Christmas Presents - Part 1

Since Christmas is over, and all the gifts have been given, I can now post pictures of some of the gifts I made. For my dad and boyfriend, I made scarves of 8/3 Jaggerspun heather. For heavier yarns, I think four shaft patterns often work best. For these scarves, I used the Herringbone Plaid #2 threading from page 27 of Davison's green book. I was going to use the first treadling, which was tromp as writ, but when I wove the sample, it seemed that there wasn't enough contrast to make the pattern stand out. It just looked kind of cluttered. So I wound up using a straight treadling for one scarf and a point treadling for the other. Here they are before fulling:



And here they are, thick and soft, after fulling:



Now I feel compelled to share an irrational pet peeve. Occasionally, as I am finishing a project, or shortly thereafter, I will see something similar in a new Handwoven. In this case, while I was finishing with these scarves, I got the new Handwoven, chock full of articles on fulling. Last year, I wove several tencel scarves in huck lace and then saw an article the new Handwoven about tencel scarves in huck lace. When that happens, I feel like I have to tell everyone that my projects were my own ideas and that I did not get them from Handwoven. I think Handwoven is an excellent publication, and I am always excited whenever a new issue comes. I have thought about why this would irritate me when I should be proud that some of my ideas are in league with those published in my favorite magazine. I realized that before I began weaving, I had no creative outlet and did not consider myself a creative person. Now that I have discovered this creativity within myself, a creativity in relative infancy, I feel like a protective mother, needing to always defend it (and sometimes brag about it, the way mothers do). I have concluded from all this that to mature, I need to be more open about sharing my own ideas and about receiving ideas and inspiration from others' experiences.