From Fleece to Fabulous

My first Fleece to fabulous project was a hat for my hunny.  spun, plied, dyed and nalbound.  it is one awesome looking hat.



I used the Oslo stitch to make his "Fire and Ice" hat.  This was really easy and a great way to work on stitch technique and speed gauges. I used a nice White Pulworth wool and when I spun it up boy did it have fly a ways!  I used a lint brush on my shirt when I was done. and had enough there to spin for another few minutes if I had wanted to.  Love that stuff its the silk of wools.

When I dyed it I pre-soaked the yarn in 50/50 vinegar and hot water for a bit to open everything up and prep for the dyes.  I then let the majority of the solution drain from the skeins back into the bowl, and laid the moist yarn skeins onto sheets of cellophane.  Then I grabbed the bottles of red and blue food coloring and started dripping over half the skein in red and half the skein in blue.  I left a bit of a gap for the colours to wick into.  One of my skeins wicked more than I was expecting but aht is ok it still looks great!
once I was finished dripping  the dyes I gently pressed the colors into the yarn making sure it was thoroughly in the yarns.  then I folded up the cellophane burrito style so there would not be any drippage and into the microwave it went.

I microwaved the skeins one at a time for 3 minutes.  boy were they hot!  while one was in the microwave the other was sitting in its microwave safe bowl.  I was surprised at first to see how the burritos expanded while cooking.  I did the 3 minutes on 3 minutes out 4-5 times.  then it was off to the rise water.

Carefully I let each skein soak in very warm water for a minute or two after removing the scorching hot plastic.  each soak was put into progressively cooler water A) to help bring the yarn to a hold-able state and B) to rinse out the excess dyes so it wouldn't bleed when washed later.

Talley's Belt

A good friend of mine Received a gift that she just would never use and immediately thought of me.  Through friends transportation and passing off to more friends the floor model inkle loom finally made it up to me my birthday week.  How cool was that!  So the first weave on it was just for her.

I used Red Heart Crochet Cotton size 10 for this in Green and black.  I used a warped in design for the edges and alternate pick up technique for the diamonds.  To do this pattern you would need to warp your inkle loom as follows:


H-  B B  G  G  B  G   G  B  B  B  G  G  G  G  G  G  G  B  B  B  G  G  B  G  G  B  B
O-  B  B  G  G  G  G  G  B  B  B  B  B  B  B   B  B  B  B  B  B  G  G  G  G  G  B  B



Weave a base of about 5 green stripes before starting your pattern.  The pick up pattern is pretty simple.  Pick ups happen on only one color.  for me I chose the green stripe for my pattern strip because I had an easier time seeing the black threads.  for each black thread you pick up you will push its corresponding green thread down.  the next row will be normal.  no pick ups.  Below is the chart I created for this diamond.

I put a green stripe between each diamond to let them stand out.  As you see the diamond is made by each successive row being alternating black threads.  this means no long floats to get snagged and the weaving stays stable.  Each thread has a two row float, but that is it.  this lets it appear to "puff" up off the base weaving structure.  On the back side of this there is green diamonds instead of the black.  It is completely reversible.  Once you have repeated this process to the desired length Weave the basic stipe for another  5 green stripes and end in your preferred method.  As this was meant as a belt I used a simple knotted fringe at each end and trimmed to equal length.


I hope you have a blast weaving this too!