How to Finish Your Triloom Woven Shawl

The last weaving pass is run, the center yarn is clipped and your shawl is done! Yippee!

Oh yeah, the weaving is done, now there's the finishing. 

How do you go from that triangle shaped weaving on the wall to the beautiful, drapey, shawl to wrap around your shoulders?

Follow along on the pictures below, and if you have any questions, you can contact me via messenger from our Havencroft Farm Homestead Facebook page.

The weaving is done! This is a twill/tabby combo pattern done with 100% Havencroft Farm grown Jacob sheep wool (Patchwork Cowboy and Havencroft Lauren's fleeces) processed into yarn at Yampa Valley Fiberworks and hand-dyed by me.)

Pretty as it looks from a distance, there are still some spacing issues that need fixing.

Spend time lining up yarns with your trusty weaving comb. (Not to recommend Walmart, but this is the comb I use.)

Once your weaving is all evened-up to your liking, crochet off the top. This shawl is not fringed, so the color changes are along the top. I'll weave those in later. The chain I use to take a shawl off the loom is; pull the corner loop of the shawl onto your hook; pull a loop of your finishing color through that loop; pull the next shawl loop off the nail and through the loop on the hook; pull another loop of finishing yarn through that loop; and all the way across, shawl loop, yarn loop. You should only ever have one loop on your hook. You can see the pattern in the picture above. At the end of the top edge of the shawl, pull up your last loop, cut the thread in the middle and pull it back through, then knot the starting thread for the shawl and the ending thread of the finishing yarn together.

The top edge is crocheted off the loom. Now to lift the bottom two edges.

Just gently lift the yarn off the pegs, or nails, starting at the bottom corner.

This shawl is now attached to the loom only at the top two corners. This is where you can see floats or any other issues that may need to be fixed by stitching them in. 

Take off the finished shawl, hang up your loom and start the next shawl. I always put the next shawl on the loom right after I pull the shawl I'm finishing off. I've planned it while weaving the last one, and I'm eager to get started on it, plus I hate seeing a naked loom!

I weave in all the color join ends with a crochet hook. Some people use a yarn needle. What ever works for you. I take out the knot that I used to join the colors (why I knot the joins loosly), make sure the yarns are crossed over so there are no awkward holes at the top of the shawl, and tuck the ends in, weaving them down their own color run.

Some shawls I crochet a decorative border, and strenghthener on the top, other shawls don't seem to need it. This one needed a bit of straightening on the top edge, which is provided by the crochet border.

Once you are happy with your finishing on the shawl, it's time to wash it. This "wet-finishes" the shawl, allows the yarns to bloom and meld together and sets it as one garment, instead of a lot of woven yarn. It also assures me that the piece does not have any flaws that I missed in the planning or weaving. Hand wash, gently in cool water with wool safe soap. I do the same - lather, rinse, repeat that I do to wash most things. Make sure you fill the basin first and dissolve the soap before adding your garment. Take the garment out to drain while you rinse the basin and prepare the next water bath.

After washing and rinsing, roll your shawl up in a towel and gently squeeze out the excess water. 

Lay your shawl flat and shape it how you want it to dry. I put a king sized sheet over a few towels on our queen sized bed to block my shawls. It's a big enough space, and the door is closed to our bedroom, so it is a cat-free zone, too.

Give it a bit to dry and then wear your beautiful new shawl. This particular shawl is for a friend, if you want to see a picture of her wearing it (give me a few days to get it delivered!) visit our Havencroft Farm Homestead Facebook page.

Ten plus two ways to deal with stress eating

Stress happens. It's a fact of life.

And some of us tend to deal with stress by eating. I eat a healthy balanced diet until stress wears me down, then I eat junk food.
Junk food is easy to find, it's everywhere. It is more of a challenge to eat whole, fresh food than it is to eat processed stuff. Of course, eating sugar and empty calories makes it harder to deal with stress, so that's a pretty self destructive behavior.

I came up with this list of ways to help me get myself back on track.

1. Allow your compulsive streak to come out. Count crackers, set a timer to tell you when to drink water, write a journal of everything that goes into your mouth. There's comfort in compulsions.

2. Drink lots of water. Whether you set a timer, make it a point to take a drink every time you stand up or hit enter on your computer or you set a gallon jug on your desk and drink it all day, just drink lots of water.

3. Stock up on your favorite healty treats. Fill your world with carrots, grapes, celery, vegetable juices, green beans, good foods that you like to eat. Bag them in ways that make it easy to grab a few at any time during the day.

3.5 - Give yourself permission to snack. If you're like me, you're going to do it anyway. Just try to make it easier to snack on healthy foods. Don't add guilt trips over snacking to your stress level.

4. Make good-for-you foods easily accessible. If I have to walk by the bowl of chocolates on the office manager's desk to get to my carrots in the fridge, which do you think I'm going to snack on? So take up a pretty bowl of carrots and put it on your desk.

5. Treat yourself to healthy food that you don't normally go out and buy. I buy string cheese for myself when I am stress eating. I buy three sticks at a time. Normally, I'll buy a block of mozarella and figure I can cut off chunks. It is cheaper to buy it that way. So, string cheese is a guilty pleasure.

Finding something to do with your hands other than popping food
into your mouth can help curb stress eating, too. I'm crocheting
a scarf here,with the calming assistance of Halfie and Scrapie
to keep me settled in my chair.

6. When you buy something like crackers, where you know you'll eat the whole box, also buy a box of the snack-sized ziploc bags. Read what a serving size is for the crackers, usually a funny number like 7 or 22, and put a serving in a ziploc bag. Count out the whole box of crackers into individual serving sized bags. Put all the bags of crackers in a box, or bigger bag or desk drawer where you have to get up to get them. Allow yourself to eat crackers that don't count while you are bagging the rest. Enjoy the mindless compulsive cracker-counting break from the whirlwind of life.

7. Eat enough protein. I am mostly vegetarian. I find when I don't get enough protein, I get cravings. Protein makes cravings go away.

8. Pay attention to what you are eating. Before grabbing that tub of ice cream or the sugar-loaded coffee drink, get a drink of water and take a walk around the building. Give yourself a chance to remind yourself of the consequences of stress eating.

9. Play with your food. Enjoy finding tastes that blend well. Eat a carrot in the same bite as an almond. Put two celery sticks around a cheese stick. Pop a grape tomato. Arrange cherries and basil leaves in a pretty design on a plate on your desk.

10. If you eat junk food for a day - Don't stress about it! Things will change, life will calm down and then you can get on top of what you are eating. Don't compound your stress by stressing about what you are eating.

I wrote this list for me, your mileage may vary. If you have a favorite way of dealing with stress eating, please share it here.

52 Things to do with an old Shirt - #3 Make an Ozark pincushion

Rene' Riggan's applied felting class was the one class that
did not require a sewing machine.

We just wrapped up our Ozark Quilt Retreat for 2012. It was the best ever with 36 ladies in six classes -  quilting, talking and sharing fun!
I wanted to do something special for my Quilt Retreat teachers. It's February, so we are short on funds and there is a lot going on at work, so I am short on time. To top it off, we are starting into lambing and kidding time at home, so...
Now, I'm not a quilter myself, but both my parents are, and most of my friends are. They assure me that "Quilters collect pin cushions." Thinking that it was way beyond time to write another 52 things to do with an old shirt - I set out to design a pincushion for my quilting teachers.

Select a shirt from your box of old shirts.

 Silk and wool are a good combination for a pincushion. Together they will clean the pins and keep them from rusting. Silk shirts are comfortable to wear, but they do seem to wear out fast. I have a lot of them in my Shirts to Rework bag. Some just have stains or fading, others have tears. I pulled out one in very bright colors.

Gather shirt, scissors, wool, yarn, glue, a canning jar with
metal ring lid.

Cut out a square of the silk, about the siize of your hand. Cut a second section, a little smaller and irregular shaped is ok. You'll use that section to wrap the wool up into a ball. Then lay the square of silk top-side down on the table.Put your silk wrapped ball of wool in the center of the square.Pull the corners up and wrap a piece of yarn around them. Tie it tightly. Now you have something that looks kind of like a big shuttlecock for badminton.

Take an old ring of a canning jar lid and pull the tails of your silk ball through the ring. Put glue all around the top of the ring and mash the ball down into the ring.
Let it dry, then flip it over and trim the tails to make a cute rosette.
Put your pincushion lid on a clean pint canning jar and Voila' - you have an Ozark Pin Cushion.

Cut your outside wrapping piece a bit bigger than hand-sized.
Cut a second piece to wrap your wool in.

Thanks again to all the wonderful quilt ladies who gave me such a fun week!

Put your silk wrapped wool into the larger square of silk,
pull up the corners and tie with yarn.

Put any good, allpurpose glue on the top of the ring
lid and set it over the silk ball, with the tails coming
out the bottom. Mash it down so the glue sticks.
Trim the tails to make a neat rosette.

When the glue is dry, put the lid on the jar
and, you have your Ozark pincushion!