there!).  I am very excited to get into pattern bands again with the slot looms.  I have been buying some...

We love seeing the looms around the world.  And what more to love when someone is teaching the weaving gospel to others. Here is a fiber artist Nadine Marchal (see here beautiful works here www.nadine-marchal.com ) teaching with backstrap weaving with harvestloom heddles. doesn't the studio look so inviting!

  Graph paper notebooks are perfect notebooks for high school math students and weavers alike.  Flipping through them is a colorful ride of our personal weaving story.  Sometimes toting the journal is not appropriate for some (portable) projects.   Since I do a lot of back strap band weaving I prefer to print out some graph paper for portability.  Later I will glue it in my notebook for record/reference sake.  It happens a lot the the weave disappears before I can take a picture of it.     Here is what I have found so far to better one of the better...

Double slotted heddles come usually with different numbers of slots across the heddle.  But this one, our original design, comes with two sections.  It makes really nice bands that look like two bands together.  Since it is a couple of 5 pattern strings its very fast.  The band above is all wool from my favorite wool mill, Paces vilnafabrika.  They wash the wool in the traditional way, pond water and some salt.  That way it preserves 70% of the lanolin.  The greatest part about the wool is in this.  It is what makes it warm, antibacterial/microbial and repels dirt and...