Hi and welcome. I hope that you've been having fun working on your stitching and quilting projects! I've been going a little crazy making mini weavings on paper and cardstock. What fun - and I did learn a lot about how I like to play - it was an interesting self-discovery.
Mini Woven Projects
Although I was a hand-weaver in my 20's and early 30's, I lost the joy that it brought me as life got ridiculously busy. My 15" loom was too noisy to work on while the babies were asleep and by then I had left behind my guild in Timmins and it wasn't fun anymore. I said that I would get back to it when I retired, but I just don't have the patience to deal with another large complicated hobby...yet. 😔
So you can imagine how intrigued I was when TextileArtist.org's Stitch Club had a workshop with Rachna Garodia. She does a lot of large weaving instillations but when her children were young she started weaving on paper. It was portable and perfect for experimentation. So here are my mini woven pieces so far.
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| Earth Tones - weaving on a sketch paper background |
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| Earth Tones - mounted in a card |
Earth Tones was my first playing session. I used sketch paper, jute, wool and strips of denim and batik. They were the closest materials at hand. It turns out that jute is more difficult to weave than yarn because yarn fibres attach to each other more than jute. This makes yarn easier to compact.
After successfully making my first mini woven piece, I ventured to different paper and yarns. I used a piece of left-over card stock with perle cotton for the warp, as well as the bottom and top of the piece. I wove in some batik strips (earth and sky) at each end, and then added left-over pieces of woven fabric from my woven jacket. Since the pieces were not as large as the width of the piece, I wove the sections next to them with beautifully hand-dyed variegated yarn. I really love how that came out. I used a gorgeous strip of orange batik in the middle to separate each section.
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| Autumn Beauty card stock 5" square, weaving 3½" square |
I then got very experimental and used a pink ribbon for the warp of Pink at Night. I had forgotten that when you use chunky yarn, you can cover most of the warp, even if you do a plain weave. However, when the fabric used in the weft is not fuzzy or chunky, you really get the effect of the plain weave and see both the warp and weft. I played around a lot with this one because I wasn't getting the look that I wanted. In the end I decided to balance out the fuzzy and chunky yarns with other materials.
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| Pink at Night - experimenting with ribbon in the warp |
I haven't mentioned this yet, but because the space available to weave is very limited in these tiny pieces, it's best to weave the bottom and top first. Then you work your way to the middle. In this next piece, Blue Seas, I just wanted to play with blue. The warp and the top is no 5 perle cotton. I used some gorgeous hand-dyed yarn at the very bottom (blue) and the top (turquoise). I added lighter perle cotton, a few rows of batik fabric, novelty yarn and one row of navy blue fabric with yellow specks.
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| Blue Seas min woven piece |
This next woven piece was done with four types of yarn. I started off with a hand-dyed white yarn with pink and yellow specks, a green novelty yarn with tuffs of colour, a light and dark wool with a beige strand and finally an orangish wool woven in plain and soumak weave. As I was playing, I was thinking that all of the layers look like part of a desert. The top looks like salted caramel, then there's chocolate and pistachio ice cream with sprinkles and a layer of white cake. I called this one Salted Caramel Sunday.😋
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| Salted Caramel Sunday |
This tiny piece is the last one I've made. It's on water colour paper what was painted for another project. Since there's a design on it, I wanted to make a tiny woven piece that would work with the painted section. It's got some finer perle cotton and yarns, as well as a piece of tule and ribbon. I added a few rows of soumak and plain weave.
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| Mini Sorbet 4" x 3" watercolour background with a 1½" x 2½" weaving |
Table Scraps Challenge
October's Table Scraps Challenge was neutral with denim. That was the first hand woven piece I made. When I looked at the Challenge's "rules", it did mention quilting, so Autumn Beauty fits the bill - with pieces of quilted fabric inserted within the weaving. 😎
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| Earth Tones with neutral colours and denim |
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| Autumn Beauty with quilted fabric woven into the piece |
What I learned
- Sketch paper is a little bit flimsy to weave on (but still doable) while card stock, watercolour and mixed media papers are perfect.
- I love adding strips of fabric in the pieces, especially when they aren't wide enough and weaving is required to finish the section.
- Experimenting when I had no expectations was much easier than when I had an idea in mind. I found it more frustrating to get a specific look but then it was wonderful when I solved my challenge. I guess that playing is a bit of give and take. If you want to end up learning something useful you probably need to be challenged!😊
- I can't tell you what most of my yarn is made of because I tend to buy based on colour and not the material. This is fine since I use most of it for fibre art and now weaving!
- After purchasing (and finding) photo frame cards, I was able to measure the size of the weaving so that they would fit the card opening. Two of my mini woven pieces don't fit the cards, so I'm going to purchase magnets to stick behind them. They would look wonderful on the fridge!
- I love making these mini woven pieces because it's so easy and fast. With bits of yarn, paper and anything else you want to add (fabric, found objects, etc.) you can make something beautiful in under 2 hours.
Related links
- Rachna Garodia: Website, Instagram
- Articles on TextileArtist.org: Rachna Garodia: Weaving without rules
Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Why not check some out after you've linked up below? Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday,
Off The Wall Friday, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2025, Oh Scrap!, Slow Sunday Stitching, Table scraps Challenge,
FM Mavericks
Welcome to week 555 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a very productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.
Sally of Crafts, Cavies and Cooking has finished FMQ and binding her wonderful quilt. I'm sure that we'll see some glamour shots soon, but here it is, all bound!
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| Sally's wonderful FMQ and bound quilt! |
Kat of Scrapbox Quilts made and FMQ this lovely Elmo child's quilt. Check out her various FMQ - you can see it best on the back! It was a great project to practice on.
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| The front of Kat's Elmo quilt |
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| The back of Kat's Elmo quilt |
Donnalee is making more runners for her guild's upcoming quilt show in January. The top runner is made of Charley Harper fabric that she picked up at her guild's free table - what luck! See Donnalee's other runners on her post.
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| Donnalee makes a runner using Charley Harper fabric |
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| Donnalee's finished Thanksgiving table runner |
Deb of the Scrappy Quilter finished this lovely Little Owls children's quilt. Her quilting ran along the horizontal lines and outlined each owl. There is even a surprise owl block in the back!
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| The front of Deb's Little Owls quilt. |
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| The back of Deb's Little Owls quilt. |
Gail from Quilting Gail used up some recent scraps to make two lovely zip pouches and a placemat.
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| Gail's lovely zip pouches and placemat |
Brenda of Song Bird Designs participated in the Out of the Dark Blog Hop. What a great runner!
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| See more details of Brenda's FMQ on her post |
It's now your turn!
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