Tag Archive | looms

March Madness 2022

Feb27

Ready for a little March Madness?!

A Weave Along for a little fun for the mostly muddy month of March. Yes, here in Northern California we finally got a little rain, almost enough to make some mud and I thought it worth celebrating!  This WAL will need a square loom and two yarns, a light and a dark. Try Black & White if you have it but I am encouraging you to use stash as this is a learning process more than a project. I am using some of that “stainless steel” acrylic yarn that I inherited from my Mom who used to crochet endless colorful striped afghans. The kind kids make card table tends with, that get draped over couches to collect the dog and cat hair, get dragged to the park and the beach and then get tossed in the washer and dryer and just never die! Yeah, it’s not something you’d want to knit a body hugging camisole from but it’s great for rough usage. However, the yarn is your choice, all you really need it the light and the dark and a yarn suitable for your loom.

The loom! Square. I’m going to be using the 10.5″ square, just because that’s the one I started on, but I’ve tested it on the 4″ Multi and the 7″ Quilt Weaver to be sure it works there, too. So a loom at least 4″ square, and upward.  We’ll be weaving continuous, diagonally. Your first square will need pretty much equal amounts of each color, so pick your loom and divide how much it takes to weave a square on that size loom by 2. We’ll be weaving with a hook.  If you’re going to be using the 3pin Multi, or weavette kind of loom you might want your needle for that last row, not needed but handy.

Not going to show you yet, the first square we’ll weave together. The next one you get to be the designer! But I’ll tell you it’s easy, stress free, fun, and has lots of potential. I’ve been having fun with it and DH is more enthusiastic about this one than he ever has been. I hope you are going to enjoy it, too!

More Dreary January

Jan23

Well, I guess that’s unfair. It’s a bright sunny day but still- half melted snow and mud and dead looking landscape… Yeah, dreary.

But warm in here by the stove. I’ve been trying to work out texture patterns for the Quilt Weavers. Worked on this one on the 7 inch Fine set. Should have started smaller. Needless to say it didn’t occur to me that I ought to do some math first, never a thing that springs to my mind! lol  And it didn’t work out in the center as it was meant to, naturally. And I also discovered that I didn’t pay close enough attention to the edges and one side wasn’t properly woven. So I’m trying again but with a smaller sized loom. I’ve done this on the Regular sett so I know it works. I thought this would be good for the 7″ because it results in a looser weave so a bit easier when you approach the center.

I took some pics during the weaving. Don’t copy my rows but you get the idea. It’s the slide stitch if you want to give it a try and if you get it to work out properly let me know!

Wrong! I took out the instructions I posted yester day as they were wrong. I rewove and think it have ti right this time but I’ll have to weave and write at the same time to get it down- so more waiting! Sorry!

  

Okay, That’s enough for this time. When I get it to work out I’ll post that and the photo. But now I have to go work in the shop.

Hope you are having a lovely Sunday afternoon!

Once a UFO

Dec6

Now it’s nearly done. Just has to have a trip though the washer. After that I’ll decide if the bottom of the yoke needs stitching down. I think I pinned this in place before the Big Evacuation and it’s just been out of sight out of mind since. It’s kind of long on me, too, so I may have to re-hem it. I like these shirts. I got them on sale at WalMart in Yreka a few years ago. There’s a green one and a red one left. They’re well made men’s shirts so have sleeves of a decent length. I prefer those without the band but liked this color in spite of that. The yoke is sock yarn on the 4 & 2 inch Multi Looms. I just place the assembled yoke over the shirt, pin in place, sew it down with the machine and cut away the parts I don’t want. I left the shirt fabric under this one to gvie it a bit of heft.

 

 

We’re supposed to have rain today sometimes and snow next weekend. Good time for shop work except…! He’s gotten a case of food poisoning somewhere and has had to spend most of the last two days… well, you know where. But he has gotten some stuff done in the shop. If you have an order in, please be patient, we’ll get them done as soon as we can.

Trying to stay warm these December days! Hope your December is going well!

Winter work…

Nov6

It’s November even tho with temps in the 60’s as high and the lows just in the low 40’s it doesn’t really feel very wintery. Well, except for the rain and gloomy skies. And gloomy husband. He doesn’t do well in continual darkness and besides has jobs that need to be outdoors in dry weather so that’s adding to the frustration. I’m fine tho it worries me a bit that it’s not getting cold. We are still picking pole beans and when I cut greens yesterday there was a bee buzzing around in the borage. Not normal winter conditions for these mountains. Well, I guess we’d better start getting used to the “not normal”. They are suggest a vague possibility of some snow on Monday. Not holding my breath!

But meantime, with the WAL coming to an end, I got out my cardigan project. My favorite orange sweater is wearing out. When even Himself notices it’s sort of ratty condition I guess it’s time!  So I’ll be weaving 12″ squares for some time. I’m reusing a frogged knit sweater that turned out to be a bad idea, mostly a bad fit. And I have another one that is in line for frogging as well. I guess I’d better stick to weaving! lol I balled this yarn up but it hasn’t been washed before weaving with it. I’ll find out if that’s a good idea.

     

But today I have to finish up a batch of apple sauce and sand a couple looms as well. The sweater is going to take awhile to finish.

  And there’s enough apples  left for a pie.

 

February again. 2021

Feb6

We did have some winter, 30″ of snow almost two weeks ago and bits and inches later which mostly melted off as fast as they fell. We still have 10 or so inches of that first one left on the ground.

I send in my seed order early as the companies are advising us to. And plants which I had set the ship Date at the end of March. Got my onion plants the day after the snow storm. What the heck? Not shoveling out the garden so I can plant onions in February! Lady at the seed company apologized, said their shipper thought we lived in south California. Isn’t that was zip codes are for? But she ordered more to be shipped early April and promised to hold the rest until then also. Hope so. The garden this year will be almost as big but different. Cutting back on tomatoes for one thing.

We go to town today to get or virus vaccinations. We’re luck to live in an area where there is not much of this plague so are comparatively safe. We do wear our masks and maintain social distancing. We go to the Grocery and the gas station and the hardware store, that’s about it. If we need anything else, there’s Amazon. I can use stash yarn for the nest 20 years and not run out so am good there, too! lol

I have been weaving on the large SweetHeart loom. The plan is a cowl using Crochet to joining and fill out a bit tho I have yet to discover if this will work. Maybe this way.

  

 

 

Summertime…

Jul4

The livin’ may not be easy for everyone, but up here in the boonies it’s not too bad. The garden is thriving. I picked peas this morning. There is something so satisfying about shelling peas. The one chore I actually look forward to.

  Shelling peas.

Big bowl full

The zucchini are in full stride too, of course! Tomatoes growing, beans- bush, climbing, and lima- blooming. I’ll be sweating away in the kitchen with the canner soon. Not a chore I really look forward to, but the results are satisfactory.

I am weaving, too, a couple projects I intend to offer to magazines so won’t show those yet. But I was doing some stuff with Log cabin that turned out pretty well. They’ll make nice coasters or, well, about anything else you might want to make!

  Diagonal weaving on the weave-it loom. Plain and log cabin.

Same thing in Green. This one done of the Multi 4″ square.

Still hoping to make it up to Sis’s this year, but will be a couple months yet, it seems. I’m getting a new knee middle of this month and then there’ll be some visits to the Torturer to learn how to use it, but I hope to get though that part quickly. I go in the 13th to get my lecture from the surgeon on being too heavy, but I have actually been losing. We’ve been walking up the hill every morning. Made it to the top again with only one stop to pant , this morning!

So I hope you all have a sense-able 4th of July weekend. I want you to all stay safe! Both heath-wise and fire-wise. There’s been a lot of air traffic around here this morning that I am hoping is just precautionary. We can save our fireworks for New Years when there is snow on the ground. They look even prettier then anyway!

Meantime…Happy Birthday USA-I hope you are around for another one!

I think it’s springtime!

Apr19

Did I say that before? Well, I think it really is this time. Our lows have been in the 40’s and the garden is already growing. the early guys anyway. Flowers, too. And the trees are leafing out. All but the oaks, but they are always last, not really trusting kind of plants. Kinda like my Pop, he said don’t plant out until the Oak leaves are as big as squirrels ears. Yes, for most things but the peas like it early! And the daffies have been blooming, they never want to miss the last snow!  But the tulips are now blooming on my new bulb bed, too.

    

And Grandmother’s favorite wild flower. She said they look so cheerful in the lawn, the first to bloom in her yard. They always make me think of her. She was Randy’s grandmother but we cared for her in her last 20 or so years and I was closer to her than to my own grandmother so I just leave the in-law part off. A great lady. Too bad the new owner does not like them and has killed them all off, along with the wind flowers and English daisies. Only hawkweed left out there now. I suppose it is pretty too but way too invasive.

And The PUD says the power will be out from 8am to 4pm on Tuesday so I am designating Tuesday as Weaving day! Got my bins ready!

 

The Mystery Weave Along using the 3.5″ Quilt Weaver Square and a couple projects for patterns I’m writing up. I think it’ll be enough to keep me busy all day!  But weaving today, too, working on some color designs for the big triangles. And I badly needed a haircut so I figured I may as well re-dye it, too, as I cut most of the pink off. Himself & dog have gone firewood cutting, you’ll see why I like to do this when everyone is gone! Now, while the Kool Aid is doing it’s thing, I’m going back to weaving!

Happy New Year!

Jan1

I do hope you all have a safe and comfortable start to a prosperous and reasonably happy 2020! A little verse we should keep in mind.

 

But now is the time for Resolutions! Right? Like maybe changing a few, well, shall we lay less desirable habits? Like being a little more Organized. I know that it is not literally a 4 letter word, but has been pretty much in that category for me for most of my life.  Looking for a loom this morning, I found this stuff in the basket by my chair. All but the jar of Ricolas, the new Territorial seed catalog & His shoes and newspapers. Needless to say, the loom was not in there! Not in my loom case, either. So I guess I’ll start this morning putting all this in it’s proper place. If I can find that place. Trouble is they are not projects., just experiments. I think he gave me a new shoe box, I suppose I can label that Weaving Experiments. Then that leaves me to find a place to store the box. Hopefully where I can find it again when I need it. Like I apparently did not do with the missing loom!

Ah well, I guess the other fun thing I get to do on new years Day, is bills. Oh well, it’s my 1st of the month job. He does the taxes and is a great wood worker but he really sucks at financial matters beyond that.  We all have out strong points and he is Very Organized. It’s rare that he can’t find something no matter how long ago he had it. I, on the other hand, have to rely on luck when hunting something.

But there you go. I think the weather wizards are using the same system for forecasting the weather. And Mother Nature is using a roulette wheel to decide! We go from a huge surprise snowstorm right before thanksgiving, I mean nearly 4 foot, to rain ever since! Temperatures have run from 14 degrees F to nearly 70! And it’s raining this morning and 38 degrees on Jan 1. I don’t even want to think about Australia while I am whining about our weather. I would happily send them our rain and the foot of snow that’s left if I could.

Well, on the brighter side, trying to heed the advice picture I posted above, we are looking forward to adding a new loom to our line up this year. It is our 20th year in the loom business! It’s has been an interesting 20 years! We’ve met some wonderful people and done more traveling that we ever thought we’d do. It’s been fun for the most part and we’ve both learned a lot! Our only disappointment is not being able to interest the kids in the business. Well, they have their own lives, our parents were not delighted with our choices, either, but we all manage to make it work to our best comfort. Anyway, keep an eye out for our anniversary announcement sometime later this year!

And I hope your year is starting off the way you wanted it to! Best Wishes!

Hazel & Himself

Just the two of us!

December.

Dec15

We celebrated Thanksgiving with 3 foot of light powdery snow. But as we were not going anywhere or expecting company we were able to sit back and enjoy it. Lost power for 13 hours, not bad. It’s failed a couple times since but just for a short time, 3-5 hours.

Not going anywhere for Christmas, either. first time in years we’ve spent that holiday at home. It’s rained since the snow so melted about half off. Still enough white out there to light up the house all night with the full moon! I think we are assured of a White Christmas, even tho it’s not quite as pretty as it was! He’s been shoveling and putting away all the stuff we got caught short of with that big early snowfall. And he’s done shop work, of course. We’ve been working on a couple experimental looms, looking at the future. We’ve been to a few social events, school plays and Lion’s Club dinner. Went to see Sound Of Music by the Trinity Players. Very professional job. They always put on a good show.

Have a few gifts to get in the mail tomorrow. Yes, I’ve done some weaving & some knitting. Weaving squares with the WAL on Looms to go, Ravelry. Not doing a project, just using imagination to weave a 4″ square to a theme. Relaxing, really.  Not too much imagination probably. My snow angel ended up just being what i call a set of wings. maybe you can see them? I gave the gingerbread some red gumdrops in case it was what was left of a gingerbread man! There are a lot more themes for this and I’ll get a few more made, maybe.

Mostly its the time of year to sit back and relax, enjoy the fire, read, and let it all flow over you. New year coming on, plenty of time to get back to Real Life then.

Have a wonderful end of this year!

First 12″ square Multi project… and a little more.

Sep8

I finished my 12″ square project, I guess you can call it a sort of sampler. I’ve always thought this was a cute saying  so decided to use it here. I think this is going to stay on the 12″ as it’s frame for the time, at least. If I decide I need it again I’ll come up with something else. Or have Himself make me another one! 🙂

It took me most of the summer to weave the square, not because it was hard, but there were just too many other things going on. Then between trying to chart it out (no, there is no pattern!) and doing the actual embroidering, there went another month. But it’s done now & I’m hunting a place to hang it.

So now it’s back to garden and  weaving for my sweat pants, another long term project. This time because it needs so many of them! I have about 24. I’m afraid to calculate how many I’ll actually need, but I am on my first skein and still have quite a bit of that one left. I knew this would take awhile but I wanted to do it and I have the yarn for a top to go with when I get the pants done. Maybe I should challenge myself to lose weight while I’m weaving these and lessen the # of squares I need as I go! Good idea, I wonder if it would work?

But today I need to take care of this stuff!

I’ll be loading the dehydrator this morning. I make veg soup mix for winter use. Very handy and can be used for other things, too. The cherry tomatoes will be juiced. I will probably pick this many again tomorrow to add to then. The garden has done well this year. Probably more than we need for two people. This time of year I start thinking we’ll do less next year and then comes January when the seed catalogs start coming in… well, you know how that goes. Sort of like yarn sales. No, I don’t need any more yarn but this is a great price and I’d really like to make this project etc etc. next thing you know … 😀 Well, I only planted two zucchini this year! Next year I will try to restrain myself and stay at one! The peppers were an accident, really. I wanted a six pack but when I got home from the nursery and went to plant them I found there were two plants in each little ‘tub’.  So I could plant one and kill the other or plant them all. What would you have done? I couldn’t bring myself to kill a healthy looking plant. Besides I like peppers so it was a bargain really! And the beans! They have been producing from early on! They are ratty and bug eaten plants but still blooming and making beans! It’s disgraceful! I have canned and eaten and am now reduced to putting some of them in the dehydrator as well. It’s like that 70 some year old woman I read about who just had twins. Just not respectable at her age or the age of these beans! They should be retired by now! I have even thought of euthanasia, just pull them up, but could not bring myself to do it.

And there’s some pretty stuff out there in the garden that I’ll add just for that reason, too!  They can keep blooming, I don’t have to can them!

Marigold and borage. It’s little blue stars don’t photograph very well but the bees dont’ have any trouble finding them! There’s  gloriosa daisy in there and the chard in the back ground. That’s keeping us in greens for the long term, too!

The zinnias. There was a butterfly in there but I can’t find it in the photo.

I just like this picture. I have no idea how many of these little pie pumpkins are hidden in there. It’s big patch!

Hope your summer is cooling off and you are getting ready for a lovely autumn! See you in Oregon at OFFF soon!