towels

Sometimes I'm a bad blogger but that doesn't mean I haven't been creating. I tend to default to Instagram lately (follow me at Ellynz) but then it's always good to check in here now & then. I've been weaving lots of towels the last month or two. Always playing with color. And all of these have new homes now....

These are Christies.

Two of these went to Diana in exchange for some of her gluten free/vegan cookies. Oh man were they delicious! You can order some for yourself at Suspiro Bakeshop. Diana was part of our mission team in Africa this past summer. When she told me she bakes gluten free cookies I couldn't wait to taste them. She sent me chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies. Don't ask me which ones were my favorites - I could never choose! 

The other two of these towels went to Martha.

These were for my friend Chris.

And these are Mari's.

And so, my loom is currently empty. BUT..... I got to visit Hill Country Weavers for the first time last weekend and came home with delicious bamboo/cotton yarn that I can't wait to warp on the loom. More on this awesome shop and the yarn I bought there coming soon!

preparing for Africa

In 24 days I leave for Africa! I think I've mentioned the trip a couple of times here on the blog, but I have not given much detail. I will be traveling with my daughter, Leigh Anne, and a team from her church, Liberty Church, to do mission work in eswatini. There will be 11 of us going, and we will work with Liberty Manzini and Children's Cup, helping at children's care centers, visiting families, hosting a family day for families of disabled children.... oh and a safari! 

I have 2 sponsor children over there who I am hoping to meet, Okuhle, an  8 year old girl and Phumla, a 13 year old boy. Both of them write to me frequently. In fact it was Okuhlel who wrote 2 years ago "wouldn't you like to come see my beautiful country?" which set this trip in motion.

I've been collecting little gifts for my kids and wanted to take something to their moms as well. So, I set to weaving....

This woven piece became dish towels that I can take as gifts...

The color palette came from a piece of quilting cotton I found in my stash. It looked African to me. I'm really pleased with how these turned out. One for each of the moms, including one for my daughter's sponsor child's mom, and one for me to keep.

I plan to write each mom an encouraging letter. Being a mom is hard work in the best of circumstances. I can't imagine doing it in extreme poverty. 

Meanwhile, I needed to make a new improv quilt as a shop sample for Not Your Mamas Quilt Store where I teach. Why not continue my color story? 

I'm calling this Okuhle's wish. I had fun with the quilting, matchstick quilting some of it and wavy lines for some.

I'll be teaching Improv Quilting next week at the shop and there are still some spots open. We have great fun! If you're local I encourage you to come.

weaving more towels

I love having such a great assortment of colors of yarn to play and experiment with! I just finished up these towels using a combination of red and orange yarns...

I'm tempted to use these in my own kitchen... we'll see! The yarn is a combination of Valley 8/2 cotton from WEBS and  Bluegrass Mills cotton 6/2 yarn from The Woolery.

They are done in waffle weave using a 10 dent heddle on my rigid heddle loom. The binding is an Allison Glass quilting cotton that I love!

With my extra warp, I played around with learning how to do a clasped weft. This is something I look forward to exploring further! On the bottom is a clasped weft with doubled threads, on the top is single. I think I like the subtlety of the single threads much better...

I also wove some solid fabric to use for bag making. And now my loom is bare... time to warp up something new!

Amber Clutch

Svetlana Sotak from Sotak Handmade has done it again! Her newest pattern, the Amber Clutch, was released this week and I was lucky to get to pattern test for her again. Testing for Svetlana is such a pleasure, as her patterns are professionally done, easy to follow and produce such great finished products. This one was no exception.

I had some good sized pieces of my fifth Saturday challenge fabric sitting on my cutting table & decided it would make great bags. (don't worry, you'll get to see my actual challenge finish soon! I'm really happy with it). Anyways, back to the bags...

They turned out so cute! I even added my personalized leather tags to the front. As you can see, the pattern comes in two sizes (the small one is just big enough to hold my iPhone 8+).  The larger clutch has a welt pocket to hold extra small items...

opened up it looks like this...

I loved making these so much, I decided to jump in and make one from a piece of my hand woven fabric...

I even put in the welt pocket! Using Svetlana's awesome directions, it went in without a hitch (I MIGHT have held my breath snipping and turning my handwoven fabric but I shouldn't have!)

I will definitely be getting braver with my hand woven pieces after this!

Here's a peek at the cute lining fabric I used (quilting cotton)

Hop on over to Svetlana's blog for more cute clutch pictures and a link to her shop!

dish towels

oh, hello! I didn't mean to go missing. I've been working away on several different projects that I can't share just yet. 

Right now I have pretty, neutral dish towels on my loom. I've been spending my weekend weaving waffle weave.

I love the texture of it and it makes for nice, absorbent towels when it's done.

What are you working on?

shower gift

What fun I'm having celebrating my best pal's daughter Megan this weekend, just weeks before her big wedding day! Today I was happy to finally give her the shower gift I made for her earlier this summer.

Four quilted placemats to match her aqua dishes and with a lesson learned from my friend Trae, I backed them all in Christmas fabric...

In fact Trae gave me that cute fabric! and I still have plenty left over for me.

Of course I wove Megan some pretty dish towels to match....

Waffle weave, 100% cotton yarn doubled in a 10 dent heddle.

I hope she enjoys them all for a long time!  What's your go to shower gift?

weaving towels

I thought maybe over time I would get tired of weaving kitchen towels. Not so! If anything I am enjoying more and more the process of combining colors and the rhythm of weaving.

This time I warped the loom with one color of 8/2 cotton, a medium gray. Then I wove 2 towels in a combo of coral pink and a lighter gray.

and another towel in a combination of grays and yellows. I find, when I weave with 2 strands of yarn, using two shades of the same color gives my finished weaving some depth. All of these towels were done with waffle weave, using a pick up stick on my rigid heddle loom.

After wet finishing in the washing machine, the edges were bound in polka dot cotton fabric.

The pink one have been sent off to Ally to use in her kitchen (she requested them and chose the colors.

I don't think I will ever get tired of this!

A weaving surprise

A few months ago I wove these kitchen towels from The Woolery's Bluegrass Mills 6/2 cotton yarn and sent one of them off to The Woolery for their weave off, to donate to local women's shelters. I loved that they were donating all of the towels that were entered! That was the main reason I sent it.

Imagine my surprise when they called me a couple weeks ago to tell me I had won first place in the rigid heddle category! There were so many beautiful  towels entered! You can see all of the winners here. I was shocked and flattered to be among them.

Yesterday I arrived home from lunch with a friend to find this giant box on my doorstop...

I dragged it inside and opened it up immediately!

Look at all of that beautiful yarn! A one lb cone of each color, 20 cones in all. Luckily I had cleared some space in my cubbies the day before and I was all set to put them away.

This will keep me busy for a long time! Thank you, Woolery, for this generous prize. I can't wait to get weaving!

weaving dishtowels

The Woolery is having a weave off. Basically, you weave a dishtowel using their Bluegrass Mills 6/2 cotton yarn, and send it to them. There are different categories, & prizes for each, but here's the really cool thing. When the contest is over, they will donate all of the towels to a local women's shelter! I just loved that idea, so I quickly ordered 2 colors of their yarn (aquamarine and queen anne's lace) and set to work.

It was fun to experiment with a new-to-me yarn. It worked up very nicely and I will surely use it again!

I wove three towels on my warp, a plain weave windowpane pattern (yarn doubled in both warp and weft for all three towels)...

a waffle weave with two strands of the aquamarine....

and a waffle weave with one strand of each color....

I bound the edges in a Cotton & Steel fabric I had on hand and added my labels...

Thanks Woolery for your awesome weave-off!

handwoven trees tutorial

Hello Friends! Sorry I disappeared for a bit. There are lots of factors.... secret sewing that I can't share just yet, general holiday business and ongoing health issues that I hope to resolve very soon. That said, I'm back! I wanted to share some fun ornaments I made to share with my friends this year.

They were fun and quick to make. I thought I'd share a little how to here.... I started out with scraps of my handwoven fabric that I had been saving for an "unknown project", a bit of interfacing,  some wool felt, a bit of batting and ribbon.

I backed the woven fabric scraps with bits of interfacing (I like SF 101) and cut tree shapes with my rotary cutter. At this point, the edges of the weaving are not stitched, so raveling is a risk! Treat the little trees gingerly until you have them stitched down.

Layer a scrap of felt, a small triangle of batting (you can't see it here) and a tree and pin it down.

Take it to the machine & zigzag around the edges of the tree, tucking a loop of ribbon between the layers when you reach the peak. I tied a knot in the ribbon to secure it inside my ornament.

After you've stitched the trees down, carefully cut away the felt around the edges (Don't cut your stitching! But if you do, take it right back to the machine and restitch. It'll be fine. Don't ask me how I know this!)

Aren't they fun! And so quick to make I couldn't seem to stop...

Have you been making Christmas decorations this year?

woven pillows

I wanted to weave some pillows for my sister's birthday. She has a new gray couch. I chose these beautiful bright colors to go with two shades of gray (ps: that's not her couch, it's mine. I know, not gray)....

The weft was all light gray (double strands in a 10 dent heddle) and the warp was a mixture of the brights and darker gray. All of the yarn is Valley 8/2 cotton from Webs. I did all plain weave but played with color to create patterns.

In the end, I had 2 pretty pillows to bring to her last weekend. One 16" square and the other 11"x16" rectangle. I have oodles of fun fabric to make bags and things with later.

also not my couch, or hers

I hope they bring her joy!