Returning to Love
Disclaimer: Balerion is exploring the new yarn. He is not generally allowed to spread his kitty-ness far and wide in the yarn shop!
For Club Kit #14 I am returning to an old friend, heart mug rugs. This is a project that through the years I have woven over and over again. In weaving, there are so many exciting directions to explore, new and shiny things to learn about. For most of my weaving life, I took a different path. I spent twenty years as a production weaver with a repeatable product line that I was promoting. Much of my weaving was making the same things over and over again and then slowly changing things over time. This is the other side of exploration…choosing a path and then letting it shift and change slowly. The questions have time to settle and the answers are allowed to come in their own time, when they are ready.
These mug rugs are one of those projects for me. I started with the eight-shaft twill version, using 3/2 cotton for warp and Harrisville Highland for weft. When I first released them as a kit, I wanted it to be accessible to weavers on rigid-heddle and four-shaft looms as well. I explored a four-shaft twill version of the draft, but the pattern did not feel good for me to weave so I didn’t. Designing the Atwater-Bronson hearts was fun….finding three totally different ways to create the same weaving. Both the rigid-heddle and four-shaft versions use pick-up sticks, but in different ways. On the rigid-heddle loom, the pick-up sticks are placed behind the heddle. On the four-shaft loom, they are placed in front of the reed and heddles. On an eight-shaft loom, pick-up sticks are not needed.
Part of what I love doing in the weaving clubs is taking an idea and exploring what it can become using different equipment. This project is a deeper exploration of that.
The yarn has also changed over time. I now use Brassard 8/4 cotton as the warp. There is a lot of flexibility in what works well for weft. For the weaving clubs, I am offering a choice between Cascade 220 from mom’s extensive stash, and Briggs and Little, Heritage. Both are lovely. I have just become a dealer for Briggs and Little yarns, and I am looking forward to exploring them more and sharing as I do.
Over the years, I have sent these small, sweet, mug rugs to many people in many places. I love it when I see pictures from friends and find a mug rug that I made years ago peeking out in the corner, or under their favorite mug, or beneath some lovely flowers.
There are many other things that I want to share with you, and we will talk about them all later. This kit is a small respite from the next big challenge. A chance to regroup a bit, weave a quick small something, and then share it far and wide.
Let’s play!