When I began exploring the wool from different breeds of sheep I decided it would be nice to have a tactile record as well as written notes. I had seen several people making colour study blankets or wall hangings documenting natural dyes, so thought a breed study blanket would be a good way of displaying my work with fleece. I decided that each square should be representative of the project/s that I make with the fleece – a sort of mini version to cross reference. Since I work with multiple fleeces at any one time, I don’t plan for the squares to be in strict order, however hopefully they will follow some sort of chronology as I go.
My main Ryeland project was the woven poncho, so my breed study square needed to be plain weave. The easiest way to weave small squares is on a pin loom. These can be DIYed (there are lots of tutorials online), but I recently attended a local yarn fair where a lovely vendor was selling beautiful handmade pin looms so I decided to buy one. There are two directions of weave you can make on a pin loom; bias and straight (links will take you to some good Youtube tutorials). In order to match the weave of my poncho I opted for a straight weave – the process of which I show below.
- 1st warp threads starting from bottom left corner to bottom right
- 1st weft threads starting from bottom right to top right (I found it easier to rotate the loom 90° to do this).
- 2nd warp threads in the spaces between
- After weaving over and under the warp threads in the rows between the 1st weft threads
The square was then taken off the loom and washed to allow the fibres to full (fluff up and fill the gaps).
This breed study blanket will constantly evolve and will probably never be 100% complete – at least not anytime soon (there are over 60 different breeds of sheep in Britain alone)! I’m very pleased with how my first square has come out though and am looking forward to having more pin loom adventures in the future.
Happy Crafting!
Links
- Pin Loom made by – https://edwoodslincs.com/
- Breed Society Website – http://www.ryelandfbs.com/
Loose Ends 