Expecting our first child in a week, and I managed to complete a handmade item before she arrived!
I designed it to look like one of our native painted turtles, and it's woven with hand dyed yarn from our neighborhood yarn store (they did the dying, not me!).
The gist of the pattern is from "Swatch Critters from the Pin Loom" that I'd checked out from the neighborhood library.
This is a follow-up to this post asking for recommendations on which reed to use. Ultimately the 5 dent reed was definitely the right choice. Even at 5 EPIs, the plain weave is surprisingly tight after being wet finished.
People encouraged me to do a larger sample than an inch by inch. That's what you see in the photos here.
I'm looking for thoughts on whether any of these patterns in my sampler would look good as curtains in the nursery.
I got this chunky cotton yarn planning to make curtains to cover the part of the windows in the nursery that aren't covered by the wooden shutters (so essentially more like a valance than a curtain).
I plan to line the back with off white fabric so from the street side it looks like curtains (and that will block more light).
I don't think the blue I got actually goes well with the room, but I like the tan and orange. I could always try again to get a more blue-green color if I want 3 colors in the final curtains (the color "teal" in the same Maurice Brassard 16/8 cotton mop collection looks like a better color fit).
The first two pics are before I washed the sampler just to see the colors in the context of the room and to see the window where I'd put the much larger version of this.
The third pic is after the sampler was washed and dried (and shrank to be a denser fabric).
I noticed the photo quality in this post isn't great, so here are the same pics uploaded to imgur.
I've labeled the rows (A-C) and columns (1-6) to make it easier to discuss which if the 18 samples looks the best.
Columns 1, 2, and 6 are supposed to be a balanced plain weave. 3, 4, and 5 are a "mock waffle weave".
Thoughts on whether any of these would look good in the nursery?
My husband and I are expecting our first and only child (a daughter) in about three weeks. We both have unique last names -- which I won't put here because they are unique enough that you'd easily be able to ID us. About 20 people exist with his last and about 80 with mine. The last names are unusual spellings of otherwise fairly common last names, and we both take pride in the family stories behind the unusual spellings.
His last name is 4 syllables and contains a V. Mine is 2 syllables and contains a Z. Both are hard to spell.
I want to hyphenate our names -- her last name would be mine followed by his. I prefer mine first because it flows better, but I've told him I'd flip the order if it would help him get on board. It doesn't.
His objections: tradition says kids get the dad's name. A hyphenated name would be 16 letters, 6 syllables, and her full name would hit 11 syllables total. Combining two already hard to spell names will make her life harder. And he worries that if he picks her up from school or an event, not having a matching last name will raise flags in a way it wouldn't for me. Additionally, our niece on my side already has my last name, but our nieces on his side have his sister's husband's last name instead, so he says no one else is carrying on his family name. (I said he should take that up with his sister and not with me.)
My argument is that she's just as much my daughter as she is his and the tradition of passing along the dad's name is an extension of the patriarchy rather than some well thought out naming convention. Either of our names (especially his) are going to be hard to learn to spell. Is there really a big difference between learning to spell a 16-letter difficult name or a 10-letter difficult name? We both like our names so we should pass both names on. Neither name is better than the other. And it solves the issue for both of us about her not matching one parent's name when we pick her up from an event. Both our names would be in her name so we would both obviously be the parents.
So AITAH for wanting to die on this hill?
This is 16/8 100% cotton mop.
Plan is to do log cabin design on rigid heddle. 32" wide.
I'm making curtains for a nursery. The woven fabric will be seen to an off white cotton muslin backing that will be oriented toward the window to provide more sun blocking and to give a consistent look from outside.
I'm torn because 5 dent looks to loose and 8 dent looks too tight.
Thoughts?
Originally I bought this yarn because I wanted the curtains to be somewhat chunky and soft looking which in my mind is appropriate for a nursery. I'm not sure it will actually have the look I want, and I spent $75 on the yarn. Maybe my best bet is to accept the sunken costs and look for a different type of yarn?
If you recommend a different yarn, please specify brand, content, size etc so I can find the exact right thing.