Sale and Trade

I sold another scarf!! I'm pretty excited. It's kind of funny, way back in September, my textiles professor stopped by the Fall Fun Fest booth and I happened to be there. She saw one of my scarves and said she LOVED it. She told me that day she would probably be back to buy it later in the day, but she never came back by.

Yesterday in class she asked me if I would be selling any of my work in the annual Holiday Sale that takes place at the Craft Center after Thanksgiving. I told her I wouldn't because I am not a member of the Visual Arts Society. (VAS) She then asked if I still had the blue scarf that she was looking at and if I would want to sell it to her. Here's the picture of the scarf I'm selling to her.


OF COURSE I said yes!! I went home immediately after class and twisted the fringe so that it would be machine washable. I had forgotten to twist it after I took it off the loom. But it's all ready now and I will be charging her $60 for it. It was originally $50, but I think since the fringe was twisted by hand, it was acceptable to charge a little more.

Well funny story, I took the scarf with me to the clay studio last night just in case I had some time to work on the fringe a little more and I was telling a good friend of mine about how I was selling it. She asked if I had any other scarves and I said I did. I told her I had one that was green and purple. (This one)

Well she got really excited and said those were her favorite colors! She asked if I wanted to trade something for it. That was pretty much as exciting as selling it to her. So I'm trading her the scarf for three serving bowls. :)

I really like the idea of people I know having the things I make. I love sharing them with people. (Selling, trading, giving etc) It makes me happy to know that something I made, enjoyed making and loved is going to someone that will really enjoy it. I know my textiles professor will love the scarf she's getting because the moment she saw it, her eyes lit up. She loves textiles and fabric and fibers so she appreciates it on a different level.

I know that my friend will love her scarf because she has an appreciation for crafts, weaving, and loves the colors. It's so encouraging and fun to have work to sell. I really need to build up an inventory so that I'll have MORE things! As of now, I have one bag left from the work I made this summer and that's IT!! Crazy!! I've sold (or traded) three scarves, a bag and a hat. And the hat and two of the scarves were in the past week! I need to get planning projects and get warps wound off so I can get projects going! Success (even in a small form) is very exciting and encouraging.
~JoAnna

Scarf #3

Perhaps it was in response to the Weavezine article, or maybe it's because I've never tried it, but for my 3rd scarf on the warp I'm trying a basket weave. I was trying to figure out something that wasn't twill that I could do on a tabby (straight twill) threading. I was trying to get all complicated with it and it didn't work. So I ended up with a nice tabby variation. I'm actually pretty excited about it.

I really like how my selvages are turning out. I think it's because it's the basket weave and it goes around two yarns instead of just one. I am weaving with two shuttles because I find it easier than to have to wrap around the selvage yarn each time I throw a shot. I am using a rayon weft that matches the tan stripe down the middle. I did some striping at the beginning of the scarf to give it a little more interest. It was a little annoying to do because I kept changing the bobbin every 10 picks to change to a different stripe color, but it looks great so I don't really mind. It's only 5 inches of striping. I think I can handle that. I used a bright yellow for the stripes. It looks really neat!

I've been trying hard not to complain about my lack of tools, space, yarn etc. But unfortunately, I can't stop thinking about Bluster Bay mini end feed shuttles. :( It would probably be beneficial for me to test one of the things first, but I don't have any way of doing that. I have thought about getting a different brand because I think Schacht or LeClerc might be cheaper (I can't remember) But the thing that I really like about the BB is that it's a MINI. It's only 11" as opposed to 13"-15". I generally do narrow warps (Which I'm sure won't always be true) but right now it doesn't make sense to have a shuttle that long. Perhaps when I weave my first blanket I can use it as an excuse to buy a larger one. :) I WISH I could weave my first blanket now. But I'm really just happy I'm able to weave at all. I have to remind myself of that...(Often)

I'm a bit torn because I also really want to get this lovely set of interchangeable circular knitting needles from Knit Picks.

Aren't they pretty?? So I don't know what I want to get. Yeah, yeah. Christmas is coming up. I know. I'll probably ask for fibers tools. (A first, actually) We'll see.
~JoAnna

Plain Weave

I read a WONDERFUL article on Weavezine today. It's about the many different things you can do with a simple plain weave structure.

It really did my heart good to read it. I am a huge fan of plain weave (Which article author, Tien Chiu points out, there is NOTHING plain about it!) I love the simplicity that is tabby. It's simple and beautiful. I don't see that a weaving pattern needs to be complicated in order to be beautiful. It goes back to my entire philosophy as an artist of simple is beautiful. I would like to try collapse weave and see what it does. Now...To get my hands on some wool...
~JoAnna