News

Well, 2020 has been quite a year so far and not gone how we thought it would back in March when I wrote the last blog post.

Obviously, Covid-19 has had an impact on us and one of the main impacts that has happened is that I've struggled to get my weaving mojo going.

This has mainly been down to not getting much spare time to do any craft and when I did my brain was only able to cope with easy knitting as it was easy to pick up and put down again.

Thankfully, the lack of time has been due to us being really busy posting orders as everyone else has obviously found their crafting mojo which has been great fun to see and be part of.

My personal lack of mojo has seen my looms being neglected and me sitting in our shop staring at our yarns and procrastinating what to make next.

Finally, things have quietened down enough for my creative weaving juices to start simmering again and these fantastic pink yarns demanded to be woven.

They are both from our West Yorkshire Spinners ColourLab DK yarns and the colour on the left is Cerise Pink and the stripey colour on the right is Summer Pinks. There isn't a full ball of the Summer Pinks as it had already been used to make a sock.

I then tried to think what type of pattern would work best to show off these colours in the best way.

I decided that a simple check pattern would work well and it would be fun to see how the stripes would sit as the Summer Pinks Yarn has a regular stripe but I knew this would be offset with the warp length.

To make the colours stand out even more I decided a cowl would be great as again it would be fun to see how the stripes would intersect with each other.

So, the Wandering Stripe Cowl Pattern was born and you too can make your own by following the method below. You can also buy a kit that includes the yarn and a printed pattern from our website.

Wandering Cowl Weaving Pattern

Reed: 7.5 or 8dpi Rigid Heddle Reed
Weaving width in Reed: 25cm/10"
Warp Length: 2.3m/7’6"
Total Number of Warp Threads: 80
Yarn: 
West Yorkshire Spinners ColourLab DK in
1x100g skein in Cerise Pink 539 (about 80-90g used)
1x100g skein in Summer Pinks 893 (about 50g used)

Warping Instructions:
Thread your loom in the following colour order with the number being a single warp thread.

Weaving Instructions
For how to weave a cowl follow the instructions on our Hero Cowl Blog Weaving Pattern blog post.

Finishing your cloth:
Once you've finished weaving, wash your cloth in a sink of hot water with wool wash and then remove excess water. Iron your cowl whilst it’s wet and then lay flat to dry.

Finished Size after washing:
21cm/8" wide by 1.9m/6’5” long excluding fringes

Hopefully if you've followed the instructions you should have something that looks like this.

Normally I would have had a better finished photo of me being windswept on the beach. However, this cowl has already found a new home before I could get the final photos done and I hope the new owner likes it as much as I did.

You can also use other colours of the ColourLab DK range to weave this cowl too and I think the following combinations could be fun:
Zesty Orange and Technicolour
Lim Green and Prism Brights
Harbour Blue and Frosty Blues
Silver Grey and Moonlight Grey

I hope you like this pattern and that you have fun playing about with the different colours.

It is a cowl that will help to keep you warm while wandering about whatever the weather.

So you've decided you've wanted to give weaving go and you think that a rigid heddle loom is for you but there's so many choices out there that you might not know which loom to choose.

Well, don't worry as in this blog post we're going to talk through what we recommend to new weavers when they are looking to get their first rigid heddle loom.

It's time for another free pattern and this time I'd thought I'd talk through the basics of how I design my handwoven scarves.

Welcome to our first free weaving pattern blog post at Weft Blown!

As a weaving teacher I've been wanting to create a series of patterns for people to weave in the comfort of their own home. So this will be the first pattern in this new series.

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Weft Blown Blog and hello to all of you who have discovered Weft Blown over the past few months.

This blog has been in hibernation over the past few months as we've been so busy keeping up with day-to-day running of Weft Blown that we've not had time to post.

However, things are now settled down now with my husband Rob jumping onto Team Weft Blown full-time and this blog can be brought back to life.

So, I thought it'd be good to use this blog mainly for my handwoven textiles and the process behind weaving them and starting with where my inspiration comes from.

For those of you that have read my last blog post you my remember that I said that I was heading off to Scotlands Trade Fair at the end of January.

After a lot of hard work and stress I got there and it went fantastically well. 

Hello again and many apologies for the long gap between blog posts. 

Things have been rather busy at Weft Blown HQ with getting ready for Christmas fairs, being ill, and getting inspired by weather.

During the summer the lovely Estelle at Midwinter Yarns got in touch with me to ask if I could weave a sample for them for their stand at shows using their Lithuanian Linen. This was very good timing as I had that day just been drooling over their linen Sweet Peas packs that they had […]

It’s been nearly 10 years ago since I started knitting. This is quite a significant milestone as so much has happened in my life after learning how to make connected loops using pointy sticks. I started knitting when I became pregnant with my son Thom as I needed something to do to help me from […]

One of the best things that has happened since I moved into my studio in West Kilbride, Craft Town Scotland, is making some fantastic friends with the other designers makers who also have studios. Jane Hunter is one of these people and she has her own textile art business called Jane Hunter Art, as well […]

There’s been a lot of weaving going on and thankfully a lot of restful holiday fun too. The good news is that the Sunsets and Showers Collection is now ready and available to drift off to new homes. As you may remember the inspiration of the collection came from my winter walks along the beach and […]

Over the past couple of months I’ve not just been working on the new Sunsets and Showers collection but I’ve also been working on a totally brand new thing – Handwoven Wrap I first worked on a prototype using a mix of Jamiesons of Shetland 4ply and Aran yarn and I managed to get this […]

After gathering all my photographic inspiration of the wintry sunsets and showers of West Kilbride, my next task was to find yarn. This is the fun bit in weaving as it means scouring through shade cards and websites, and then squishing lots of yarns. The choice of yarns is really important to me as I […]

Even though the warmer Summer weather is trying to reach West Kilbride, my head is firmly stuck in the cold and wet wintry showers and the stunning sunsets from earlier this year as I am designing and weaving my new collection. As you might have gathered if you follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter I […]

If you hadn’t noticed by all my Facebook, twitter, and instagram posts, I was at Edinburgh Yarn Festival at the weekend. I shared a stall with my good friend Karen at Once A Sheep. We also had great help from our friends Jane, Rosie and Seona, who we couldn’t have managed to do the whole thing without […]

The car is packed, looms are warped, yarn is in, and I’m pretty much ready to head off to Edinburgh to set up for the Edinburgh Yarn Festival. I’m also taking with me all my handwoven things to sell and to make life  asker for me this section of my website will be out of […]