Tag Archive | Hazel Rose

A hail of a spring day!

Hail, rain, wind and all the while the sun shinning! lol Well, not all the while. It did gloom up now and then, too. And never did get very warm. Took my morning walk and then came back in and went back to weaving. Lookee there… it’s hailing again! I always feel sorry for the poor critters out there in that stuff. I remember many, many years ago walking home from school and got caught in a hail storm. Tried hiding under a hedge but finally ran to the nearest house and begged asylum. The lady let me come in until the storm passed. That was actually 60+ years ago and I remember it vividly! I hope all the critters can find a safe place to ride out these showers!

But back to weaving, the suns out again! lol I decided to make the center front yoke in the second color and weave it in a twill. I think it’s going to work.

Another project

Apr22

The white 6″ cotton squares are going to take a long time, if they ever do get done. The one I washed did soften up. Not a lot, it’ll still be a ‘crisp’ cotton, but mostly it’s going to take a long time to weave them. So meantime I have a new project started. Have some worsted weight cotton in my stash. It’s make by blue sky Alpaca, but it’s 100% cotton and very soft. I’m not sure how it will wear but decided to try it. I’m using the 14″ triangle for this one. I just finished weaving the first Tri. It took 30 minutes to weave this one, it’s woven plain. The yarn has a subtle variation with very light blue, a slightly darker blue, and just a tiny touch of a light green. It doesn’t photograph well. I might work a texture for the yoke tris. Haven’t decided about that yet. But here’s the sketch of what I have in mind and the fist tri.

Easter weekend

Apr20

No weaving going on this weekend. My hands are now too grubby to touch yarn! Gardening and spring type yard work instead. For instance, here’s Randy filling the new garden box with compost and dirt. He sifts all the rock and roots out first, lots of work but it makes a nice growing bed. The tomatoes will go here this year. He also put up the pea trellis, tho they haven’t quite reached that high yet. 😉 A bumper crop of rhubarb in the back there. The bed to the right will have summer squashes and cukes eventually, they’re still in the baby seed bed, but growing nicely, as are the onions in the left photo. I planted three kinds this year, the regular yellow, also some white and red which I haven’t tried before. The bushy plant is a perennial celery. Kind of a cross between celery and parsley, I guess. It has the celery leaf flavor, and that’s what I like. It’s in its third year now.

But I will show you the squares I wove last week from the stash picks. I am leaning heavily to the one on the right. It’s the easiest to weave and I rather like it’s texture. I think it’ll make a nice summer top. But it won’t be a fast one because even being easiest, it is still a slow yarn slow work with. I don’t seem to have the labels handy but if I haven’t said what it is, I will when I get back to it.

Meantime, I am enjoying a nice summer this spring. Hope it’s a warm sunny weekend where you are!

Looking for the next project!

Apr15

I liked my new top so much that I went out to Le Shed this morning and rummaged into the bins and found some potential yarns for summer tops. I bought this stash (most of an 8×10′ shed) from a knitting lady who retired and moved so there is a lot of stuff in there that I am not familiar with. I found these four that look like I may have enough for a project. There is one more, a thick and thin linen that looks nice but is heck to weave with on this type of loom. I’m not sure how these are going to do, either. I’ve started weaving a swatch of one. It’s pretty and very summery. It claims to be cotton, mohair, and poly something or other. The one at the bottom of the photo. It seems to be do-able but it will be slow going. Should be a lovely fabric if I can get them done. I am working on designs. We all know how well that worked this last time! But I have High Hopes! And even if the last one didn’t quite work out as originally planned it still worked out so this one probably will too. Check back now and then to see how it’s going. I’m still looking for ideas for that other pile of squares, too.

Almost done

Apr13

Okay, got it together, tried it on. It fits! so I wove a bunch of 2×6’s to add a little to the length, my calculations telling me I did not have enough to make it 4×6. But it may take awhile to get this strip added as I am trying to make it look like I had planned this all along so am attaching it with a kind of lacy looking stitch. I hope. I added the slide stitch pattern to the front neck and also to this bottom trim to give it a bit of interest. I don’t remember if I said but the neckline I had planned proved to be too low for my taste so I added another 6×6 there, as you can see.

A bit of a remodel

Apr10

Things are changing. It was supposed to look like this:

And then it looked more like this:

And now I’ve rearranged it again.

I’m pretty sure I have enough yarn to do it this way since it looks like I have to stick to what I have. It’ll be shorter so not a tunic but I think it’ll be long enough and if not I may use the scarlet or the cream and work a border. These things evolve. That’s one of the lessons, I guess. It could evolve yet again as I am not sure this one is going to work, either. I could get by without the ‘sleeves’ but I am really trying not to. I need 5 more squares, if I can squeeze it out of these last 1 3/4 skeins. Hang on, I’m getting there!

Yet another excuse…

Apr9

I am making progress here but slowly. Shop work and you know it’s gardening season, too, so other things are calling but I am getting it assembled. I’ve given up on finding more of this yarn so it looks like it may have to be sleeveless after all. I guess I can live with that. 4-9

And the other squares I was weaving have run into a hitch. But as I have not yet decided what I want them to be , I guess it’s not an urgent problem, huh? The difficulties of life just keep coming, don’t they?! Ah well, it would be nice if this was the worse we had to deal with, wouldn’t it? I’ll try to show you a bit more progress tomorrow.

Meantime, I hope your projects are moving along! Wishing you warm and sunny!

Ready to assemble… maybe…

Mar31

I have all the squares woven for the tunic but…! I am still trying to figure a way to add sleeves. I really like it all brown but I also really need sleeves. I had intended to beg for yarn but I don’t want to wait. It’s hell when you can’t get everything you want Right Now! Still fretting over what to do but it is good to go, if I decided to do it. Robin has been a good boy today, too, staying on his kitty blanket and off my project.

It’s still trying to snow. Temp has been slowing dropping all day. It’s (nearly) April fur heaven’s sake!

Recounting

Mar28

Decided to lay it out and see how it was coming. Took some new measurements, too. I didn’t flunk out of math in high school but my Pop, who was a surveyor back in the Olden Days before calculators and computers, had been known to wonder how he managed to sire such math dunderheads! lol

Okay, but I don’t think my initial guesstimate was too far off. I scooted the cat over and laid them out on the bed. Laid the pattern out over them and came up with a couple modifications. Not entirely happy with it yet, but I still have more squares to weave so time to mull it over.

I think I may yet rearrange the upper bodice. I’ll have to see how it fits once I get most of it assembled. One thing I have learned during this design it myself era is never weave ends in until you are Absolutely Sure it’s right. It is really difficult to find ends if you have to frog once you’re done a proper job of weaving them in!

Okay– back to weaving while it’s still raining and too wet for gardening.

Still weaving…

Mar27

But meantime I thought I’d chat a bit about ideas. I have a picture file on my computer under Weaving Clothing called Ideas. When I see a picture of a garment- sewn, knitted, whatever- that I think I could possibly make with the looms, I save it in this file. Of course, there are many more ideas than I’ll ever have time to make so I thought I’d share a few “Inspired by” here to give you an idea.

Here’s a couple for you with the big shawl looms. I’m pretty sure this first dress could be done but it’s a bit difficult to sketch here. I’m going to have to get out the paper towels and work in the round for this one. But I’d love it if some of you put your minds to it and came up with a plan! The second one, the shawl with sleeves, or whatever that might be called, is easier. I have thought about making that one for my daughter who likes drapey things. Trouble is, as always, the time to do it. The sleeves could be knitted in, of course, but also woven with the smaller squares or triangles. I made some prelim sketches just to keep the idea in my head. You never know…

And there are lots for the smaller looms. This one would be pretty easy. If it’s your project, I have to thank you for the inspiration, I don’t remember where I saw it. It was Multi woven, the 4″ I believe, but if you have a big dog it could also be done with the 6 inch or one of the Quilt Weaver squares.

If you’re looking forward to summer and have the ‘figger’ for it, here’s a pretty simple top for hot weather. Your teen could wear this. The woven blocks should be a fairly tight and modest fabric but would still be lighter and more comfortable than this crocheted version probably would be. Something like a soft cotton or one of the bamboo, silky yarns might be good.

Just something to think about while I am weaving for this tunic. Make your own file, & teach yourself to think in squares and triangles while looking at clothing. Get out your stash of already woven squares and spread them out and get inspired!