Art Weaving

Pin Loom Woven Vest, Sort of

by CZeitler

I have been on a bit of a journey this year to try to make my own clothing in a style that I enjoy. After some financial and emotional difficulties, I have also been trying to regain my passion for the crafts that I love and enjoy. To fulfill both of these, and not have to cut into any hand woven cloth, I have decided that I want to weave a vest. I did not want to purchase one of the vest templates out of wood, however. I am a larger woman and know that they do not come in my size. I printed out the free vest pattern from Purl Soho and added on an inch around all edges to size up the Large size to fit my dimensions. Originally I had planned to use only pins, about 16 per inch, to create the warp. Upon looking at the vest loom available at Woolery I decided to add in slits to create a more supportive base for the warp. I can see pins flicking out and ruining the entire thing. I did add another 1/2 inch with blue tape so that I can mark out where the slits need to be made for the warp threads. This will also let me know how far down I need to cut the slits to keep them even. I also plan on putting tape on top of the warp thread edges so that they do not pop off and mess up everything.

Since this is more of a loom I plan on having the warp threads going horizontally on the finished piece so that the longer weft threads, since I will likely have color changes, will be going vertically on the finished piece. As I said earlier I am on the larger size so I do not need anything that will emphasize that. I also plan on making a bog jacket, which I believe I mentioned in an earlier post. This will be updated as I make progress winding the warp and warping the loom.

My aunt’s quilt is down to the last 3 flowers for me to reinforce the applique by hand, then I get to finish the machine quilting using my embroidery machine. After that I need to make the tag, bind the quilt, wash the quilt, and get it sent off.

Remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract!

Inspiration From H&H Americas

by CZeitler

I was lucky enough to be permitted to volunteer at the hand Weaver‘s guild of America booth as a demonstrator. I am not affiliated with or sponsored by any of the organizations or products mentioned here. I was very careful while attending this show to ensure that I did not bother vendors while they were speaking with their customer demographic, as this is their livelihood.

This post is mostly going to be pictures with minimal text if it is not obvious who the producer or organization being shown is I will add that.

These are some of the amazing items on display along with a featured crochet artist. I am not certain who made the very cute flame or the beautiful jacket.

The panel quilts are made using Camelot fabric.

There were many absolutely gorgeous quilts on display. I will admit that when I came home, I immediately went online to pick up the ultimate sashers collection by Pauline‘s quilter’s world. Some of the Sashing can be seen in the final quilt as the black outline is actually Sashing. The gentleman at the booth was kind enough to take a lot of time to describe to me the quilt as you go method and how the Sashing can be used for that. I do have several blocks on my embroidery machine that can be made as squares, and I am not very excited to use the quilt as you go method to create beautiful quilts and to experiment with the binding.

Coley craft had a wide variety of tools that were fascinating to look at. A lot of them are magnetic so they would hold up on either a magnetic pegboard or just a piece of metal like a cookie sheet that you put on the wall.

Ito had some brand new sparkly yarns that I just had to photograph although I know that sparkles do not show up well. The backlighting kind of wash these out but you get a bit of an idea. They were absolutely gorgeous in person. Louet purchased a new yarn line. I believe I mentioned that in the first post and these are some of the absolutely gorgeous colors as well as some of the kits that they will be coming in. I do not have a price but I will be on the lookout for them.

Remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract!

End of Summer Reading

by CZeitler

Yay! This past week was the last week of our summer reading program. We will be having a finale and prize drawing this upcoming Saturday. I’m teaching a needle tatting class to a guild that day so I will not be available. For the end of our summer reading program I ran my usual classes and two extra events. Due to this I’ve been really busy and not able to get a lot of crafting done.

I have been working on hiding the threads for my big quilt, I’m done tying the top and bottom threads together and just need to thread each one into a needle and slide that needle between the top and bottom quilt pieces and then snip any extra thread off. This will help the threads stay together better and not allow the quilting to unravel. I did wash the quilt and it has amazing crinkle. I’ll post photos next week when I’m ready to put it in my Etsy store.

I haven’t managed to make much progress on my second Tunisian crochet square but I’m having fun with it. I have managed to make progress on a couple of projects. I put some wood filler into the cracks I’ve found on my back porch railing.

I am certainly going to have to do more sanding and possibly more filling. I cannot wait to get this ready for the winter. Speaking of prep for the winter, I’m still working on my garage. I’m going to show you the shame of my garage window and the hole I need to fill in.


As stated in my earlier post about how to repair the window, get the right sized glass. It makes all the difference unless you are good at cutting glass…which I am obviously not good at.

My handyman left a bunch of stuff behind that I need to figure out what to do with. I’m more concerned about getting the hole covered so that I can store my garden stuff in there for the winter. I did spray the place with all natural cat repellent as well as a bug spray to make sure I can get in there without any real problems. I’m on vacation in two weeks so I plan on doing more work at my home then, while wearing some very durable gloves.

I also managed to finish a garment which is one of the few garments where you would ask your significant other ‘Does this make my butt look big enough?’ I am going to be playing the part of a mother from 1880s who is in mourning. I’m trying to put together a costume with minimal purchasing so I used an old pillowcase that I stuffed with fabric scraps and sewed in a semi circle. I then sewed a few lines to roughly keep the stuffing in place before adding in some twill tape to use as ties. This is not how you should make this garment if you want it to last and look really authentic. For a quick job this is an alright result. It will cover my entire backside and give my hips a little more padding. I’m going to try to put together my rough costume this upcoming week to see if it all works.

The final bit of news I have is that my local government is going to release a new grant this week for an opportunity to get home repairs completed. My last application contained a bunch of small things I would like to get done and my application was denied. This time I’m asking them why my last application was denied as well as asking for a list of contractors that will do repairs on my roof. I did see an article released about someone that obtained the initial 10k grant toward a roof replacement and their roof was actually leaking. I’m trying to get this repaired before it leaks, so here’s hoping.

That is it for this week. Until next time remember to Live Life A Little More Abstract

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Weaving Adventures

by CZeitler

So yesterday I taught my last planned scissor fob class, and it went very well. I had seven people take part and they all made beautiful scissor fobs. Someone did ask if I would be willing to teach another class for another organization that they belong to so if that goes through, that would be lovely. I organized and brought a lot of materials that I had created out of resin because we were going to be having a sort of garage sale event, however, no one was interested in my creations. They were mostly seconds that I had priced just for the cost of the resin and slight cost of the molds. However, since they did not, so at this point, I am probably going to either offer them through Facebook marketplace as seconds, or try to gift them to someone. Onto the very exciting parts of this post, the crafting.

so over the past couple of weeks, I have managed to get my loom, completely warped, and I have completed two towels, one of which was finished and washed. I am currently working on weaving the third towel and I love how the pattern is turning out. I’m not going to post a picture of the first towel because the warp was not accurate and there are a bunch of weird floats. I swear it took me almost halfway through the second towel to get the warps completely correct but I love how it looks now.

Yesterday I had a lovely phone call from a friend of mine that is on a very long drive back home, so we spent a wonderful six hours chatting. Since I am in capable of keeping my hands, still while talking on the phone, I managed to begin weaving, a beaded weaving project. That is something that I’ve been telling myself that I would do this entire week that I was on staycation, but it never wound up happening until yesterday. This was woven on my mirrix loom, and I spent another three hours this morning, working on it because I had another phone call from a different friend who was having trouble. It did take me about another hour or two to get a completely finished finish off the warp ends, glue everything down and put a back on it. So this less than 10 inch woven piece took me about 11 hours. That means that if I were to put this for sale just at my time at around minimum wage, I would have to sell this less than 10 inch piece for $165. That would not be taking into account the price of the loom, the thread, and the beads. I think that it’s beautiful but I don’t actually see somebody paying 165 for it.

Well, I have not just spent my entire staycation crafting. I did manage to get some things done around the house. I finally managed to get the thorn bush cut down from my side yard so I’m now working on figuring out how to get rid of the stumps so that it does not come back again. I am so excited by how much I managed to accomplish during my staycation and well I will not have another one until early September. I think that I am prepped and ready to get through August.

I hope that everyone has a great week and remember to Live Life A Little More Abstract.