Saturday, September 17, 2011

A scarf just for me!

Being a teacher in Northern Arizona does have its challenges in the winter time, especially at a school that doesn't believe in indoor hallways.  Instead, we are a school built with lots of buildings located around a plot of land, and in order to get anywhere you have to go outside.  Oh, and there is always outside duty, in fact 4 times a week we have outside duty!



Last Christmas, my husband had one of those elf-exchange things with someone in the office.  We were vacationing in Spokane, WA right around Christmas and we went to Paradise Fibers.  I looked at their Brown Sheep Company wool and decided I had to make his exchange person a scarf on my loom!  I let my hubby pick out the colors for the scarf for his buddy, and he chose very nice classic colors.  I even discussed what kind of plaid he would like me to weave.  It was the very first scarf I had made on this loom AND it was the very first plaid I had ever done!  When it was done, I knew I had to make each of us a scarf for the winter!




I had so much fun making the plaid scarf, I made two more scarves before winter was over.  I used this dishtowel pattern from WeaveZine.  Later I realized that this was a shadow weave/color weave effect using different amount of warp strings each time to create a stair step optical illusion.  This one with the wild colors is mine! 








And this one with the more classic look is my husband's scarf.  He loves it!  His is much wider than mine, and he loves that, too!  It is also made with his favorite locomotive company's colors: Burlington Northern.  His hobby is model trains and we have a lot of Burlington Northern and Santa Fe n-scale locomotives!







I liked scarf making so much, that later I made this plaid scarf.  It was not only my second ever plaid scarf, but it was also in the same wild and wooly colors!  I love wool scarves!  It was kind of a birthday present for myself because I started it on my birthday.  Even though winter was almost turning into spring, I still found a lot of time to wear it.







So fast forward to this summer.  Right before I had to go back to school on August 1st, I was feeling a little down about the summer being over so I decided to cheer myself up with a scarf made of my most favorite colors, in my favorite wool, with my most favorite 8-shaft weaving pattern: the pinweels!










I just finished it and I love it!  I felted it just a little bit in the washing machine! 
















When I felted it, a neat texture appeared in the fabric.



It's going to be so warm this winter!  And super cheerful!


Now I have a few scarves to chose from, depending on what day it is
and 
depending on what mood I'm in!  


 I can't wait until winter!!!