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WAL 2023

Feb21

The Month of March is Weave ALong month on Ravelry  Knitting for American Girl Dolls, for those who would like to try their hand at a different yarn craft. You do not need to be a weaver, because while this is weaving it is a simple and easy form of that ancient handcraft.
I will be weaving on the 4” Hazel Rose Multi Loom but this project can be made with many different brands of looms. You may own or be able to talk Mom or Grandmom out of their old Lomette, Weave-it, Weavette, even the more modern plastic zoom loom. If you have the HR Tiny Weaver square, that will also work. There are probably several other small looms that weave a 3 ½” to 4” square that can also be used

The larger looms, like the HR 7” square and the Potholder looms, will not be suitable for this project.
We will, of course, be happy to sell you one of our quality, hand-made hardwood looms but I am also offering a do-it-yourself instruction to make a temporary loom for those of you who think you might like to weave with us but aren’t sure enough to want to invest a lot in this project. This little foam board or cardboard loom will be sturdy enough to weave the blocks needed for this project and will last long enough for you to decide if you enjoy the craft. If you find you love weaving, you may then decide if you want to purchase a more permanent loom. email or PM me for this one.
Meantime, you will need your loom, a weaving needle, and your yarn.  The needle you can buy are a low cost at most any carft or yarn store. The Yarn can be fingering, Knit Picks Palette makes a thin, light fabric, but suitable, Stroll sport is the one I used for this dress, and have also used light weight worsted sizes. Unlike knitting, which will change the size of the garment when you change the size of the yarn, these squares will always be right around the same size. What does change is the texture of the fabric. The heavier the yarn the stiffer the fabric. If you decide to use the self made loom, I’d advise using the finer yarns so as to put less stress on your little loom. The hard wood looms are stronger and can handle the draw-up for any of these yarns, of course.

I am going to be offering a 10% rebate or coupon* to WAL members on the 4” Multi Loom for this event. That includes the loom, the weaving needle, and the booklet with instruction as well as the project instruction for the dress we will be making & a couple others as options. * I’m trying to figure out how to do that on my web site so be patient. If you want to go ahead and buy one now it’ll have to be the rebate. But you need to let me know you are in the WAL.

We would like to start this project on Feburary 27. This is an early notice to allow time to find your loom and to select your yarns and weave a few practice squares. I would be happy to have an idea of how many of you are planning to join this WAL.

I will be posting the WAL info to my blog, https://hazelroselooms.blog/ and also inviting members of the Facebook pin loom group to join us if they wish. My view is that of “The more the merrier”!

We had great fun with the WAL’s the last times we did this and I hope this one will be just as much fun.

I picked the Starry Day dress because it is all 4″ squares but if you have another choice please feel free to suggest. We can decide together. I will post some pictures of possible patterns that do not need a collection of looms.

There will be a prize winner chosen at random between the finishers. I will keep a list of finishers on Ravelry but you will have to let me know via email with a photo if you are not a member.

February again…

Feb18

But don’t worry, it’s not spring yet! More snow in the forecast on Tuesday and through the week it sounds like. I’m okay with that. We have gotten quite a bit of precip this winter but are still not caught up with the last dozen or more years of drought. Garden started to thaw a bit this week with the highs in the upper 40’s but there’s still plenty of time for that , too.

I’ve done little yarn things this winter, knitted myself a scrap vest. This is all the scraps and snippets saved from projects over the last decade, probably. Tied together in an overhand knot. Will that hold? Ask me in a few years of wearing it!

And played with a few weaving techniques, that’s about it. Just did this one yesterday. From a photo posted on the pin loom facebook group.

Randy is planning our trip to Utah next month to take part in the Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair, Friday April 28 and Saturday April 29
The Legacy Event Center – Farmington, Utah. I’ll be teaching a basic class on the 4 inch Multi loom, we’ll make a little needle book to learn plain weave and a texture pattern or two. The other class is the dishcloth class on the 10.5″ Quit Weaver Square. We’ll start with plain weave and see how far we get. The class schedule hasn’t been posted yet but should be soon–keep checking!

We’ll be at the Black Sheep Gathering, June 23, 24, & 25 and the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival,  October 14 & 15. Both in Albany, OR. I think we’ll also be at Lambtown in Dixon, CA, Oct 7 & 8. We’re also looking at Fiber Fusion Northwest in Monroe, Washington.  June 4 & 5. Maybe. Sounds like a lot, beginning to feel like a lot as well. I think I’m getting old as these affairs are a lot more stressful than they used to be. I suppose it’s good for me. At least that’s what Himself keeps telling! lol

Did I mention that we can almost see the lake again? Yes, indeed, it has been coming up rapidly this winter. Authorities warn us not to expect it to fill this spring, tho, Partly it appears, because they have other uses for the water up here. I don’t mind sharing but it would be nice if we had some lake. Our local businesses mostly rely on that body of water to draw the tourists that they rely on to stay in business. We’ve lost a few already who weren’t able to tough it out. That’s rough on us all.

Way in the back, that thin line of blue is the lake. The rock piles (a remnant of the mining days) show the river wending its way to join that pool. This is the view across the Lake(bottom) from Trinity Center where we had tp go last month to get internet and cell service from the Verizon tower there.

And my little Fox friend is still coming for dinner each evening. He doesn’t get much, I want him to still hunt but while the snow was still frozen on the ground hunting was difficult and I wanted to keep him around. He’s my best mouser!

I guess that’s all for now. I hope it’s not too Winter where ever you are. Spring isn’t far and we can all be outdoors grubbing in the dirt again!

 

Carrots & Radishes

 

Another year gone by…

Dec22

…And I’m still alive and comparatively healthy for my age group. That gives me plenty to be thankful for right from the start! Last week was Very Cold, the snow frozen solidly. This morning we are supposed to see temps into the 40’s and rain. This reminds me of a couple of photo’s I took a few years ago to explain snow to those who don’t live with it. It’s pretty as it falls and for a while after, but we do live here! It’s not usually this bad but the loader was broke down just then so he wasn’t able to plow us out. I still enjoy the snow, more so if the power stays on.

   

But no rain so far today. Sis says they have ice storms predicted up in Oregon and my walking buddy is traveling to Chicago. I have to laugh, it is all typical winter stuff! as much pain as pleasure!

But ‘my’ little fox still comes for dinner. I give him just enough that he doesn’t go hungry but he is still doing his job with the mice. Have not had one all winter, a rare thing when the fox is not around!

I have nothing new to add to the mini WAL. There are a few more under projects on the web page that you are free to download and make in case your tree has a bare spot yet! The candles are fast and fun as are the elf shoes. You can make these in any size, from table center piece, filled with fir boughs and berries to a pair to fit your American Girl doll!

 

Anyway, I hope you all have a happy and comfortable Christmas day. And even if you don’t believe in Santa Clause I hope you can enjoy the holiday in whatever way you do enjoy it and enjoy it for all your friends in their ways, too!  And join me in hoping for and working for a wonderful peaceful and kind 2023!

Best wishes from Hazel and Randy.

Chilly moring!

Dec13

High, low, and present temps At 7 am. It’s clear up to 18 now at almost 9 am and the sun’s shinning brightly! But we have power again. After three days without you find out how spoiled we modern folk are! lol But we have plenty of firewood to stay warm, propane cookstove and water heater. Our water is gravity so no shortage of that, tho that spring is just as cold as you’d guess! You have to warm up the tap water before you can drink it! It was kind of peaceful being ‘out of the world’. We didn’t hear any bad news. Any news at all until yesterday when we found out the whole county had been out of power, a lot of damage from the very heavy wet snow. But the good part of that is that it’s started a nice snow pack for next years water supply! Just hope it’s not the last one! Tho I’d not mind if the next one was just a little lighter and drier! There’s just no pleasing some folk, huh!?!

Little icicles dripping off the patio table. But we’re in the shop today catching up on last weeks orders. Hope you are enjoying the winter and getting ready for the holidays. Also hope that if you’re in the other half of the country you don’t get too much snow out of this next storm! There is a limit to how much White Christmas we can use!

Easy Holiday WAL Week 1

Nov25

The project for this week is just a little “gift”. Gift uses two squares and Easy Single, as you might guess uses just one. You can use already woven squares you may have for either if these or just spend a few relaxing minutes to weave new ones.  They are squares and can be any size you want and any style square as well. I used the 2″ square Multi loom but the Quilt weaver squares would work as well. For tree ornaments you’ll probably want to stay with the smaller looms but the choice is always yours. I just want to say, don’t judge the project by my bows! lol My old fingers are not very handy at these tiny bows anymore.

Gift

Easy Single Square Pretty

 

 

 

Another winter…

Nov11

We started out this month with some early snow. Is it early? Seemed so, the trees also thought so as almost all of them still have their leaves. We had no damage here other than a few broken branches but there were long stretches of power outages which very likely mean some other trees along the way weren’t so lucky. I felt for the PUD guys out in that weather but they did a good job of getting us powered up again and I appreciate it! Yeah, we have a generator but it’s a noisy contraption so don’t engage it unless the fridge and freezer start to suffer. We can hear all the neighbors machines well enough!

It’s been awhile, as has been pointed out to me, since I posted here. Things have been happening but not interesting stuff to write about.  Gardening and canning, cooking and cleaning, you know that kind of thing. I have been weaving but mostly it’s all for Little Looms magazine which I can’t share here. If they don’t take it I can share but if they do it’ll be sometime next year. I’m not as fast as I used to be, especially at the writing it up part, so that pretty much covers my weaving time.

We’ve gone to three shows this year, Black Sheep Gathering last June, Lambtown in first part of October and OFFF in the last part. He’s looking at accepting the invitation to go to Utah for the Great Basin event. We’ve never been to it. That, of course, set him off looking for other events of this nature that he might want to attend! There’s are a lot of them scattered around but it all involves timing and the size of the event, too. And the distance! But that’s all day dreaming right now.

He’s got the wood shed full, says he thinks he has next years wood already, too. About the only good thing to come out of last years fires, there’s a lot of dead wood. So we get to burn it again. The woodshed below is full but he still has room for his drop cord collection and a few other items of manly interest. And they yard out there still has more. The unsplit pile next to the splitter is madrone. It’s a hard wood for those of you who don’t know it and makes a really hot fire. There’s lots of it after last years event. The best thing about madrone is that even tho the tree was burnt and died of it, it will come back from the root nearly every time so they aren’t really lost. I don’t want a Madrone in the yard, they are a messy tree, but I enjoy them out in the forest. They are also handsome and have white blossoms that make pretty red berries in the winter.

My broken Hyde King apple tree is making a come back after it got smashed by the fallen alder a couple years ago. It had one apple this year, which was not bad as the crop on all the apples this year was negligible. I got one pie and no applesauce.  Got some nice winter squashes off my couple of vines. And the woodbine was once again brightening up the yard.

   First Hyde King!  

  One of many tasty winter squashes.

So now I guess it’s time to settle in for the winter. We have a couple more guests for the cabin and we’ll close that up. It’s already in the Twenties at night and we don’t need any frozen pipes! Thanksgiving will be just the two of us and probably Christmas, too. I have a little turkey and a little ham so we can have our celebrations here properly! I even bought a can of cranberries so we’re all set! ;-D  Hope you are all doing well and getting ready for a cozy winter!

 

It’s August already!

Aug3

Which makes me late again. Oh well, Late, as the saying goes, seems to be my middle name. But while I have been busy, I don’t know that all that much has been going on. Garden, loom projects, cabin rentals… We had a week of over 100 degrees. It hit 114 one day. Then the next week, this past one .was cool. We had one day with a high in the mid 70’s. I think the drives the garden nuts, too. My peaches are just now starting to soften and we had our first tomato for dinner last night. It was yummy! It’s an heirloom Oxheart. There’s another one ripe now, too, and lots of green ones.

And yesterday we were threatened by the Weather Wizards with heavy Thunder storms and flash floods. All we had was some distant thunder.

Until…

…about 1am I heard water running in the dry flume outside my bedroom window. Our “flash flood” had arrived. It fid not seem enough to worry about so went back to sleep. And it did no damage to us but the poor fishes did not fair so well. Apparently the heave storms were up in the alps in the burn scares from last year. Nothing to stop the runoff & it brought all sorts of mud and muck with it down Coffee Creek, into Treasure Creek and branched into the dry flume though the yard. It’s ugly and it looks like Coffee Creek Road is out again, too. The dump trucks being used for clean up of last years fire went up this morning as usual but came down again empty, which indicates they can’t get to where they are working. A while later some county road dept trucks and equipment went up and we haven’t seen them back yet.

Bur you may remember seeing the pictures I’ve posted of Treasure Creek that runs though our yard.

Here’s what it looked like this morning. and it still looks like that. The water level has dropped a little from the early hours but it is just as dark and thick.

This is the flume behind the shop. That ‘hill’ is mucky foam that forms when the stuff if forced though the culvert.

And now the thunder is booming overhead. This in spite of the wizards telling us the storm has moved on. Crystal ball is wrong again!

Randy been called by Search and Rescue to go to Siskiyou  to the fire over there and help hunt for missing people. Not a search he’s looking forward to.

Hope you are having a reasonable summer!

Fringe

Jul2
The pillow in the new issue of the Little Looms magazine is really about the fringe. You know how to weave squares already. But I thought I’d post a couple more things that the fringe can be used for. The first project I submitted was for a doily, I rather like this one.
 
 The center is a 6″ Multi square using some super wash wool I bought at a fiber fair a long time ago. The fringe is a sport weight wool of unknown brand, The corners we finished with little 1″ squares using a little loom we made with scrap. I think I’ll post the how to photo’s here. I wanted to make it a ‘page’ but I can’t get that to work. It said make a gallery so I tried it. Here’s a couple other project using a fringe. A pin cushion sized pillow, an easy Barbie blouse, a cowgirl outfit for a larger doll. a bag for your cell phone or whatever. I think this could make some really cute toddler outfits, too. More later.                

Back from Black Sheep Gathering!

Jun29

Home from Black Sheep without many pictures. Didn’t get a chance to roam around and take interesting ones but I have a few. It was really nice to be able to get together with fiber folk again and talk weaving knitting spinning all the fun things we do and share our projects, successes and failures! My class on Sunday was great fun and everyone managed to complete their little needle book. That was 4 pages; a plain back, a patterned front, and at least one center page using the sild stitch. There were 6 stitch patterns to choose from. It’s a lot to learn for first time weavers but they all caught on rapidly. And if they need a reminder later they have the work sheets and the you tube video to visit.  Weaver Hazel

I’m showing them the Quilt Weaver square.

Grace from Graces Cases made these charming little purses from woven squares. She used the 12″ square Quilt Weaver to make these. The small flat bags are one square felted. They are lined and zippered. The larger one she told me she “…Just cut the big square in half…”! The bottom is faux leather, they too, are felted, lined and zippered. This one is not flat, it’s about 2″ wide at the bottom.  Pretty and well made! I was loaned one to show with the looms, Grace trusted that I would not pack it up with my projects!  Tempting…. lol

A weaver took a Blue ribbon using the 6″ 3pin loom to weave a lap blanket. She belongs to a guild and wove the squares each of a different breed of wool for a guild project. Each one is labeled on the back, too. I even have a couple of photo’s but I lost where I wrote down her name and of course, my knack for remembering names is working as usual.  So if you recognize the project I’m talking about would you please email me with her name?! This just shows half the blanket. Each square was woven in a different textured pattern. I have a photo of the full blanket but as she is in it I don’t want to post it without her permission.

A P.S.! Linda York, the Weaver who wove the blue ribbon lap blanket posted a comment below  and gave me permission to pot the photos. Thank you, Linda!

 

But now we are home again with a new set of tires on the 5th wheel. But that’s another long and expensive story! The wad of wire he is holding is what the tire shredded into and that beat out the floor in the trailer bathroom and took out our water lines. So Randy had to do some mechanics and some plumbing as well as the show stuff. This took place on the shoulder of a Very Busy I-5 just north of Medford, Oregon, canceling our dinner with my sister. But we made up for it and got our visit on Monday on the way home. One lady did turn around and come back to check that we were okay and didn’t need help. It was very kind of her! We were okay, if not very happy! lol

 

June is nearly over…

Jun18

And I’m late again. It’s been a pretty hectic spring for some reason. Seems to have been deadline after deadline! I think I’m just getting slower but that’s the way it seemed. Now we are trying to get ready for Black Sheep Gathering. We leave next Wednesday. It’s been two-maybe three- years since that event was held. I have a class on Sunday if anyone signs up, I haven’t heard yet. Sunday afternoon is not a great time to have a class as most people by that time are just ready to pack up and go home. But it will be interesting to see what kind of attendance we get after so long. I think most people are expecting it to be busy, but as far as sales, who knows with things the way they are. And I expect people who have a distance to go will be reluctant with gas prices $6 and up.

I have gotten my submissions to Little looms done and now have until August to get the project finished and photographed. It’s mostly done already so that should to be too stressful. Now I’ll have a little time to work on my own projects!

We have most of the garden in. It’s been so chilly and rainy this spring that nothing is on time. It’s low 60’s as a high today and 38 predicted for tonight.  Rained off and on all day, enough that we don’t have to water but not really heavy. But the forecast is for temps in the upper 90’s next week. Yeah, that’s the way it goes, never any Happy Medium! But the garden will like it.

My torch plant is blooming. Oh, I forgot, Sis says it’s a Red Hot Poker not a torch. But it is an impressive plant and there’s three of them this year. I want to get them out of that pot with the rose this fall if I can.

   

And we have baby Robins out on Le Shed. And another baby out by the garden this morning!

 

If you are within driving distance of Albany, Oregon, I hope you’ll drop by and see us at Black Sheep next weekend!