This is an afghan for my grandson, Matt, and it's almost finished. The pattern is called "Crystalline" which can be found in Marilyn Magly's "Diamond Monk's Cloth Afghans". The booklet costs about $8 on Ebay and even though I have many others, I use this almost exclusively. The patterns are all beautiful, of course.
As I said, this afghan is very close to being finished but I still have a bit of filler to put in near the end. My grandson decided he wanted the narrow fringe instead of the longer fringe I like to do now so it left me kind of struggling to fill in the gap. I make a short fringe when I prepare the fabric with the intentions of finishing off with an enbroidered row and then a longer fringe, cutting off the short fringe. In this case, I'm just taking bits and pieces of patterns from different places, sorting them to suit myself and then filling in a border.
The fabric is ecru and the yarn is aqua, aqua/brown variegated, and dark brown. These were his choices and they've turned out nicely. I've used 2 1/2 yards of monk's cloth, zigzag stitched each end to keep it from ravelling and washed it in a gentle, but hot wash, and then dried it in the dryer. There would have been minimal shrinkage but it can safely be machine washed and dried from now on, preferably with a load of towels just in case there is some lint.
Thank you for all the information. I am teaching myself. I am working on my first towel. I am in love! If you have the time can you tell me if there is finish, by hand, the fabric before fringing. My email address is sharon.lemon@sbcglobal dot net.
ReplyDeleteThank you
Sharon L
I'm not quite sure what you mean but you need to machine stitch the edge above where you want the fringe to begin. This keeps it from fraying. I'm not sure you could get it secure enough if you did the stitching by hand but it's worth a try on a small item. I wouldn't try that on an afghan, though. I'm glad you enjoy the craft!
ReplyDeleteLoom weavers use a hemstitch to hand sew the rows bordering the fringe. I'm sure it would work on these projects too with monks cloth. There are plenty of other fringing techniques that would look pretty that don't require any stitching
ReplyDeleteThanks Jennifer. The techniques used with Swedish weaving have evolved a lot since I started doing the craft. It's nice to get any new information from other weavers.
DeleteDo u know where I can get patterns from
ReplyDeleteLook up Nettie ... she's in California.
DeleteIt's also NOT difficult to design your own patterns. Honest
I always suggest the "Diamond" booklet you can usually get on Ebay for about $6-7. There are also free patterns available on the internet. Most of the other pattern books are fairly expensive but worth investing in if you'll be doing a lot of weaving. "Avery Hills" has put out quite a few and they are also available on Ebay.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. I am using basically same colours for one I am trying to make now, my first.
ReplyDeleteWhat is wonderful about Swedish weaving is that you can't go wrong no matter what colors you choose.
ReplyDelete