Twisted yarns

I've been really interested to try out macrame recently, and after seeing as couple of good deals I treated myself to a selection of 5mm cotton (mostly cotton) cords- as  a post Christmas treat :-) Today I decided that I would try out a tutorial I found online here - after stopping and starting the video dozens of times and reorganising my working set-up a few times... I made an owl! I didn't have any beads, so I made a long paper bead for the beak and I made a berry knot using some random wool I had to hand that I thought would be goood colour! Sara  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Just before Christnas I warped up my inkle loom following a tablet weaving diagram for a row of Christmas Trees - not really expecting to get it right... but I did! I can't find the link at the moment but I'll add it to this page when I can. Sara  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

How cute are these? Our eldest daughter had an unexpected trip to hospital (2 actually!) this week, and so when whilst waiting for answers in hospital, she asked if I could make 4 little Santa hats that she could include in gift bundles she plans to give friends for Christmas - I really couldn't refuse. After discussing what size she wanted them to be, we decided they should fit over a chocolate orange - as I don't have one to hand, I'm hoping they fit them! Sara  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Another experiment from a couple of weeks ago - I partly follwed Annie McHales instructions and used patterns from the Inkle Weavers Directory, but designed the layout in my own colours! I wove a few short sections, leaving 3 - 4 inches between each sections and ended up with some bookmarks! i wasn't quite brave enough to trst me start and finish technique yet and so I put adhesive on the ends just to prevent unravelling! Sara  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  In between other projects I like to make bed runners for dementia patients... All they ask is for blankets to be approx 140cm x 50cm - crochet, knitted or quilted etc. They are used on the dementia wards to help patients identify their beds. I try to make each one completely individual, with different colours and stitches - it gives a great opportunity to practise new patterns without committing to a full size blanket! If you'd like to get involved, there are more details here , they cannot accept donations at the moment, but would still like to have a supply once they can! They will put an update on their Facebook page once they can accept more blankets Sara  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My first experiment was a success! I had asked the advice of experienced weavers, whether practising using acrylic yarn would cause me more trouble than was worth it... opinions were divided but a couple of people said they'd used it when learning and found it useful for practising technique etc.  So, having a good supply of DK (8 ply) acrylic yarn from various crochet projects, I decided to give it a go (see last post) It worked! I ended up with a 1.5m band It was really good having at least 3 colours on each of the pattern cards as it helped me see how the 4 threads on each card moved  dependent on the direction you turned the cards. For my own benefit I'm noting here what issues I came across, and if I managed to sort them out!... After weaving approx 1m of band I realised the border threads had become ridiculously tight (and looked pretty thin). I tried to undo the knots and untwist the threads - but it was too fiddly even though I'd done easy release knots.  Instead, I