Archives

Another oldie.

Apr6

I finished this one in 2014. It’s a collection of my handspun yarns.  Woven on several looms, mostly, if I remember, the 7″ and the 3 1/2″ squares. Randy made the wood buttons.  The button holes are just an unstitched space between the little squares on the front band. I like 3/4 sleeves but these were probably a little wide and the bottom edges. It works okay, tho.

Just been going though older projects, posting to my 3 “social media” places, here, Ravelry, and the facebook pin loom group. I’m working on a new everyday sweater but thinking of reworking that idea. I’ve been weaving either 12″ or 10.5″ squares, can’t remember just now. Needless to say that last one woven was a couple months back! But someone posted about shape weaving the other day which reminded me of the shape woven I’ve done in the past. I still have the cardboard looms and am thinking I might just employ that method on this sweater. I seem to get a better fit with less blocks than the cut and sew method. I’m too big to get a good fit with the totally block woven things. The one above is cut and sew. This one is the shape woven. The yoke and the arm skye as well as the back yoke were shape woven. And a much better fit than the others I’ve done, I think. The sleeves as shown were cut and sew but both made from the same pattern. Well, I’ll have to think about this some more. I have a little time between now and my next deadline, I hope!

Sept-Trying again..

Sep28

Maybe  the internet and I will get along better today. You think?! Doc says, Yes I did break my finger. He gave me a new splint and congratulated Randy on his. He also said I’ll need to wear this thing for a month!! Trying to make apple sauce today. I can halve them with the cutting board and big knife but coring realty puts a strain on that finger so Himself will have to take over that slot for the time.  But I’ve got the first pot cooking. The Squeezo wall take care of the clean cores.

I spent most of yesterday in town what with Doctor, Chores for Himself, and my own list. Traffic was horrible, with fire hold-ups still north of town and Weaverville’s first traffic light being installed on the other end of town. Took forever to get from place to place so I didn’t get anything done on the shirt yoke.

But we got a lovely cool wet rain! It was so relaxing that I didn’t mind sitting at two road work stops on the way to and from town, just relaxing with the cool and wet and dim landscape. It was great. And hopefully did some damage to the remaining fires as well.

I’ve made and modified the pot holder. Have two more made and one test woven. It’s a light commercial “worsted” woven on the 5″ Quilt Weaver Square. So a test for both yarn and loom size. The dark on on the left is the first one I made using the 7″ and it was a little too long. I rewashed it to felt it a bit tighter and then cut it off shorter. The red one and the one on the skillet handle are both handspun felted max. You can see the pot with the apples there on the left, too.

But now I think it’s time for some lunch and by then the apples may be ready for the next step. Hope your day is moving along smoothly!

Weaving a Pot holder

Sep4

Okay, finally here’s some weaving content! When packing up the kitchen in case of evacuation I used all my potholders as packing material between breakables. Clever, huh? Yes, but I still have to cook meantime! The too thin commercial pot holder that was left  is cute but I may as well use my barehand and burn scars are not cute! I I dug out some yarns and the 3.5×7″ Quilt Weaver rectangle and wove a few. Two are Brown Sheep’s Lamb’s Pride 80% wool, 20% mohair and a skein of my own handspun, unlabeled, of course. That’s how I know it’s mine. Rosy, my spinning sister, labels hers with fiber type and yardage. Anyway, I wove two of each yarn and felted them in the washer with some bath mats. Not a good choice by the way as they incorporated  a nice bit of white fuzz onto my blocks. But as I am not after pretty with this project I didn’t let that stop me, just something to keep in mind!

So now I see that the Brown Sheep felted up nice and tight, the hand spun less so but still good. I decided that the Brown Sheep were going to be a little too small for my project and that both were still a little thinner than I wanted for a pot holder. So I sewed the smaller ones to the larger to make my holder a double thickness. Then I used a blanket stitch to sew the two pads together.

Those of you who use the original non-stick (cast iron) skillets know how hot that handle can get but I think I’ve fixed that now! I’ll tell you after breakfast tomorrow!

It’s not pretty or cute but it looks like doing what I need. It ought to be pretty fire proof too, so hopefully I won’t set the kitchen on fire! However, I think I’ll make another and make it just a bit shorter. And maybe this time I’ll go for cute as well as safety!

 

As I promised…

Apr17

I finally found some buttons for the vest I posted earlier and I promised to show it on at that time so here it is.

   

One thing I am happy about is the back view. It actually hangs at my waist instead of halfway up my back. I did some asking from Tech knitters about this issue with my “hump” and got some good advice on fitting.  It was a matter of extending the front shoulders just a tad and cutting the back neck lower. It made a great difference from the last ones I have tried. My shoulders sit at my shoulders and the back at my waist! I added a couple short rows to the ribbing in back just to make sure. Not happy with my figger but am pleased with the fit. If the WIP  does as well I’ll be doubly happy!

A quick note…

May19

I posted  again under Pages but it apparently doesn’t send out or post to facebook. I need to explore this option more, I guess. Anyway, if you want to see the bit about weaving with wire you’ll find the link above.

MIL goes home tomorrow so I’ll be spending the last day with her. We’ve had a fun week but naturally I haven’t got a lot done on the looms or in the garden. Hope you are enjoying these brief spring (or autumn) days! It’s been lovely weather here. Two signs of spring.. Lupin and strawberries!

Spring

May4

I love the pink oaks. They may not show a lot of leaves but the little ones they have are such a pretty color. The dogwoods have blossomed out, too. Yes, I know they aren’t flowers but, like ducks, if it looks like a flower and blooms like a flower than I’m calling it a flower. I saw lupine, mules ears sunflowers, pinks, poppy’s, buck brush, red bud,  and the lilacs in the farm yards are also bursting out. Of course, I did not remember to take my camera today but I got this one yesterday.

I stopped at Greenview on the way home and got Himself 4 more asparagus plants. He’d better get them planted this time and not let them dry up first like he did last year.  I also got some onions sets: white, yellow, and red, & some bigger starting pots for the melons and winter squashes. The little starting tray I bought is only about 2 inches deep at the most. Since the seeds want to be planted an inch deep and will put down long roots immediately, I decided to give them a little more starting room in case we get another cold spell and they don’t get planted out right away. He’s picking up the deer fence today

The email I got from the wordpress tutorial today wants me to “create a feature” which is a post I commit to making posts on a subject at regular intervals. I think it’s going to have to be about weaving. You may wonder where the weaving content has gone these days. Well, it’s spring and gardening season, but  weaving is still important here and still happening tho slowly and pretty much in the background just now. However… keep watching! I am going to do this! Meanwhile, a bit of history, here’s what I did when I started out in this type of weaving. It was a 7′ hypotenuses triangle for shawls.

 Amy’s  Elsie’s  has a shiny strand woven in. Karen’s

  

Two views pf Kathy’s.  One before and one after weaving in the ribbons.

Below is a wool plaid shawl for my Pop and one for Stephanie of very soft furry nylon.

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Finished

Jul14

The Green Thumb Top is done. The shirt looks nice but I am not very good at the selfie thing! Here I am with my mouth open.. no comments on that, please! But it fits well tho it’s probably a good thing my cleavage is a bit lower than it used to be! As you can see it kind of wandered away from the original sketch, but that’s the way projects usually go. I’m happy with it.

 

July & hot again!

Jul8

But I am still weaving, of course. Took the computer to town yesterday to get it cleaned up and running properly again (I hope!) And Boy! Was it hot! Really glad to get back in my mountains! I thought we were hot up here the last few days but I was wrong! lol

Anyway, I have been working on a new patchwork yoke using some very pretty yarn I bought at Black Sheep Gathering. Trying something new. It’s taking awhile but I think it’s going to be pretty. It is inspired by this one. 

This is what I have so far. The 1st one is a sketch to give me a idea where I want to go.  The 2nd is what I have embroidered so far. There’s a lot more needed on it. And, of course, it changes as I work. That always seems to happen. The yarn is super-wash sock yarn and, you know by now that I love my washing machine, so I have done swatches that I’ve washed in the machine. I am using some of my big stash of needlepoint yarns for the embroidery and have also tested them in the machine. They don’t seem to shrink much, either, tho both fulled just enough to look good.

      

So that’s about all that’s happening here just now. Well, I am also designing a doll dress for our August WAL on Ravelry and trying to keep the garden watered. We turned off most of the auto watering when we got back from the trip so we can have a little more control as some places in this yard don’t need watering all summer while other places dry up almost immediately. Give us something to do! lol

Speaking of which, I have some loom shipping to do so better get on with it. Hope your summer is not too hot! If it is, stay indoors and weave!

A winter project

Dec19

Here is a little project I have been working on occasionally this fall. I have not quite decided what it’s going to be. right now I am just playing. I also posted this to Ravelry so if you are a member there you may have seen it. I am using the Multi looms because this is sock weight yarn. I bought it at OFFF and have the label somewhere, I’ll look it up. It is hand dyed superwash wool, that I do remember. But after weaving a couple 6” squares, I knew I was going to get bored before the entire large skein was done so got the idea to make 6” squares using the other sizes. I have not run out of options yet. And have not decided if I am going to involve the triangles or not. As you can see I have also not done anything with the tails either. But it is kind of interesting to see how close to the original 6” I can get. The top center block was put together by sc each side and then slip stitched the two sides together. I like how that looks but found that it makes the block just a tince too wide and with more than one seam it makes them way too wide. That could be compensated for by working an edging around the outside of the block but I decided to go with a narrower join, just one row of sc. I chose this dark maroon yarn because I thought it toned the red & green down a bit and also being a bit smaller yarn the seams would be a little less bulky. It’s already been redone once and is still subject to frogging. And I expect it’s going to be a long time finishing. 🙂
Samples

  1. 4×6 & three 2×2
  2. 4×6 & 2×6
  3. Three 2×6
  4. 2×6 & three 2×4
  5. One 6”