The Weaving is Over

Gramma's Garden

The weaving is complete for the two baby wraps of Gramma's Garden.  The top half of the photo above shows the wrap with the purple wool/tencel weft and the bottom is the red wool/tencel weft.  This was the first time I have used wool/tencel in a baby wrap and it feels lovely.  The wraps are soft and have a beautiful drape even before wet finishing.

Each wrap will now be thoroughly examined for small skips and weaving errors which will be corrected by hand.  The ends will be hemmed and the wraps be hand washed. I wrote about the finishing process a.  few weeks ago.  I posted about my experiments in finishing the samples for these wraps.  The best result was hand wash, air dry and iron with a hot steam iron.  I am planning on hand washing each wrap separately in lukecool water in the bathtub and hanging it to air dry.

It feels good to have the weaving done.
I've included a short video of the wraps being cut off the loom followed by some more pictures of the removal process.  I love seeing the large pile of fabric when the wraps come off the loom.  You can see the twill section that is our trademark hem.  It only appears on the inside of the wrap and it;s a small touch we add to all our wraps.

Time Does Not Pass Slowly

Gramma's Garden

Currently on the loom is Gramma's Garden,    I love the way plain weave allows the warp colors to shine.  The red/orange weft brings an unexpected warmth to the whole warp.

This custom baby wrap represents many firsts for us.  Until now, Janet has designed every wrap we have made from a photo and/or working closely with our clients to develop the design.  She creates a mock up by wrapping the various colors of yarn on a 1" wide piece of cardboard.  She then winds the warp based on the mock up and any changes the client may have requested.  Here are a couple of mock ups and final wraps.

Awakea

Dark Shadows

Dreamland

Mock up for Gramma's Garden

The design for Gramma's Garden was created by our client.
In addition, she chose a wool/tencel blend yarn for the weft.  This is a departure from our usual all cotton baby wraps and has been welcome change.

The mock is the beginning and the finished wrap is the end.  There are many hours of work in between.  Janet winds the warps which are usually 12-14 yards long and over 800 threads.  She divides the warp into 3-4 bouts or sections and winds each separately.  From there, we wind the warp onto the loom and I thread it, sley the reed and weave a sample using various colors of weft for the client to choose the color they prefer.  This sample is removed from the loom, measured and wet finished.

In the case of Gramma's Garden, I wove a small sample, removed it from the loom as usual and measured it carefully.  I divided it into 4 separate pieces and wet finished each piece differently.  Two pieces were machine washed, one in cold water and the other in warm.  Both were then dried on the low setting in our dryer.  They had the greatest percentage of shrinkage but it was not a huge amount.
Next, I hand washed two samples, one in cold and the other in warm and air dried both.  I expected the hand dried sample that was washed in warm water to also shrink a great deal and it did not.  This experiment indicates how I need to wet finish the wrap when the weaving is complete.

Once the samples are dried, tested and measured, the weaving begins.  When the weaving is done and the wraps are removed from the loom we inspect them for skipped threads, small flaws, etc.  Every thread, warp and weft, is carefully inspected and any small flaws (mostly skipped threads) are repaired.

The final steps are the hem the wraps and wet finish them either in the washer or by hand.  We iron every wrap, inspect it again for any skips, repair the skips we missed earlier, iron again and the wrap is DONE!

Yes, it's a long process and we never tire of doing it.
Thanks for your support, thanks for reading this far into the post and have a great day!

Claudia and Janet
The Lotsaknots Team
Our Facebook page
Our Easy Shop (we have 2 wraps for sale)
Our website

We Have a Winner!

Winter Twilight

It's a wrap.  You have watched this baby wrap from the time I was beaming it on the loom, to threading, weaving and even a video of taking it off the cloth beam.  And now it's done.
I love the colors; various shades of blues and purples with black as the weft.  There are more details and more pictures in our Etsy shop where it is listed for sale.

Here's the sister wrap being used by its new owner.

It's her first hand woven wrap and she was thrilled with the result.  This mama worked with Janet to design the colors and their placement in the wrap.

The initial photo also shows the pin stripping which is lovely in person.  Dark, rich colors such as these do not always show as well on computer monitors.  Each monitor displays it slightly differently.  

We also have a second wrap, named Tropical Delights,  available for sale in our Etsy shop.  The colors are slightly different and the pin stripping less dramatic but it's a beautiful wrap, if I do say so myself.

So now there's a new wrap on the loom and a new adventure begins with Gramma's Garden.

Happy New Year!