Tag Archive | Hazel Rose

A couple of new old projects.

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!

Busy Bees!

Sep20

Well, we’re not bees but busy we are! Having been gone about a week and a half to fiber shows we have a lot of catching up to do before we leave again for Canby and the Oregon Flock and Fiber Fair. Got rained out last year… well, more like blown out, so are watching the forecasts closely. This was the Natural Fiber Fair in Arcata, Ca. I failed to get a picture in Booneville, where the event was held in conjunction with the county fair, midway and all. It was pretty exciting!

Meantime, we found orders for over 70 looms when we got back plus ripe tomatoes and wind fall apples that are attracting the deer and have to be canned this week. The apples might wait but the tomatoes and beans wouldn’t. And trip laundry and 200+emails lol Such problems! Anyway, if you are waiting for your order, please be patient, we are peddling as fast as we can!

The fairs were enjoyable and we sold looms and made a few new weavers, I think. We did some ‘boondocking’ at the ocean side, too, which was fun. Going to sleep with the sound of the crashing waves was at first a bit of a challenge. Crashing was certainly the correct word! I hadn’t realized how much noise water hitting on rocks would be. Much more than our little stream running over the smallish dam here at home.

But speaking of water sounds, we got to go to sleep with the sound of falling rain a couple nights ago! That was indeed a welcomed sound! A neighboring town, just over the hill, has suffered quite a tragedy, they are saying at least a quarter of the town has burned. I feel much better with this rain and more predicted for next week.

And I think I have my Weaving for your Doll book nearly ready. Last evening I got to finish the leotard and will try to get photo’s for it today between shop work and applesauce! But now I need to get Himself some breakfast and go to work. Hope you get some weaving time today!

Oh my… how time flies…

Aug22

And that’s even if you’re not having fun. Not that I’m having un-fun, it’s just that time of year, but sorry I have been so long in posting. Peaches got ripe, then the fire and three shows coming up in September, then his truck had to go to the shop. We have to go pick it up today. You know how these things go.

But sis was down this week for an all too short visit and brought along a couple skeins she has spun from her birthday fleece.. I got a chance to try it out with a little weaving in the evening while we chatted. I used the 7 inch set. We had been discussing pattern weaves on the Multi and I thought I’d try one diagonally. I think it worked pretty well so will have to get busy and try a few more of them. This one is the slide stitch. I wove a few rows, six I think, and then worked a slide row with three regular rows in between & it came out nicely spaced. Now don’t take my word for this as I can’t really remember for sure. I’m not going to tell you the details of how to do it this morning but will work it as I type tomorrow so hopefully can get it right. Meantime if you’re interested you can go to my YouTube- Weaver Hazel– and take a look at the Multi version.

But here’s what I made with the sample yarn. Two squares and two triangles, sc around the edges and a tie string. It’s an ear warmer. I’ll also try to get a photo of it on. This kind of shows the pattern stitch.

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!

What’s next?

Aug2

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!

I was thinking of trying another shawl, maybe a little bigger but the yarn I pulled out of stash proved to be insufficient for that but I think it’ll make a nice shrug. It’s, Lion Brand Jiffy that I bought when our Five & Dime went out of business some years back. Got a nice price for it. I could buy more but I’m trying to use stash. It’s a bulky yarn, acrylic. Soft, a little fluffy so that you have to open the shed each time to avoid tangles, but it weaves fast enough. I also have a skein of charcoal LB ‘Homespun’ that I might use to assemble or for some accent. I’m using the 14″ square this time and my squares are coming out about 12 1/2″.

Here’s the plan. So far.

It’s a twill: Weave 7 rows plain.

Start pattern;

o1, u1,*o2, u1* end o1, u1.

The thing is that it is going to change at the ends every other row, just go with the pattern. And this might not work if you’re using another size looms but I’m sure you can figure it out. You just want to keep the edges neat. You can work a couple o1, u1 at each side if that works better for you.

This is what I more or less envision. You could use a couple more big squares on the sleeves if you have enough yarn to make them longer. I think these are going to be about 3/4 sleeves. Maybe even less. Humm….. Well, no point worrying about it now. I have a few more squares to weave.

Just thinking…

Jul19

It’s July and too hot to be doing much with yarn. I am working on a project for a book to be published by somebody else. I hope I can get it done in time.

But meantime, cleaning up the kitchen this morning, I got to thinking about dishrags. Lots of people weave them on the looms, Sis is one of them. I have also done it but mostly for the how-to pictures. I have clung to my sponges. But awhile back Sis gave me a stack of her old faded ones to use as rags in the shop or somewhere. I just shoved them in the kitchen towel drawer. The other day I got a bug to clean out the overflowing drawer and remembered seeing on someones blog that she had a basket in her kitchen filled with old dishrags, etc to use as clean up rags and save paper towels so I got out one of my hand made baskets (arthritis won’t allow that anymore) and put them all in it. And have started using them for that purpose. And I think I am converted! They are easy to rinse out and hang on the edge of the sink to dry. It was too easy to toss the sponge into the sink where it probably grew some really nasty stuff. I know I went though a lot of them. I remember reading in a “green” magazine that it was actually cheaper and more energy efficient to use paper towels. The author if this piece having proved to herself that the manufacture and delivery of the paper towels saved more energy that the washing of dish cloths. I am going to equate the making of the paper towels with the manufacture of yarn, energy wise. And I refuse to think of the “energy” spent weaving the cloths as effecting the global climate, so will skip to the washing. If you ran a batch just for the dishrags, yeah, that would count, but who does that? You toss the in with whatever batch seems appropriate to your style of doing laundry and as that energy would be used with or without the cloths that also can’t be counted against your ‘carbon footprint’. So it seems to me that the handwoven cloth is going to come off ahead however you look at it. There’s a little water used to rise the cloth but I usually rinsed the sponges and often the paper towels as I use the tough ones so that can’t add to much.

And more to the point… The dishrags woven with kitchen cotton do a much better job of cleaning! That’s really the part that converted me. I am going to have to weave a few more of these handy bits. I’ve had some people tell me they use them as wash cloths, too. I’ll have to give that a try next.

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!

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.

Assembling

Apr27

Got the top pinned together and am sewing up the shoulders and sides. Fit is pretty good, near as I can tell but… same ole same ole… It needs sleeves. No, I need sleeves. I think this would be cute as a sleeveless top on someone with firm young arms. Mine need sleeves. Not sure how I’m going to go about that but will be working on it. Here it is so far.

The front I assembled using a slip stitch in the darker yarn. The back is just an overhand stitch in the same yarn. I decided that if I was going to be wearing a target, it should be on the front and not the center of my back! More later!