home again!

Returned once again from War. Nothing much to report, although, considering our history (broken leg, burned foot, spider bite), that’s probably a good thing. Initially the weather was not good. Rain rain rain. Which turned into mud mud mud. Dark, gooey, and thick. Not to mention stinky. We decided to try out a new block this year and the end we wanted was the “flood” end. It didn’t flood, but we did have to dig a trench for drainage. It was so wet in fact, there were crayfish popping up in the middle of camp!

I didn’t try to attend a lot of classes this year. There were a few that I really wanted to go to, but as with previous years, I made it to about half. For the past three years, I’ve wanted to go to the basket-weaving class. First try, missed it, second try, missed it. This year, I finally got in, not without some drama, and made my first basket! It wasn’t really that difficult. Now I’m going to use the kits I got at Christmas to make more!

Usually I’m not that great at budgeting myself, but this year I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. Luckily, I didn’t find a lot of expensive things I wanted, so I didn’t have a problem. I bought a mini nostepinne, fabric, spinning fiber, books, pottery, a brooch, a sock (yes, just one), and that’s it. I think.

Overall it was a good year.

golden geometry

Thanks to everyone for your enthusiastic congratulations on my news. So far we haven’t made any specific plans, and frankly I don’t know where to start. But whatever we do, it’ll probably be weird! I’ll keep you posted.

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Whenever we go visit my friend Laura, we always stop at these two funky junk shops (my dad doesn’t like that I call them “junk” shops) that have not been restocked since 1975. They sell a lot of stuff, but a large majority of it is fabric. One store has mostly quilting stuff and the other has draperies. Since I was there last weekend, and in an appreciative mood for the unique and vintage, I picked up a few yards of this stuff:

The plan is to make into a bag for my Kromski loom. I realize it’s not going to be padded, but then again, I’ve been bumbling around with the loom for a month or two with nothing protecting it. Mostly I need something to keep everything together. I wish it had a date printed on it!

something finished-finally!

Tuesday night I cut the two woolly seat cushions from the loom! Yesterday I finished tying the fringe and securing the edges, although there are a few loose ends to sew in. I’m glad to have these off my plate, as the loom as been warped and waiting for months. Making Tuesdays weaving night was the best decision ever!

I’m pleased with how they turned out, although the first one isn’t as dense as the second, meaning it might not be as squishy. I can’t say what the wool is that I used because it was unmarked when I bought it. Whatever it is, it doesn’t have a lot of lanolin in it. I thought the locks had been washed because they weren’t greasy, but after I had my hands on them for a few weeks (and gave them a sniff), I think they are actually dirty. Mostly they just seem dusty and stinky, so I’m going to wash both rugs before officially calling this project complete.

This weekend is the first BIG camping event of the summer. AETHELMEARC WAR PRACTICE at Cooper’s Lake, where we go for Pennsic War (hence “war practice”). Some of our household is going out tonight, but I have to work Friday morning, so I’ll be heading out in the afternoon. I’m bummed. I’m very curious about which merchants are going to be there. Will I come home with fiber? Fabric? Nothing? One never knows.

works in progress

Still rolling along on the Frock Camisole. I’ve now incorporated the pink and light green yarns. Technically I could say the stripes were pre-planned. In that I meant to do the bottom in dark green, the middle in pink and the top in light green. But I wanted to connect the top with the bottom, so I placed a green stripe in down there. Also I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough yarn. Actually, I still don’t know. Frankly, the balls of yarn looked better together than the knitted stripes. I’m hoping that the longer I look at it, the more they will meld together. Sometimes colors look weird initially, but over time they settle in.

I’m still taking my Kromski Harp to shire meetings Tuesday nights. I’m probably close to halfway done on the second one. Which means that the first one is complete, since I warped the loom with enough yarn for both. Once this is finished, I’m going to make a bag for the loom. It will help protect it and keep all the little bits where they belong.

a weaving to-do list

I’ve been rebitten by the weaving bug. After making up my mind to weave at Tuesday night SCA meetings, and therefore realizing not every project has to take 6 months to complete, I’ve become reenergized by the possibilities before me. This weekend I pulled out my two best (and only) rigid heddle weaving books. Hands on Rigid Heddle Weaving by Betty Linn Davenport gives you the broadest idea of what you can do with this sort of loom. There really are more options than some people let you believe.

Speaking of, I find it very frustrating when veteran weavers try to make you feel bad about buying a rigid heddle loom. Every time I talk to someone (who has many years experience) about them, they always tell me, “As soon as you get it, you’ll want a bigger loom.” Well, I’ve had this loom for almost two years. Sadly, I haven’t made a lot of things on it, but that isn’t the loom’s fault. It’s mine. But more importantly, I do NOT want another loom. Ididn’t want a giant 4-harness thingy-bob floor loom two years ago when I decided on the Kromski Harp. Maybe with the single heddle, you can’t do crazy weave patterns, but I can still make impressive things and I won’t need half the state of Ohio to help me warp it!

So, what do I want to make? I want to do something using the full width of the loom, 24 inches. Perhaps a shawl? Also, I want to use my handspun yarn at least for the weft if not warp. And I need to make a bag to put the loom in when traveling. I had thought about weaving the fabric, but that would take a while and for all the time I’d be weaving it, I wouldn’t have the bag to use for transportation! So maybe that ought to be priority – of course, after I finish the woolly cushions.

Logically speaking, I can’t invest 100% energy into every interest I have, otherwise I might spontaneously combust. So, it seems as though weaving might be snatching a higher percentage of my time in the next few months. Weee!

tuesdays are for weaving

I bet you thought I’d never get back to my weaving loom ever again, didn’t you? You, me, the folks I was supposed to be weaving for… well, I had a revelation yesterday. Every Tuesday night we have an SCA meeting from 6:30 to 8, so why don’t I take my foldable traveling loom to the meeting and weave? That way I’ll have at least one day a week where I know I will work on this project because otherwise I sit at home knitting or spinning and don’t feel much like weaving.

It seems quite brilliant and obvious.

home again

I had a great time at the Farm Day open house. Even though the weather wasn’t superb, we still had a sizable number of people visit. I really enjoyed getting to talk to folks, meet secret lonely spinners, old knitters, curious youths, etc. Of course, there were a few terrorizing youths also – ugh. One kept putting his dirty shoe ON MY WHEEL. I told him very firmly not to touch it, but that didn’t stop him. Overall it was fun, though. They want me to come back and teach classes.

Originally I set up my table under a lovely tree. Behind me were some youth group kids selling hotdogs. They were very interested and wanted to try out all of my toys. I let them spin on a drop spindle and wind a ball of yarn using the umbrella swift. Eventually I moved into the garage when it started to rain.

Undeniably, I work primarily with wool. I only had two skeins of alpaca yarn and no finished projects to show. This caused some confusion because I was demonstrating at an alpaca farm. Folks would walk up and say, “This is all alpaca fur/hair/wool/skin?” “No, I work with wool mostly.” And then I’d point out my two lonely skeins.

I see it this way: I like variety and wool gives me that. Alpaca is the same thing all the time. It would be similar to someone spinning the same breed of sheep all the time. I do a little romney, a little columbia, a little BFL, a little alpaca. Doing all of any one thing is dull. I want lots of options and I get that more with wool than alpaca.

They were really impressed by my yarn and the colors. I laughed to myself. Sure, this looks nice because you’ve never seen anything like it before. If you were on Flickr and browsed through the yarn groups, your brain would explode! This is nothing! But I still appreciated their enthusiasm and positive comments.

And of course I had to snap a few shots of the animals. These are all the female alpacas; the males are kept in a separate area. Isn’t that baby cute?

look like an annoyed stallion.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I think I am backtracking as far as my knitting capabilities are concerned. So many of my current projects are not getting finished; not just abandoned out of boredom, but frogged from frustration. I feel like I’m knitting quite regularly, but not getting anything accomplished. Nothing to show for my efforts. 

The mug cozy was started 3 or 4 times, but eventually given up on entirely. Sometimes projects make me so mad, I don’t want to make any attempt to finish them. Sometimes I find things half done that were completely forgotten about. I found the feather and fan test swatch this morning. It’s only a few inches long, but I needed the yarn for my weaving project, so I bound off, leaving it a useless 6 or 7 inches.  The cardigan, on the other hand, was rolling along really well. I got so much done in such a short amount of time. However, now I’m to the sleeves and it’s really annoying, not to mention I don’t know what I’m doing – when to decrease? So, it’s been stuffed in a bag and left for now.

 

On the Kromski loom I’ve got this little wooly scarf that has been laying around for months. Ok, maybe not as long as I thought. The photos were uploaded in September. You’d think in 8 months I could have finished it. But no. It’s annoying me too. I hate the way the color has turned out – you can’t see the warp threads at all! And my edges are really bad. Now I’ve got something else in mind and I want to get it off the loom. Do I cut it, ending up with lots of short lengths of string and a short, useless “scarf”? Do I rush through just to get it done? Or do I let it wallow on the loom and never get anything else accomplished? 

Well, I brought the loom to work with me this week. While gallery sitting, I’m going to get the stupid thing done! I want to wash it and see if some of the annoying parts are lessened.

weave mistress!

Yesterday I got up at my regular time, 7 am, and was informed that YSU was closed until noon.  Since I was up anyway, I finished getting dressed and ready to go by 9, but because I didn’t have to, I had all sorts of extra time to do fun things.  Deciding I hadn’t done any weaving in far too long, I pulled out my kiddie loom and began to warp it. I turned up the dance music, grabbed a box of yarn, and went to town. The loom has a heddle 4 inches wide, so it’s very compact. It’s great for doing inkle weaving, which is fun and really quick. It takes longer to measure the warp yarn than to weave the piece.  Once it got warped, I had time to weave a few inches and take some pictures.

I’m a bit disappointed that the color changes aren’t more visible, but it may be due to the similarities between the yarns. I’m glad I put those two orangey stripes down the middle, otherwise it would have been really dull.  I got the yarn from Cosy. I think someone passed it on to her and she passed it on to me.

bored at work.

what do i want to do next? i’ve been meandering around ravelry for a while now, going through patterns in books i own. surprisingly, i’ve knit more than i thought! however, i haven’t been taking pictures of any of it! there are a few patterns i’ve queued, but more than that, projects i’ve added that need photos. i’ll have to dig them out and photograph them.additionally, i could do some weaving… it’s been quite a while since i’ve worked on my scarf.  i really need to finish and wash it so i can see how the yarn holds up before buying excessive amounts. it’s fingering weight. not my favorite.