Tag Archive | hand woven

Happy New Year 2019

Jan6

All my resolutions to keep this blog regular have failed so I guess I’ll just promise to do it when I think of it this year!  sigh….

  

But today it’s snowing. Lovely! If we get enough of this stuff maybe we won’t have such a “hot” summer this year!

Elsewhere I have been busy in the shop, & I’m signed up to teach a pin weaving class at Black Sheep this year. I’m a little disappointed that they did not take my more advanced class but am happy to be teaching the beginner class anyway. That’ll be the 4″ Multi, if you are interested. I’m going to offer the advanced class to OFFF and Lambtown. Maybe one of them will take it.

     I got out the peg loom and my Pentdelton Mills selvages with weaving a rug in mind. However, my sample turned out way too thick for a kitchen rug, which is what I had in mind, so I guess I’ll make a set of chair pads instead. My sample is rather pretty, even dh said so.

   And today I baked my Windmill Cookies. I paid $7 for a little jar of Mace so I thought I’d better use it. And I’ll see if I can find some other uses for this fancy spice. I like the flavor but it won’t go with everything.

And I read that modern mother’s like sleep sacks for their babies rather than blankets. I have to admit it makes sense. They were talking about babies smothering in the blankets. That seems unlikely to me, I never heard of a baby smothering in it’s blankets and the only problem I’ve ever found with them is keeping the baby covered. They sometimes kick them off in the night so that’s why I think the sleep sack is a good idea. It’s kind of like the old gown with the ribbon tied at the bottom, Kind of an extra long sweater with the hem sewn shut. I’m going to make one for my niece’s girl, due in April. Still trying to decide on the yarn to use.  The snow is so pretty, but I’m not wading out to the yarn shed today. I’ll wait until it’s done and not quite so cold and wet! But I have some alpaca squares I wove for a sweater for myself but found that I am not going to have enough. Maybe I’ll make one using those. Not exactly baby colors but maybe modern mother’s don’t do pink and blue anymore, either.

And I’m in a KAL with the doll knitters. That’s for movie evenings. Well, That’s about it. I think tonight will be comfort food. I’m thinking something featuring macaroni and tuna. Hope the power stays on….

Hope your new year is getting off to a lovely start!

 

November

Nov9

Beautiful fall here this year but sooo dry! It is still fire season when we should be having rain and thinking about the first snow. Watching other places in California go up in smoke, it’s scary. Could happen here just as easily if someone gets careless. Please be safe!

But I’m doing a little “recreational weaving”! Ellie is getting ready for the party season! My camera is getting weird, tho and wants to digitize my downloaded photos! What’s up with that?!

  

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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Progress! No- really!

Apr20

I am just one shy of halfway done weaving my blocks. Counted 11 today. Yeah, not nearly one a day, but I think I denied that possibility right from the start. But now that Baseball season has started I will probably get more done as I can do that and listen to the game at the same time!  I think they are looking good (the squares, if not the team) but also they seem to have a little more draw-up than I figured on so I’ll likely end up needing more squares. Which may mean some creative coloring in order to do it since I have a limited amount of this yarn. Well, I have never objected to colorful so we’ll see.

I’ve up dated this blog so that I can post videos on it but so far have not been able to make that work. In part, I’m sure because of my very slow connection here in the backwoods. I’m going to try again today or tomorrow. A nice summer day, I think people are going to want to be outdoors instead of sitting by the fire with the internet so maybe there’ll be a little extra bandwidth for me!

If I can get this working I’ll have all sorts of things to share with you, we can weave together at last… so keep your fingers x-ed for me!!

New years resolutions?

Feb18

Well, maybe.  I cleaned up my Love Seat yesterday. That’s where all my projects and yarn- UFO’s, WIPs, new yarns etc end up. I just have too many projects started and many of them are never going to be done so I decided to seriously prioritize.
I decided on two projects. First, a fast one with a new yarn. It’s called Bernat Maker Home Dec & says it’s 72% cotton & 28% nylon. I wanted to try it for a dishcloth. I wove the ends in and then secured them by sewing the ends in with sewing thread. I’ll let you know of it makes a decent dish cloth or not. The skein comes with a crocheted blanket pattern. The yarn “tube” is about the size of a #4 knitting needle, quite elastic. It’s a knitted tube with a tiny bit of stuffing.

The second and long term project is a new sweater. My orange one is getting pretty ratty looking and I have been swatching for a new one lately and finally decided to use the bag of alpaca I bought on sale a few years ago. It’s Blue Sky 100% baby Alpaca in a sport weight. I have 5 skeins each of these three colors and several balls of two greens and a charcoal that may end up being the trim if I run out too soon. It is going to be many colored but I think it may end up looking a bit tweedy once it is woven and assembled. But in any case, I need a sweater and I want to use stash so it’s going to be what it is. I am using the 12″ Quilt Weaver square for the sweater, the same one I used for the old orange one. That one I did many years ago before I tried cut & sew so the sleeves in it were knitted. This one is going to be all woven so I am planning 24 squares, hence long term. I figure about 1 hour per square and I doubt I’ll be able to manage one a day, practically speaking. All of us have Other Lives which interfere with our weaving. sigh…;-)

     

Nearly Christmas…

Dec16

I haven’t been keeping up with the WAL altogether but have made a few along. Posted the elf shoe last time, here a few since, if you haven’t been watching on Rav.

And today was Candle day. I rather like this little taper. It uses the led tea light, my choice for candles. I do have a few of the real thing, since you can’t always count on batteries, but these are safer! It’s been a fun WAL and only takes a few minutes to make and join. I have not done much xmas knitting or weaving this year other than this. Just seemed to get here faster than usual. But I hope you are all having a lovely comfortable and pleasant winter!

Merry Merry!