One More Try

I made this lace pillow a couple of years ago, using design ideas from a couple of different old pillows I had seen on Ebay, plus a couple of ideas of my own. It is a wide roller pillow - 14" working width - with a regular and a cone-shaped bolster for doing corners. I made it from some scrap luan plywood that I had on hand, and padded it with a thrift store wool blanket that I felted by washing with hot water and drying in the dryer. I made a couple of small projects on it and then began the current "weave fail" project. My first mistake was taking it with me to demonstrate on at an event. The pattern pricking is simple enough - Southard's Three Roses, but I found that I couldn't keep track of a 48 pin repeat while answering the many questions that one gets when demonstrating. I figured I would just unweave it when I got home, and kept on with my mistake riddled weaving. Before I got around to fixing it at home, my 2 1/2 year old granddaughter came to visit. I found her at the loom chanting "making, making, making......" while she quickly twisted and crossed bobbins as she had seen me do. And somewhere along the way the cats laid on it. I put it away in the closet where I keep Christmas ornaments and ignored it until a couple of weeks ago. In the meantime I have been working on another "found" loom, and found the small bench shown at the thrift store. The label says "DO NOT sit on this - Leg Loose! 99cents" I took it home planning on using the small board that was used as a top for a part of the other loom, and also thought I might use it as a loom bench. The board worked for the other project (will post this one later), but the bench wasn't the right height. The loose legs were a simple fix with a little glue and some wire to hold it in place until the glue dried. Then I got out the lace pillow to see what I could save. The bench seemed to be a perfect height to use as a stand while I sat on the couch. I decided to make this its permanent use. I used a piece of masonite from the other project to make a bottom on the framing pieces. This created a little storage place to keep pattern prickings. I hinged the pillow frame to the back of the stand which holds it in place but gives easy access to the storage compartment. I cut off tangled, dusty, cat hair covered threads from the bobbins and got ready to start over. I realized that there wasn't much of the thread I was using left and that the label, which I pin to the pillow, was missing. I intend to weave what I can and then include whatever I get from it in my Fasnacht mask/costume for this year. The tangle of thread that I removed, shown at the right of the pillow, will probably be included too!