I decided to give plaid a try on my loom, and discovered that weaving is a great way to stash-bust like a boss. Both these scarves are TFA scraps left over from other projects, in a mix of both aran and dk weight.

The red scarf: Sunset, Grape, Jewel, Charcoal, Natural

The blue scarf: Charcoal, Peacock, Lucky Penny, Frost, Stormy

Each scarf took (get ready to be jealous), less than 6 hours (the blue one took only 4).

I’m using the hemstitch tutorial from the Purl Bee to finish my ends. The results are much nicer than my first piece, where I just sort of hacked it.

Contrary to my knitting instinct, the way to change colours in weaving is simply to leave off with one colour, cut the yarn, leave the heddle in the same place and lay in your next colour, allowing the ends to overlap by a few inches.

You can see, when compared against my first piece, that my ends are getting neater. The trick to a neat selvage seems to be to lay the yarn in at a 45^o angle, and not ‘beat’ the weft in too aggressively. This (in theory) leaves enough yarn for a relaxed and neat selvage. In practice it’s something I just need to learn to be consistent about.

I’m ready to move on something new! I’ve got 4 small throw pillows on the couch, and when I first got a sewing machine they were my first project. It’s time for a change, so I’m going to try and make covers for them in houndstooth and log cabin weave.

I’m already craving accessories, including a 10 dpi heddle for sock weight yarns. I’m picturing light, airy summer scarves, and I’m packing these plaid ones away for next fall :)