"My Runner and more...."

I finished the table runner last Sunday but hadn't gotten the edges hemmed until mid week. I'd brought back, from Michigan, my mother's old 1955 black Singer sewing machine that I found while cleaning out a closet (I say old, although it is 5 years younger than I am!). :)

This was my first experience with sewing and I feel pretty good about how things turned out. Luckily, the instructions for using the machine were also in its carrier. :) Although, I would not recommend having chenille fabric as one's first fabric to sew............

I had woven it longer than I needed, so after hemming the runner, I made the extra fabric into a matching hot pad.


Hopefully, you can see the chair seat upholstery in the photos that I was trying to match? (Double click the photos for larger images...)


I've set up the loom again with another runner/rug. This time, I am going to weave a 9' rug that will fit on my leather chair. Sitting on the leather in winter can be a bit chilly at times, and in warmer weather, it is sometimes too warm, so I'm hoping this rug will solve those issues.

This is the loom with the warp wound onto the back beam. I had everything measured out and Don helped me by winding it onto the beam, while I held the warp threads tightly, keeping tension on them as they were wound on. From this point, I had to thread the warp through the heddles (those little metal things that are off to the side in the center area of the loom), then through the reed (not shown), tying them into small bunches of threads and onto the front tension rod. After that, I was ready to begin weaving again.


This photo shows the warp threaded through heddles/reed, and tied to the front tension rod, with the weaving begun.


These are all of the yarns that I am going to use on my chair "rug". They are Lion Brand "Homespun", an all acrylic yarn which is very soft to the touch. My loom is not sturdy enough to actually be weaving rugs on, so the yarns are not "packed" in the warp as they should be, but so far, they seem to work well enough for the use the finished pieces have been put to.