Weaving project #10 was another bookmark, and another bookmark gift.  This one for a friend who is currently studying to be a teacher, and who has recently been writing an essay on Maths and on patterns. It seemed appropriate, somehow, to make her a woven, pattern based, bookmark.  I started off considering this, and this, as they seemed very primary school maths, but in the end I decided on this slightly more sophisticated pattern.

My friend is vegan, which complicated things somewhat, as the most successful of my previous projects have involved wool, which is, obviously, animal based. Fortunately, as part of my yarn identification programme (or, lets buy lots of cheap yarn from Kemps and see what I like and what I don't) I had a selection of acrylic or cotton based yarns. The cotton based ones I discarded as I'd found them too splitty when I did weaving projects #5 and #6, which left me with a handful of acrylic options. I ended up using a Stylecraft Special DK (in Raspberry Marl) warp, and a Jarol Supersoft DK (in white) weft thread - both much thicker than I'd usually use which has left it a bit heftier than normal. However, also being thicker, it took a fairly short time to make up - in the order of 2 hours - which was handy as this was a bit of a last minute gift idea.

Overall, quite happy with the end result. I think DK is a bit too heavy for a bookmark normally, but might well get experimented with a bit more on something a bit bigger as it certainly holds the pattern together well. This was also the first time I really had a very pale weft over a dark warp - and I quite like the effect of the colour from the warp peaking through. Again, I think another experiement of light weft might be in the pipeline (fortunately my yarn pile has some options for me to work through!). 

Weaving Project #11 isn't going to be a bookmark for a change! Watch this space.

I'd spotted a draft at handweaving.net that I thought would work well as a bookmark. When I made project #8 I transcribed the pattern on to squared paper, and as that worked well I thought I'd try that again. And I'm glad I did as I'd neglected to realise that as I was only using 16 warp threads (2 x plain for the edges, 2 x 6 for the patterned bit, 2 x plain for the edges again), and the draft was a 6 warp repeater, then I needed to get everything lined up perfectly in the plan so that I could make the most of the pattern. So, I had another attempt as can be seen from the page below and got it right this time.

This draft repeats on a 6 warp, 12 weft pattern, and this made it take quite a lot of concentration and I felt I needed to be quite alert to do it, so no weaving whilst watching the tv or anything. And little chance of remembering the pattern - I had to keep referring to my plan. The photo below shows progress at 4 repetitions and it was, to my eyes anyway, starting to look pretty good.

It feels like this has taken quite a long time to finish, partially because I've been distracted making granny squares and partially because I felt it needed concentration. However, having just checked through my notes, it is only 2 weeks since I warped the loom, so it isn't really that long. January seems to have been a long month already.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with. I need to think of a good back-of-bookmark solution though, as it never feels completely finished off when it's a wool based bookmark as the thread ends aren't as inconspicous as they were with the thinner threads.

And, just so I remember, the warp was Debbie Bliss eco baby and the weft was Rowan pure wool 4 ply, both bought from nearby C&H Fabrics. 

So, the edges still aren't completely straight, but they're definitely heading in the right direction. The tension is pretty consistent along all the bookmark which again is an improvement. So all in all, still progress in the right direction.  And most importantly I still really like the pattern. I am finding the handweaving.net site to be an amazing time sink as I plot and plan future adventures. As I mentioned in my granny square post, I've got a load of different yarns that I can try out for weavability so maybe project #10 should be similar to the sampler I did a while ago where I just try out loads of different yarns to separate the good from the bad and just accept the fact that it'll feel like a bit of a waste of time/yarn but that it's all good practice and learning opportunities.

Last time I blogged about granny squares I'd made 5 of them. I've now made 15 in total. I've found them to be very easy things to make whilst watching the tv, or whilst on a train last weekend.

The first set I made, were made with some lovely Amy Butler by Rowan DK yarn that I'd found at C&H Fabrics in their sale. Although this was in the sale, it wasn't cheap enough that making lots and lots of granny squares wasn't going to hurt eventually. So, I followed a friend's advice and headed over to the Kemps Wool Shop site. I know very little about yarns yet, so experimenting with different materials and textures is part of the learning process - especially for the weaving side of things where splitty yarn makes consistency of weft almost impossible to achive. I decided that as the first batch were done using DK, the rest should be too, so I basically searched for any yarns under £2 that were DK, and that no 2 brand/style combinations could be the same.  This resulted in me ordering 10 balls of yarn (a mixture of 50g and 100g) which turned up on Friday. 

I've now used all but two of them, and my experience has ranged from hate (Sirdar Bonus DK in sunflower yellow - used for squares 11 and 12) to love (Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo in Paintbox pink - used in square 13 - which I found a joy to work with) with a lot of the others being somewhere in between. I still really like the Amy Butler by Rowan ones too, but they're a pretty expensive way to produce Granny Squares. I may give some of them a try out on the picture-frame loom as well to see how they perform in a weaving context.

My plan is to make a blanket out of these squares, it'll be an oddly sized blanket as I have a specific use for it in mind, but it'll be a blanket none the less. I've spotted patterns for quite a lot of variations on the granny square theme, so I'll be trying some of them out as I progress in my learnings.

Just to finish, here's a photo of my favourite one to date.