Woven Rug

The disappointment of my woven scarf  hasn't put me off using my peg loom. This small rug was finished recently and I'm really pleased with it. You'll probably have noticed that some of my recent photos have a snowy background. That's because I took lots of photos when I got the chance and it was nice and bright. The snow has gone again and we're back to our usual grey skies and rain.

The rug is made using the entire width of the loom; three feet wide. The warp took a ball and a half of Wendy Thor super chunky (42.5% wool 7.5% alpaca 50% acrylic). I used shade Baltic - a lovely turquoise. For the weft I used another ball and a half of the Thor super chunky, the ball of Harrris tweed I bought on holiday (near the bottom of the post) and several balls of Rowan pure wool DK. I had to use six strands of the Rowan pure wool wound together to make it as thick as the Thor super chunky. 

I made the weft rows as close as I possibly could so the rug is firm and thick. Not good for a scarf but excellent for a small hearth rug. The weaving swallowed up vast quantities of yarn that wasn't at all cheap. In the end, I spent more than £40 on the materials! But I love it.

I'm now trying to think where else needs a rug!

Bye for now and thanks for all your comments. I look forward to seeing them.

The Peg Loom Scarf

This is it - the peg loom scarf. Made to be given as a gift along with a crocheted washcloth and Skye soap (see here).

The scarf is woven using a 200g ball of James C Brett Marble Chunky, a lovely soft acrylic yarn. I kept the ball band in a safe place so I could tell you the colour but it's so safe that I can't find it now! Anyway, I'm pretty sure the colour is MC27. A code for the colour doesn't really convey anything. I love it when they actually give the colours a proper name. Names like Loganberry and Ice and Orchid. Of course, the name doesn't always convey the exact colour but I think it helps.

In my opinion the scarf looks really lovely. What you can't tell from the photo is that it is very thick (not a terrible fault, if you want a warm scarf) and also very stiff. No matter how much I try to like it, I just can't.

Now I have two problems. What to do with the peg loom scarf and what to make as another gift.

The first problem shall be solved some day in the future when I think of some other use for this scarf. At the minute I'm considering how to make it into a wall hanging - after some adjusting.

The second has already been solved simply by crocheting another Queen Anne lace scarf using the Stylecraft Alpaca in the beautiful Orchid colour that I had left over from making other gifts (see the link at the start of this post).

My conclusion is that either I still don't know how to weave a scarf that I'm happy with or that a scarf is better knitted or crocheted. Does that mean I've given up on my peg loom? Definitely not. I have plans to make a small rug just as soon as I can get the time.

Have you ever made a scarf on a peg loom? What did you think of it? All comments gratefully received!

It's great to have some new followers. I'm sorry I haven't been able to do much blog reading and commenting this past week or so. Hopefully I'll get more time soon!

All the best for now.



Edited to add: If you want to see details about the peg loom I have then look at this post; near the bottom.

More Christmas Gifts

First I'd like to say welcome to new followers and thank everyone for their lovely comments. A few have asked for the washcloth pattern so I'll get that done as soon as I can.

 

I wanted to make something a bit special for a special girl so here's what I've done; a tam, a scarf and a rose brooch. The tam is the same as my black one (see here) but is done using Stylecraft's new Alpaca DK yarn which is 80% acrylic and 20% alpaca. I've used the Orchid, a lovely soft pink, for the tam and worked it with the King Cole Cosmos yarn to give it all the sparkle.

 

Aside 1: In Northern Ireland, all females are called girls, regardless of age.

Aside 2: If you looked back at the link above you will also have seen a hat I knit for the husband. Well I wasn't happy with it so I ripped most of it back and did it again. It now looks much better. The husband didn't mention a thing about it because he says he knew I would find it so annoying that I would eventually fix it!

 

 

Ingrid showed us the Queen Anne's lace scarf on her blog a while back. I really liked it so decided to give it a go. The pattern is easy to learn and works up really quickly. With the Stylecraft Alpaca Orchid yarn, I used Stylecraft Alpaca Tweed DK, which is 20% alpaca, 77% acrylic and 3% viscose, in Emperor and Plum. Starting with the Orchid, I worked sections of ten fans in each colour and made a total of ninety fans. This made the scarf quite long so it can be wrapped round several times.

As a little finishing touch I made this rose from my 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet book by Lesley Stanfield. I crocheted a small circle to cover the back, where the rose is coiled up, and added a brooch pin.

For the gifts above I had bought two balls of the Orchid (and I still have more than half a ball left) and a ball each of the Emperor and Plum. So I made two more Queen Anne scarves; one using the Plum and the other using the Emperor. I crocheted until there wasn't enough yarn left to make another fan. Here are the results ...

I think they look really nice and the yarn feels very soft and warm. These will be given along with the washcloths I told you about in my last post. Ah! There were three washcloths in the last post and there are only two scarves. That's because I'm weaving a third scarf on my peg loom. Hopefully it will soon be finished and I can let you see it too.

It's beginning to look a little bit like Christmas now. Just a bit. Even though I've been making gifts and decorations for a while now, I still didn't feel at all Christmassy. I didn't tell you about baking my cakes, did I? Every year I bake two Christmas cakes. One is a standard rich fruit cake and the other is based on the same recipe but using more exotic dried fruits such as pineapple, coconut, mango and whatever else takes my fancy. I'd better stop talking about cake!! It's making me hungry and it's too soon to tuck into Christmas cake just yet.

Hope you are all having fun making for Christmas or out shopping for Christmas. Bye for now.

Mini Finitos

Welcome to my new followers - another few have joined us - and many thanks for your lovely comments. I've really enjoyed reading them all.

 

This post is just to let you see some of the mini projects I've finished since coming back from my holidays. Do you remember the Hebridean wool I bought on Skye? You can read about it here if you don't or this is the first you've heard of it! I used the wool to knit the husband a new hat for the winter. Here it is. Just a simple cabled beanie but he likes it. It isn't cold enough to wear it yet; he has that pleasure to look forward to. I probably only used half the ball, so when he either loses the hat or pulls it to bits in the thorn hedge, I'll be able to knit him another one.

 

This next project was actually crocheted while I was on Skye (started here and completed here). I started making a bowl thinking I would use it to store odd balls of yarn. But while I was crocheting I thought it would be nice to use the bowl to display some heather. So, since coming home, I've put heather in the crocheted bowl and here it is. The heather is set straight into the bowl without anything else inside. I'm really pleased with the results. I like the way the bowl isn't completely rigid and sort of slumps a bit.

Now here is something really, really strange. When I made the heather bowl I thought I was doing something reasonably unique. Certainly not following a pattern or even replicating something I'd seen and liked. The book below is one I got about four months ago and think it has lots of gorgeous patterns in it. I flicked through it a few times when it was new and started a cardigan (which has been left to one side for now).

After coming home from my holiday, I was looking through the book again to find a pattern for a hat, and look what I found!! A crocheted bowl with, admittedly not heather, but similar looking flowers in it. Is it just a coincidence? Or did I see this picture months ago and make my heather bowl because this image was stored somewhere deep in my subconscious?

Anyway, I found a pattern for a tam that I thought would be nice for making myself a hat with the alpaca yarn I bought on Skye (read about it here). I worked a strand of King Cole Cosmos yarn along with the alpaca to achieve the sparkly effect.

Here I am modelling the hat. I wear it even though it isn't really all that cold yet. It's not just about being warm, is it? I love this wee tam and I've had many compliments on it.

These squares are finished and blocked though not joined yet to make a bag. While loading the photos for this post I went off and ordered leather handles. Susan, who writes Simple Cozy Living, suggested that I try bittersweetbasketsandsupply.com for leather handles and I was very impressed with what they have to offer. Thanks you Susan for pointing me in the right direction.

My peg loom arrived while I was away so it was great to unpack it and get weaving as soon as possible. I did a few small pieces first to practise; I'll show you them another time as I'm going to use them for small wall hangings. Here is my first proper woven scarf. What do you think? It's made using Stylecraft Swift Knit Super Chunky in Wedgewood. I'll show you more about the peg loom another time. I posted about wanting to get one way back here and Ingrid of My Funky Crochet let me know that I could get a loom from Jenny's Crafts and Soft Furnishings. Thanks Ingrid!

I think that will do for now. For those of you interested in the cotton blanket - I've had to put it aside for awhile as I want to make lots of things for Christmas. I want to make so many things!! All the best. Leave me a comment please about my mini finitos and let me know if you like them.

Skye - All the Rest

Now for (some of) the other places we visited while we were holidaying on Skye. And the craft related part of course.

Portree is the main town on Skye and we were here a few times during our week's stay. There's a harbour and some beautiful views - have a look.

Can you see the tiny fish? They're just in front of the seaweed.

I spotted this van in the car park and thought it was really cool. Sheep on a knitting needle.

There are some lovely shops in Portree and a nice place to have coffee called Café Arriba. That's a plum and orange scone - delicious combination!

As you head out of Portree towards Staffin you come to the Old Man of Storr; an amazing rocky feature that is hard to describe so best just to let you see it.

If you continue on past the Old Man of Storr and through Staffin, you come to a turn off for the Quiraing.

The views from here across the sea are just amazing. The sea in shrouded in mist on this occasion; Skye isn't called The Misty Isle for nothing.

And yes, that's the road you travel to get up to, and back down from, the Quiraing. On previous visits to Skye the husband and I have walked up to the Old Man of Storr and also the Quiraing Prison. If you look back at the first picture of the Quiraing, the Prison is the part between the spiky rocks in the middle of the picture and the cliff face to the left.

Another day we headed to the Waternish peninsula where we came across this old cemetery. The air is so pure here that the lichen grows thickly on the walls and gravestones.

The location was beautiful; so tranquil and still.

We called into the Skye Shilasdair Shop where they sell naturally dyed yarns. They grow a lot of the plants used in the dyeing as well. We were able to see the dyeing being done when we visited a few years ago but this time we just spent some time admiring all the yarns in the shop and all the hand knitted garments.

I bought one ball of Local Hebridean wool. It's a light Aran weight so worked using 4.5 mm hook or needles. It was chosen by the husband for a new winter hat (which has been completed since we got home).

 

For those of you who have never been to the Isle of Skye, most of the roads are single track with passing places. Most of the land is used for common grazing so you will find sheep and cattle wandering along the roads.

 

Even hens! Why did the hen cross the road?

The sheep like to find warm, sheltered places to rest in.

Skye isn't a very big island but the coastline is very long in comparison and getting anywhere takes time because you have to go out the various peninsulas and back again. We weren't going to go out towards Elgol this time but in the end we decided to go as far as Torren and the Blue Shed cafe where we stopped and had tea and a sandwich.

Of course there are stunning views.

I thought their weather forecasting was very novel. You predict the weather by using this forecasting stone and the key to conditions on the board.

Much closer to base, in Glendale, there is an alpaca place. We paid a visit one day (on the way to the Red Roof Cafe!!).

Of course I had to buy some of the alpaca yarn. Look, the label even tells you which alpaca it came from!

Just a few more scenery type photos. This place was close to where we were staying and we saw seals sunning themselves every day.

The light on Skye is always amazing. This was early one morning from our bedroom window.

For those of you who are interested in what I got up to with hook and needles here we go. I brought some of this chunky yarn with me and used it to make a bowl with the intention of filling it with heather. This has been done since we got home and I'll let you see it in another post.

Using more of the same yarn I made a couple of small baskets for keeping yarn in.

I made quite good progress with my cotton blanket. In fact, looking at the picture, I can see I made very good progress while I was away! This is crocheted using Sirdar cotton, using fifteen of the colours available. No two squares are the same. A few are done using the same square pattern but the colours are different. In total there will be 144 squares making a king sized blanket (each square measures 6").

They hold a craft fair every Tuesday during the summer months in Glendale Community Hall. We went along and I bought a rag rug kit, a giant ball of Harris tweed in a strip (to use on my peg loom) and some Harris tweed off-cut for making Christmas decorations.

On car journeys I was able to knit because I didn't need to look at the garter stitch and could enjoy the passing scenery instead. I managed to knit the seven strips needed to make a lap blanket. Now I just need to join the strips and make a border.

Phew!! What a long post so well done for sticking with it. I got lots of lovely comments about my last post on Skye so hopefully you'll leave more for me this time too.

By the way, this isn't quite all the rest about Skye. I have one more post to do but I think you'll agree it's worth it.

Thanks for reading and I hope you'll come back soon.