Friday, January 09, 2026

2026 Goal: A Year of Permaculture Weaving

Last time I was able to share that at long last, I will be able to get back to weaving. No more packing things up and shuffling piles around so we can finish remodeling and upgrading our house. But where to begin? I'm not one to make new year's resolutions, but I do make goals. Something that has been percolating in my mind for the past couple of years is permaculture weaving. 

What is permaculture? It's a food growing / landscaping / life style design and maintenance system based on natural principles. The word was coined by the late Bill Mollison from the term "permanent agriculture." It has been promoted and adapted around the world. You may recall me mentioning Permies.com from time to time. That's an online discussion forum about all things permaculture, including the fiber arts. 

So here is the list of design parameters I want to include
  • fiber content: Ideally, handspun. But I have a large collection of cotton and wool yarns, some handspun but much commercially spun. To start, I'm going to include the commercial natural fiber yarns. 
  • color: I already started dabbling with this last year with my nature's color palettes. 
  • shapes: This will probably take some defining for this project. To start, I've been collecting photographs that feature stripes or bands of color on my photography journal. How I'm going to apply them to weaving will be part of my challenge.
  • patterns: Natural patterns are a key element in permaculture design. More soon.

My guiding principle is that each of these categories is taken from or inspired by nature. 

Okay, so there's my introduction. As soon as I hit the "publish" button, I'm committed!

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Wednesday, January 07, 2026

2026: The Year of Being a Weaver Again?

Once upon a time, my fiber journal was my main blog. Then we bought our homestead and there was so much to do that I created a homestead blog. One of those things to do was repairing and upgrading our 100-year-old house. Seventeen years later, the interior of the house is almost done! With every room we've worked on, I've had to pack things up and pile them elsewhere. Between that and establishing our homestead, my fiber arts activities have been off-again / on again. 

2025 was mostly an off-again year, although I managed 28 fiber blog posts. Late last summer, when Dan started on the front bedroom where I set up my Glimakra, things were packed up again and piled up in my sewing room, so my table loom and supplies were harder to get to. That led to a loss of momentum for weaving the samples for the project I was working on. 

Happily, that front room is finally almost finished! 

A newly redesigned and rebuilt closet gives me all
sorts of storage space! (Before and after pics here.)

I've reserved getting excited about it until just recently, but now I'm starting to think about new weaving ideas and goals. Getting back to work on my fiber stash too. It needs to be turned into yarn! 

Anyway, I'm hopefully back to fibering and fiber blogging.

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Monday, November 17, 2025

Brother Blankets Sample #2

Sample #2 for my Big and Little Brother Blankets

  • Yarns: Hobby Lobby Baby Bee Sweet Delight
  • Yarn size: sport weight
  • Sett: 10 e.p.i.
  • PPI: 10
  • Structure: Plain weave
  • Pattern: Every third warp end is solid green. The other two and the weft are the multi-color variegated yarn.
  • Width 
    • on loom: 15.5 inches
    • after finishing: 14 inches
  • Length: since it's a sample, I didn't measure the length
  • Wet finishing: same as sample #1
  • Weaving notes: 
    • When I measured the warp, I used two variegated skeins starting with the same color, so the colors were wound in pairs.
    • Other than that, I didn't line up the yarn's color changes for either warp or weft in any planned way; the color changes were long enough to create the plaid look as it is. 

It definitely has a different look than sample #1.

close-up of sample #2

The solid green stripes break up areas of solid color. Even though I didn't plan the plaid, you can see from the first photo that a definite repeatable plaid emerges from simply using the yarn as it comes off the skein. 

I like plaids, but I think the close-up view is more interesting than see it from afar.

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Tuesday, November 04, 2025

Brother Blankets Sample #1


  • Yarns: Hobby Lobby Baby Bee Sweet Delight
  • Yarn size: sport weight
  • Sett: 10 e.p.i.
  • PPI: 10
  • Structure: Plain weave
  • Pattern: Variegated yarn with Fibonacci stripes in green at 13, 21, 34, repeat
  • Width 
    • on loom: 15.5 inches
    • off loom: 14 inches
    • after washing: 14 inches
  • Length
    • on loom: unknown
    • off loom: 34 inches
    • after washing: 32.5 inches
  • Wet finishing: 
    • warm soak and squeeze with Ecos dish detergent
    • two rinses in plain warm water
    • spin cycle in washing machine
    • laid flat to dry
    • cool press with iron
  • Weaving note: I didn't line up the yarn's color changes for either warp or weft in any planned way; the color changes were long enough to create the plaid look as it is. 

Since this was just going to be a sample, I didn't write down how long my warp was nor now long I wove for. With my Glimakra unavailable due to room remodeling, I'd pretty much given up on weaving actual blankets. But since I had the yarn, I decided to just have fun with it and see what the color variations would do. 

Looking at the finished sample, however, I'm wondering about weaving several strips and sewing them together to make a blanket. Three strips sewn together on their lengthwise edges would make a rectangle 32.5 inches by 42 inches. Adding a crochet border would enlarge it just a bit. That might do for a baby blanket. And I could probably get one made by Christmas as a baby gift. The three-year-old would likely prefer something else anyway!

© 2025 by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

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Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Trying To Remember Where I Left Off

It's been a busy summer in the garden and the kitchen. Every day was filled with picking and preservation. While I didn't get much else done, our pantry is the fuller for it. 

Finally, with the arrival of autumn, I have some free time to do other things I enjoy. Which brings me back to the project I started to plan before harvest season kicked into high gear - my big and little brother blankets. The problem is that I lost the momentum of my planning process. 


Fortunately, I made good notes on both this blog and in my fiber notebook. The warp had been on my warping board for months, and I finally got it on the table loom. Even so, the mental and emotional energy flow for this is gone. 

That said, I am very much enjoying getting back to weaving. The color changes for this yarn (Hobby Lobby Baby Bee Sweet Delight) are long and so give it a wonderfully plaid look, which I like. 

Given that my floor loom won't be available for a good many months due to room remodeling, I likely won't get to weaving baby blankets any time soon. When I'm done with this sample I'll put it aside along with the rest of the yarn and see what happens in the future. 

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