My weaving studio

How could I not like weaving when I have a studio like this. This is only half of the room and I also have a sewing room.

Sewing is a big part of finishing your woven products, unless you hem stitch which always gives a nice look.

This room has supper high ceilings and so it feels very open. I arranged it so that I maximized all the light I could for my looms.

You only see one floor loom in the picture, but the rest of the room I have two more floor looms.

One is close to the window and the other has a wall light with direct able light.

Just a couple of days ago my sample card turned up so I have been spending time thinking on what I want to weave so that I can place my order. Mind I also want to be able to sell supplies as well so will be bringing in extra for other people.

Custom woven to match your home decor.

Stopped by my friends house to visit and she was using the tea towels I had woven for her.  I spent time matching the color to her granite and she loved them.  If you are interested in custom woven items to match your home décor, just contact me and send a color swatch of what you want me to match.  I will do my best to accommodate your needs.

What are you weaving lol

Yesterday I made a warp up, not super long just 6 meters. I posted the picture on my facebook page and also my Woven Dreams Fiber Arts Studio facebook and got asked what are you weaving on my personal one a couple of times.

So I said I am weaving fabric lol of course what else could it possibly be. I mean you have 602 threads in the warp and sett at 20 ends per inch E.P.I

I know what it will turn out to be, a ring sling, diaper bag, two bibs and two diaper covers. Hoping to have enough for a changing pad as well. All matching.................but you know that is me today.

I mean my last warp was going to be something else as well, you know after it had been woven into fabric and I changed my mind making baby bibs.

I truly believe that I follow my heart with what I am making. Something pleasing to the eye as well as functional. In the end fabric is just that fabric, no matter if you went to the store to buy it or you spend hours weaving it, it is just fabric. One person may like it and others may not. You only need that one person other than yourself that that wants to buy it.

Selling my hand woven is still a new concept to me I have woven for the last 14 years and have given my woven items as gifts mostly. I will still give them as gifts, but also want to be able to sell enough to supply hay for my animals.

Oh yes one addiction to pay for another addiction. I love my goats all 15 of them, 2 sheep , 1 donkey and my horse.
This week started off bad I had to have my llama put to sleep, all because of an eye, damaged and beyond repair. My elderly llama would not have faired well in an operation, so she was put to sleep and she died in my arms. I felt her last breath on my face.  I miss her already, there is a hole in my flock of animals.

I think next week I will find out one of her fleeces and start to spin it. She had beautiful red brown fiber. R.I.P Trick or treat my dear girl.

New product handwoven baby bibs

This last week I have been weaving up a storm. The weather last week was not the best rain heavy at times so I stayed in my studio working on weaving fabric. Yes just fabric with no intension of what the fabric would become.

Most of the time I set out with weaving fabric that when finished will grow into something and today they grew into baby bibs.
I was rather pleased with how they looked when done. I backed them with a water proof fabric so that when the cotton had absorbed all it could from being used there was no way that the babies clothes would become wet.

I have a friend that has taken a couple home for his little one to try out and test them for me. So hoping that I get some good feed back . The pattern was my own. I know a bib was not a hard pattern , mind it was one of my easiest ones that I have done.

I want to make sure that the bib is a good fit around the babies neck as well as a good amount of fabric that will cover the babies clothes. I used bias tape around the neck line and also for tying it on. I don't like Velcro or snaps when it comes to closures on bibs. Snaps have defined sizes and not all babies are the same. Velcro tape collects fibers and gets messy. So my chose was bias tape. I am trying to source a thin cotton twill tape, but for right now bias will do.

Tomorrow I will sew some more bibs. I shared them with a few groups on facebook for sale and so I will make more tomorrow.
After that I will make up a new warp and dress my loom.
I am still waiting for my sample card binder to come in so that I can work out what fibers I want to bring into my studio for both myself and customers.

It is kind of sad if you saw my fiber stash for weaving. colors are limited with how many I have of each and some I have non. Mostly I would say I have not a lot to inspire me, so I will have to see what I can come up with.

Well best get some beauty sleep or I will be using match sticks in the morning to keep my eyes open lol

Not computer smart omg

Computers came out when I was 14 so a long time ago. Everyone in the house is great with them .....me not so much lol.

So I write 2 blogs which I was supper impressed with being able to do and then I forget the password.

Yes it took me over a week to remember.

So maybe it was having chance to sit at my loom yesterday and get some weaving done.

It felt good and feels like forever since I had time to play at my loom. I say play as when taking the Master Weaver program you have a lot of homework in which to do and you are trying to make sure you get it right as well as done on time.

I heard back that I passed my level 3 master weaver. A very happy dance 94% I only lost 3 marks with my homework. 4 marks on my oral presentation. The one that brought my mark down was a quiz that we had done in class. 19 out of 30. I hate quizzes to say the least. I am sure I am ADD as well as mild dyslexic, but I am still proud of my mark.
I have booked in for level 4 which is in June in Olds College in Alberta.

As long as enough people pass and book in the class will be a go. So I have my fingers crossed that it is a go.

It has been a long 3 years doing homework and pushing myself. It has given me more understanding in weave structures and wanting to teach weaving, which I have started to do.

Most of all it has given me the tools in which to be able to pass on to others. I have just got my business licence and super excited to have my own business set up to be able to sell both weaving supplies and my products I weave. Along with classes I teach at in Birkeland Bros wool shop in Abbotsford, beginners class. which start in April

Classes I hope to be putting on soon at my place.

I will be teaching things  like dressing your loom back to front, Weave your own tea towels and biggest one will be weave your own baby wraps.
Which I will help you design your own wrap and then make the warp and get the loom ready for you to weave.

If you want to check me out on facebook I am Woven Dreams Fiber Arts Studio.  I welcome visitors and at the moment I have some of my work in a display in the Mission arts council building, as part of the Mission spinner and weavers guild which I am part of. I am also a guild member of Abbotsford guild.
I am also going to be selling Brassard weaving supplies. Just waiting to have my first order in.

So yes its all new and exciting and I cant wait to have everything ready. This week my business cards came in another happy dance. 
Right now I am low on supplies and trying to put warps together so that I can get some weaving done. So I best get back to doing some weaving and biggest thing not to forget my pass word again.

Today I was lucky enough to go to Fibers West in Surrey in the Lower mainland of British Columbia.
I got to pick up my Master Weaver homework from my instructor Linda Wilson and have the chance to go over it. 94% over all my work. Which marking is both from the class room and homework completed.

I should say I am taking my Master Weaver through Olds College in Alberta ,Canada. Which I drive to each June to sit in class for 5 days and then you go home to complete about 150 hours of homework, all before May so that you can re register for the next level.

I have just completed level 3 and have booked in for level 4 :) such a happy dance having complete a level and hoping that there is enough people to run a class for June 2016.

I was also lucky enough to see my level 2 teacher Laura Fry. I have been lucky having such an inspirational lady in my life and a fountain of knowledge.
Laura Fry is a master weaver and one day I hope to be as well.

Do you know how many people it takes to make a master weaver. The list is endless. Why you may ask.

It takes your family and friends to give you support on your journey. While on your learning journey you then have your teachers which all teach in different ways. What ever the teacher is like they have to be able to help coach you even after being in the classroom. Then when you get home your back to family, friends and guild members.
So the number of people that help you while you are on your learning journey is endless. No matter what they say, it could be a question that they ask helps you understand something more.

Me well I have too many to mention, some are more special than others, but the special ones know who they are.
So when I have all my levels done it has been off the backs of lots of other people. All have helped in one way or another and all I am thankful to have in my life.



I purchased some fibers to spin :) yummy. I do not know what it will turn into when spun, but it is yummy.

Last night I got back to thinking on where my fiber addiction came from and who I should give credit to.

I remembered how my Grandmother had showed me how to crochet. At first it was just chaining a ball of yarn and then undoing it and re chaining.

After that she showed me how to crochet a simple granny square, which if you think about it my granny showed me how to do the granny square lol.

She was very limited in her knowledge as we all are when we start out with a new craft.

I was the kid that took my crochet to school and at breaks I would crochet my squares larger.
I made large squares for a long time and each weekend I would go to the local market to buy skeins of cheap acrylic yarn.

I would go home and wind each skein into a ball so that I could complete more large squares. I think I crocheted 6 to 8 large squares and joined them together into a large blanket.
Looking back they were bright in color and for a kid I think I did a good job. My family used the blankets all the time.

I had moved to Canada the year after my Mom passed away and was lucky to have her knitting needles which my father had given me. Along with the knitting needles I had the crochet hock my grandmother had given me.

I started making crocket blankets, not like when I was a kid. These ones I started off with lots of chains like I used to do as practice. Only this time I made the chains as wide as I wanted a blanket and then turned and single crocheted back. I continued in this fashion all the way.

These blankets were thicker than the ones I had made as a child. I made one each for our 3 boys and then a queen size one for our bed.

A couple of years later I found out that I was pregnant again and when our 4th son. When he was born I decided to crochet him a blanket for his bed when he was bigger. I used the crochet hock I had been given when I was 11 and had also used on the other blankets.
I was half was through making it when the head of the crochet hook came off. Crochet hocks were plastic back then unlike the metal ones you get now.
I was upset at the thought I could not finish the blanket with my grand mothers crochet hock at the start, but as in life things are not always made to last. I completed the blanket for my son and it too was used.

So I look back on my child hood with good thoughts on how my fiber addiction started and wish when I was younger I had asked more questions on how to do things, as if you don't ask you never find out.

I do believe my new blog is about my fiber addiction and how it has progressed over my 47 year of life lol.

My first knitting project.

My name is Michelle Hughes and I am a fiber addict lol really it is true.

Just after I had my first son I started knitting.
I was lucky that my Mom showed me some basic stitches when I was 14, you know like purl and knit.
By the time I wanted to get into knitting more my Mom had passed away from breast cancer and my son was now 5 years old.

Mind he was 5  and I also had a 3 year old son. To add to it I was pregnant with my 3rd son.
Just to help you all out I also had a 4th son. I was one lucky woman having 4 healthy boys.

Getting back to knitting, My first son was about to start school and at that time we lived in the UK.

He needed a uniform and I decided to knit his top for him. I had a little help from a friend and I purchased book on knitting stitches.

Getting the book helped me work out how to understand the quite complex top I was about to knit.

The top had a fold down collar and it crossed over in the front. I sure hope that makes sense.

It had taken me some time to complete the top for my son, but I had gotten it done before school started.

I had purchased another one for him so that I could pop one in the wash and have one for him to use.

Now imagine you are so pleased that you have created a sweater  for your 5 year old son and it fits. Oh yes it fitted very well. Only thing is he looked at me and said Mommy its the wrong shade of blue.
I think back to those times some 22 years ago and laugh on what a five year old could say. He wore the sweater not to school, but home.

I then knitted one for my 3 year old son and carried on with my new love of fiber.
Like I said by that point I was addicted to fiber.