Gift Quality?

Some people believe that when they start a book, they have to finish reading it. Some people think the same thing about any project they start.

I want to give this plaid lap robe to hospice. Tell me if you think this is good enough to offer to someone who is suffering.

To me, it looks sloppy. Obviously, there is something about the process of weaving plaid that I have not yet mastered. I will eventually try again with a simpler pattern.

I want to make my time and your time worth while. If I can cut out the up and down part of the pattern, I will fill in the across weaving with white and offer that to hospice.
Even that will be a challenge.

What I wanted to show you at the end of this project is how to weave in the ends of the yarn on the sides where you don't want fringe. I guess that will be happening at another time.

I apologize for this glitch. But if you can see that I'm not perfect and that I don't have this whole thing securely under my belt, you will feel more ready to jump in too, knowing that we can grow into this together.

If I can remove the 44 up and down rows that I've put in, I'll show you the final project. If I wreck the whole thing trying to save part of the work - well, we'll be starting on something new over the weekend.

Thanks for visiting with me,

Kathi Linz

Adjusting the Edge - Part 2

When I finished the last stripe, I needed to deal with the extra rows at the edge of the afghan.

I trimmed off the extra rows - MAKING SURE TO LEAVE ENOUGH FOR A HEM!
Don't trim it to the last row that you are going to weave. Leave enough to turn under. Five or six rows are good for a hem.

 

 

The last step is to loosely baste the hem under. Then you can finish weaving your work. Knot the fringe and trim it. And you have completed a beautiful piece of yarn art.

Thanks for visiting with me,

Kathi Linz
 

Adjusting the End

Even though I counted the mesh at least three times, I've obviously miscalculated somewhere along the line. There should only be five rows left on the outer edge after I finish the last two purple rows.

I am not panicking. I am not going back to shuffle the number of rows in any given color. This is an easy fix. I'll be back in a couple of hours to show you what I do about it.

Thanks for visiting with me,

Kathi Linz

More Than One Needle

I've woven most of this afghan with one needle. I tried using two at a time and it worked pretty well. So I dug deep and found, not one, not three, but eight needles. Using them all at once would finish a whole inch in one pass across the afghan.

I've done this weaving before, but I'm doing some experimenting this time around. Let me tell you that this particular experiment was less than a glowing success!

I had trouble moving each needle from one side to the other of the table without dropping one or more other needles off the edge.  The yarn was not cooperative as you will see shortly.

 

 

I discovered that it is much easier to make a mistake than it would be with a single strand at a time.

 

 

Which I pulled out and rewove working between the other strands already in place.

I did figure out an easy way to keep the needles organized. You stick the point into the fabric in the correct order.  Then you know which one to use next as you work across and they don't fall off the edge of the table.

 

 



I think I will stick to using fewer needles from now on.

Thanks for visiting with me,

Kathi Linz

P.S. Three needles is do-able. After that, you have to be very careful.

 



 

Any Questions?

Any craft has its basic rules in order for it to look the way you want it to work. If you know the rules well, you can figure out how to correct or cover the mistakes you will inevitably make.

I'm an expert at making crochet mistakes disappear in the grand scheme of things and am learning quickly how to correct for mesh weaving errors. Nothing about this craft is really difficult. It takes some planning and paying attention to the pattern.

If you have any questions that I haven't addressed or, if you have information that I haven't stumbled upon yet, please add comments.  I would love to hear from others doing this particular yarn art.

I'll try to post my progress tonight.

Thanks for visiting with me,

Kathi Linz

Erasing a Mistake

I tried to weave a six-pointed star. Emphasis on "tried".

First, I laid out two perpendicular lines so I could keep track of the pattern I saw in my mind.

I started with purple to make the first point of the star. It was to be a quilt-like pattern with six diamonds meeting in the middle and forming the points on the outer edges.

I finished the purple section and went on to the peach colored section. Between the two diamonds, I had already covered half of the area.

It simply didn't come out the way I'd planned.

So how do you undo, redo, fix something that goes wrong?

If you've done something in a long straight line that doesn't turn out the way you'd like it to, just grab the end and pull. You can use the yarn again.



If you've woven back and forth with one length of yarn - and if you are very patient - you can unweave it by pulling up a loop near the end of your work and working it loose.

I chose not to do it that way. I pulled up a loop at the turn of my weaving and cut the yarn in several places. If you do this, be careful that your scissors don't catch in the mesh.



Then you pull the cut ends to take out the yarn.

 

 

The mesh is not harmed and you can start over or make the corrections as necessary.

 

By the way, I am not going to give up on this pattern.  I've just decided not to start here. I think a little more practice and a couple more test runs will get the job done.

 

Thanks for visiting with me,

 

Kathi Linz