Sometimes inspiration is simple!

Sometimes the best inspiration is the desire to give something to someone you love.

In the building of our extension, oldest son (Michael) had his room re-arranged and updated. Much nicer with lovely windows over his desk, good blinds (?) and a wardrobe. Unfortunately, he is the only one with:

bare floorboards. Great for the rest of the house. The rest of us have cosy carpet to keep our toes warm on a cold Melbourne morning. So a rug is called for. Colours?

This is the lightshade in his room. If you look behind you can see the tasteful paint colours (my choice) don't necessarily go with the shade (father's choice and M's approval), but when outnumbered go with the flow.

The warp has actually been on my big loom for awhile, but I've finally got around to the weaving. Having worked out that I do have enough yarn to make the size we want (more luck than good management), I've been steadily working on:

It's a Krokbragd pattern which is a very simple 3 shaft technique, the main aim is to play with the colour patterns. I started with plain black and now have incorporated all three colours and will continue the current striping till the black runs out, then add extra cream till the orange runs out and then the middle will have the remaining cream and then reverse the lot!

I love weaving at the big loom, it's such a physical process. It's wide enough that you have to move from side to side as you throw the, quite heavy, shuttles. It is a rug, so they are quite heavy with thick yarn. Your feet are moving as you change pedals to change the shafts that are required. I love it!

The only downside to Krokbragd is that it is quite slow as you need three passes for one 'row'. I have extra warp on and hope to weave a couple small rugs. I'll probably do at least one more in Krokbragd, but in a thicker yarn and then see how long it takes.

Right now I'm just enjoying weaving for Michael!

This is not what I'm working on?

You know how it is in Summer....it's a break, a chance to try new things and experiment and do all those things you've been dreaming of, over the year. Now's the chance. I really wanted to do lots of weaving: rugs, scarves and really play with my new loom. I really wanted to do some experimenting with the knitting machine.

This would all be possible, as the new extension has enabled us to set up a big workbench with all the tools in the new garage and my workshop is now dedicated to just my stuff. Wooppeeee!....well after we move everything, (finally done) and I rearrange and store and sort out all the mess, (in progress). All good....

Except this is what I have been working on:

Yes, it's French knitting. Please don't ask me why I'm not knitting an icord instead. For some reason, knitting icords is sort of annoying and this is sort of nice. I'm just using up scraps from my stash. I really can't throw out any fibre, even the browns! and I'm making a rug. I think in the end I will sell it. I'll probably only charge for sewing up time, as that's the only bit I don't enjoy about this project, and it takes along time. I've already spent FIVE hours sewing up.

The next one will be for us. I'll know how long it will take, how much yarn I'll need and I'll be able to plan it a bit more than this one. I look forward to that.

For now, it's just fun!