Tag Archive | clothing

Trying freeform again

I have tried before but it always seems to end up– well– normal. what happens to my free spirited creativity here??! I am trying to take a lead from Frida. I am starting with a rectangle of knitted fabric. This was a huge bit of knitted something a friend gave me. she had tried to make some kind of garment with it but gave up. I frogged most of it. Got 11 1/2 balls of yarn from that part, and am using the rest in this experiment. so far. I have sleeves, a shrug-like thing.

With chained underarms. Now i am exploring free from web sites. And I am getting out my little diamond to make some star or flower shapes to add in. Not very creative yet but we’ll see.

Meanwhile, I have garden stuff to tend to yet.

Rain early next week and it feels like frost is not far off. Only 65 at noon, today.

And the Giants are playing the Cardinals tonight! Go Giants!

October already!!

Oct8

Well, Sorry I’ve been so slow posting here. We’ve been to OFFF, had nice weather this year, and nice crowd, did well, met lots of interesting people, took the long way home, calling it a vacation and here we are again. Himself has gone off for the week to help a friend re-roof his Mom’s house so Cori and I are In Charge here. She’s a little confused and just a bit worried. Didn’t want to come in Monday night, but finally had to come eat dinner, then wanted out again but he still hadn’t returned so agreed to come in at last but spent the evening watching the kitchen door. She was better last night. She likes me but she’s not my dog. lol

Meanwhile, on the fiber front, I’m knitting at the moment. Working on a Christmas gift. I bought the yarn in April but am falling behind, as usual, as other projects also need doing. And one that really didn’t need doing. Himself found in the trash at OFFF this great wad of fiber, someone’s very beginning spinning, maybe a child’s even as there were two colors involved. It was very little spun, from thread size to fatter than my thumb. He was shocked that anyone would throw away something that cost as much as $5 an OUNCE! (He’d been looking at a neighbors booth and noticed some roving at that price and was shocked at that, too. This is the guy who paid $30 for a rusty old wood plane on eBay!) He gave it to me asking me if I thought it would be usable. So not being able to settle into anything the other evening I re-carded and re-spun his ‘find’ and presented him with a 1.8 oz skein of soft wool yarn. He felt justified. 😉

Have not started to wash my fleece. I bought a pound of mohair at OFFF to blend with it to make the kid fleece a bit stronger, I hope. Did I say I bought a Navajo Churro kid fleece? I want to try my hand at a little Navajo type tapestry weaving. Very basic and simple. It will be awhile before I get to that, I’m sure. Have to do a little research first. And some spinning, of course.

And I’ve been making lists of projects I need/want to accomplish this winter. Yikes! The winter better be long one! lol Well, I have my book, Weaving For Your American Girl Doll ready and will get it on the web page soon. The projects fit most any 18″ girl type doll. They start out with just the 4″ Multi square, as that is the most common sized loom people have, I think, and then there are more complicated projects, too, using more than one loom. Some you’ve seen but there’s new ones, too. I have lots of patterns to write up, people have been asking for them. It’s laborsome work so I keep putting it off, but it’s on The List now so…

Okay, there are projects to finish and I will get to them, but those two white buckets in the photo with Cori are full of wind fall apples that have to be tended to first. And because the sow bear and her cub cleaned the tree of all the good ones, these are all I have this fall so don’t want to lose them. And the tomatoes are still producing. Well, you know how it goes, but I will get back to weaving soon. Hope you’re making progress on your projects!

A couple of new old projects.

Sep23

I was rummaging and found these two. The quilt top was one of the first projects I made with our looms. I used the Tiny Weaver set, the 3 1/2″ square and triangle, to make this quilt top. I ran it though the washer and found some quilt batting and fabric for a backing and now it’s a proper quilt. I think it’s about crib size. The backing color is not ideal, but it was the only bit of fabric I could find in my stash that fit.

The other thing I found was a blouse I made for myself back in the day, too. It has used an assortment of loom sizes. The 12″ and the 3 1/2″ I think. The yoke and sleeves in this one are knitted. I can’t recall off hand what the yarn is called but it’s a sport weight (I think) cotton. It was comfortable and nice to wear but you probably notice that I am speaking in the past tense. Well, you know how things go when you ‘grow up’.

But now we’re almost ready to leave for Canby and OFFF. Randy is finishing up his 7 foot shawl loom. He promised someone (Sorry but we can neither of us remember who) that he’d have one this year. I think I am ready. Tomorrow I take the cats in to the ‘motel’ & buy groceries for the trailer and Thursday we hit the road. Keep your fingers x-ed for a cool but dry weekend!

Do come see us if you can!

On the road again….

Sep5

We are getting ready to leave for a couple shows. First in Arcata for the Natural Fibers fair and then next weekend to Booneville for the Californian Wool and Fiber Fair. If you are in either area, we hope you’ll come by and see us. Later this month we’ll be in Canby for the Oregon Flock and Fiber Fair up near Portland.

So not much time at home this month and tho I don’t have any projects to share this time I will be weaving as we go. I was given some yarn, a generic wool and alpaca, nice but not next to skin soft and I am weaving 7″ squares with it. I am thinking I might make an afghan but it would also make a nice jacket, and a little more conservative than my last one. But right now I’m weaving and considering. We’ll see what happens!

I also just got my Weaving for Dolls book finished and will have it with us if any of you are also doll fans. I’ll be working on a project for them on this trip as well.

But I have been clipping pictures from magazines and catalogs for my ideas file. I found this one & thought the collar was rather interesting. I’m never sure if anything will come of the collection but they do help ideas to simmer in the background and sometime inspiration happens. We’ll see.

Meantime, hope to see you are one of the fairs but if not…

Happy Weaving!

Not what I started but…

Aug7

I think it worked out okay, tho a more simple garment. I know poncho’s haven’t really been in style since Martha Stewart got out of jail but I’ve never had one and thought it might really work as well as a shrug for those coolish times of the day when you don’t really want a sweater. For one thing, sleeves are difficult in the shop. The sleeves either catch on the nails or sweep them off the work table, then I have to get out my handy dandy magnet on a handle and get them up off the floor. And same thing just sitting and weaving, they get hung up on everything. Not sure this garment will work any better but I’m going to try it. After trying it on again, I think I might end up adding a couple more rows to the neckline to raise it a bit, but I might wait until cooler weather to decide if I need that. I fitted a 12″ triangle at the back neck to raise the back a bit. I just about had a heat stroke wearing this for Himself to take the photo. lol What with the smoke from the fire and the thunder storms, the heat and humidity are trapped at ground level here and it gets pretty uncomfortable. But here’s what I came up with. I’ve had some suggestions for the shrug and I have more Jiffy so it is still a possibility. But next on my to-do is tending to the peach crop!

Okay, scratch that.

Aug3

Added 8-3 Shrug is not working. Wanted to warn you here so you can rethink if you are following my examples. :-0 Not sure if it’s the plan or just my size. Plan rather simplistic, I agree. But it seemed like a good idea. Too short in back and too tight under the arms. tho the sleeves were plenty big. I could probably weave more squares and then cut and sew but I think I’ll just try something else this time. Stayed tuned!

But I do have a couple things to show you, meantime. This 14″ square was proving a little unhandy as a lap loom the other evening and I remembered I had this table easel over in my painting stuff so went and fetched it out. It works pretty good for this. My middle sister made one for me that sits on the edge of the table that would also work but I’m not sure where that one is at this point. But you might want to consider something like this if you’re having the same problem. I have it set on a dining chair to put it to the right height for me to work on from my chair.

The other thing is joining. You can do a russian join, which is what I have been doing, or if you have wool, the ‘spit’ join. But I just sewed the yarn into the new piece without the russian loop and it holds really well in both wool and acrylic. It may make a bit thinner lump that the previous type join. You could probably thin it by cutting plies before you stretch the join out, but I haven’t tried it yet. Sew the yarn into next strand, pull the last end flat (after you take the needle off) then work the first end flat. If you have a little lump at the beginning you can work that out with a needle and trim it.

Okay, I’m going to weave another 14″ twill square and think about what this is going to become since it’s not, after all, going to be a shrug.

Finally finsihed!

May19

The Tri top is done. I wove four 12″ squares and sewed them in pairs. Folded in the sleeve openings a couple times and fitted the sleeves in until they looked right. Pinned them in place and tried it on, adjusting until I had the look I needed.

Then I top stitched the sleeves in place.

After that I turned it inside out and cut the excess fabric and zigzaged the seam.

Here it is.

I tried to take my picture in it but the do-it-yourself-setting on my camera has quit doing it. All I get is a fuzzy one so will have to wait until Himself and do the photography with his big mulit-talented camera. But here’s the fuzzy view, for what it’s worth.

I think it turned out, in the end, okay if a less than flattering design for me. The color is nice and the texture of this soft cotton is very nice.

And, by the way, the beans are coming up! Hope things are springing up where you are!

Is it a blouse or is it a cat blanket?!

May12

That’s still up for grabs. I am working on the sleeves. I think the problem is that the shoulders are too wide. This is going to turn out to be one of those cut and sew projects after all. But meantime the weather has warmed up and we got the bean tower in and the beans planted. It’s 80 degrees on the deck. Yum!

Cotton top

May10

Got my extra yarn from Webs so am starting on the sleeves again. I’m kind of playing this by ear, so am not quite sure how it’s going to work. Or frankly, IF it’s going to work. I’m going to weave the four 12″ squares and see what it looks like and go from there. I’m thinking I might like set-in sleeves better than just square ones, which will mean some machine sewing- steeking- but I’m not sure how that will look with this design.

Meantime, I’ve been getting some gardening done, tho it’s still a bit early. In spite of warmer than normal temps, it’s still a bit chilly nights so I am rather pushing it. And now he’s getting going again in the shop, preparing stock for Black Sheep Gathering at the end of June, which means I’ll be out there more, too. Still, I have weaving time in the evenings while the games are on! The Giants are doing great so far.

Hope things are warming up where you are!

Sleeves

Apr28

I wove some 7″ triangles and made a sleeve. I think it’s going to work. I need to weave the other one and sew up the neckline a bit, it’s too wide as is. Then we’ll see.

Meantime I was playing with a little thing I found on a Brazilian Youtube. I did this experiment on the Tiny Weaver Square. It should have had 5 petals, but I wasn’t up to the math and just wanted to see how it would work. Kinda of cute. Takes a bit of time and my warp was, in this case, too thick to really work well. There’s a rather too thick lump in the center where all the warps cross, but I can see uses for this sort of thing.

Hazel Rose

My Life in the Country