Just a quick note. Tomorrow I have  an interview for a local magazine and a photographer is coming to take some pictures of the workshop. I have just spent the hardest afternoon of recent years cleaning up. In fact it all looks so smart, that it is now officially a studio, rather than a workshop (or to be totally honest -  a garage).

I even had time to add a few more inches to the latest rug, but now I think that I’d better leave everything in case I get it disarrayed! This is the “rug from scratch” from earlier blogs, I’m using up handspun in white, grey, black and brown. This style of weave is called Krokbragd but I’d forgotten how slow it is to weave, so I may not be able to offer rugs in this style at a reasonable price. I have enough warp on the loom for 2 small rugs and a full size one, so I shall try out a broken twill weave next and see if that is any faster. It should be able to make similar small patterns. The final rug, will be either of these 2 weaves, or a plain weave (since I need to know how fast I can weave that style).

Christine Jordan, one of Made by Hands of Britain's very own handweavers has been featured in Cheshire Life Magazine.

It is no surprise that they were interested in her story, for by day she is a physicist at the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank, in Cheshire but when she comes home, all that space-age technology is left behind as she sits firstly at her spinning wheel to spin some yarn from the wool of Yorkshire sheep and then she weaves that yarn at her hand operated loom into the most delightful Celic inspired rugs.

It is an honour to have Christine as a part of Made by Hands of Britain because she epitomises the whole ethos behind the website.

Following from my last post, the photoshoot and interview produced a really good article in November’s issue of Cheshire Life (and you should all go out and buy a copy if you’re in Cheshire.  Meanwhile Gillian has some of the pictures in the Made by Hands of Britain Blog.

Also following from the previous post, the weaving that was just a few inches of photographer’s eye candy is now two small sampling rugs relaxing on the floor ready to be finished. (A rug is woven under as much tension as I can manage to crank onto the loom without something breaking, so when it is finally cut free, its’ worth letting the whole thing lie very flat for at least 24 hours before taking any further action!)

Here are the two new rugs. They were made from handspun yarns and commercial yarns in natural colours (all the remnants from previous projects that I could find) and used a variety of weaves and patterns. The top rug is woven in a 3 end twill called “Krokbragd”. It is relaxing pattern side down to take out the curl where it was wrapped around the takeup beam of the loom while the second rug was woven. The second (lower) rug is woven in a 4 shaft broken twill. The twill offers a wider range of patterns and the back is the same as the front so the rug is double sided. I have made cones and diamond shapes along with combs and zigzags, but the patterns are not as sharp as the Krokbragd ones. (The pictures below show bits of the front of the Krokbragd rug)

There is a final piece of work to be done now for these rugs before they can be called finished and that’s to complete the edges. All those loose bits of warp need to be dealt with in such a way as to stop the rug unravelling. This will be another experiment.

I generally put a knotted fringe on the edges of a rug. This gives a neat finish and I know from experience that it is hard wearing, long lasting and encourages a rug to lie flat. But not everyone or every situation needs a fringe, so I’m experimenting with several ways to tie the ends and weave them in. I can then see how well this style of finish wears.

Here is result of a “Damascus” edging on one end of the Krokbragd rug, neat and tidy, but it’s pulled the edges of the rug in a bit (not shown here) .  So by no means perfect.
I’ll try a variation on the twill rug’s ends and see if that’s any better.

And the other result of the samplers is that I’m now starting a full size rug using some of the patterns that from the sample rugs. It was very tempting to weave a full size rug randomly (I changed colour every time a shuttle ran out and changed pattern at coffee, tea and lunch breaks) as the samples are very attractive, but I’ve decided to have a PLAN!