What Happens When You've Woven Way Too Much Chenille

So I had this great idea to break out of the chenille rut and weave some placemats for daughter and her husband in Louisville. They have a new (old)  house with a newly remodeled kitchen, and a dining table that just cried out for new placemats. They had recovered the seats of the chairs with some really interesting fabric, and I thought I would try to weave something to coordinate with the chairs and the colors of the kitchen. Well, I tried anyway. Here's a photo of the chair seat fabric and the pattern yarn:



I drew inspiration from a draft in Kathryn Wertenberger's book 8, 12...20 An Introduction to Multishaft Weaving. The pattern is a double two tie unit weave using supplemental warps and wefts. I used 3/2 cotton for the pattern yarn and 20/2 cotton for the tabby ground. I had lots of mini cones of 20/2 cotton on the shelf. The 3/2 cotton had to be ordered and dyed  in colors to suit. It was sett 20 epi and 20 inches wide.

Here's  the draft that I used:

I love this design. You can combine blocks of color in the warp or weft. And it weaves more efficiently, since you weave two shots of pattern, then two shots of tabby, rather than alternating one and one. I did find, though, that I had to struggle with warp tension. I really wished that had a temple small enough for a 20" wide warp.

I wove a header at the top and the bottom of each mat. Then, not wanting to be bored by having to weave six mats all the same (the horror!), I kept trying new combinations of blocks and colors.  After washing and line drying and and pressing the cloth I cut them apart and turned up the hems, sewing them by hand.

I wanted them all to be done by Christmas, but alas, only two were finished to wrap. I got them rest of them done in the aftermath of the holiday.

 Voila:





 

Out with the fruit, in with the checks

New curtains
Originally uploaded by sapoague

When we moved to this house in 1991 one of the features that drew me to it was the yellow/green formica topped kidney bean shaped table. This table had been custom built for the kitchen circa 1950 and was still in great condition with shiny chrome pedestal legs. We found some chairs at the local antique mall that didn't exactly match, but went well in tomato red 50's chrome and vinyl.

I had begun a fruit fabric binge. My sister found some dynamite fruit fabric for curtains. I sewed them up and they have been in the kitchen -- until 2 days ago.

The fruit curtains were getting faded. We replaced some of the windows in the kitchen last summer. And frankly, I was over the fruit thing. So I started looking for curtain fabric, not an easy thing in the middle of Iowa where the only places to find curtain fabric are the Hobby Lobby or Jo-Ann. (blech)

After a lot of interwebs searching I found some linen check fabric on ebay. I love it because it looks handwoven even though it is not, and the colors go really well with the formica table and counter tops (did I mention the counter tops? No? Well the yellow/green formica is pretty much everywhere - kitchen, bathroom, mudroom. The former owners were on a roll.)

I had some blocks of time to devote to sewing the curtains this past week, and here is the result. I am very pleased. Plus, I discovered curtain clips for hanging them. Way cool!

Coming soon - knitted hats and handwoven placemats! The Christmas gifts can now be revealed!