Okay, got it done this fine rainy day by ignoring all calls to the shop by Himself.
Here it is. I think it worked just fine even tho some of it, those last shoulders mostly, were a pita to work.
It’s finished but still on the “loom”.
Off the loom you can see that there is still a little draw-up to deal with. Not much but I hope I did.
Next step, of course is to start assembling it into a garment. Keep your fingers x-ed for me.
I’m back at it. I didn’t find my pattern but I did fins another one and between that and using my previous jacket as a pattern I think I’ve got it. I’m trying my hand at shape weaving working on a yoke. I thought it might be easier than the cut and sew I did on the last one. Yet to be determined! lol But it seems okay so far. The test will come when I start putting it together.
Here’s a few pictures of this part. We bought a new cupboard for my dolls and it came in a huge cardboard box, nice thick cardboard and that’s what I’m using as the ‘loom’. I drew around the sized yoke pattern and started putting in pins. The article I read suggest putting in the pins as you warp. I can see why as the curves require different spacing. I just kind of felt my way along. I’m doing the same for the weaving. Once i get a little further along I’ll show you some close-ups. this is the same wool the squares are woven with. I saw an article where they wove a really neat yoke in a tapestry but my tapestry ‘skills’ are untested so I think this first one will be just plain.
It’s coming along at a pretty good rate, in the time I have to work on it. I am pretty pleased so far;
Just wanted to offer a few ideas if you were wondering what you could do with the SweetHeart Loom. We make them in a larger size now, too.
Make a gift tag or do a bit of beading around the edges!
A pencil topper to write I love you. A valentine to say I love you. A bookmark to keep you place in a book you love!
A needle book to keep things together. A case for your phone. Or you can just wear your heart on your sleeve!
I’m sure you’ll find a lot more way to use them and they are fun, too. Older children love weaving on them as well. A customer says she makes little sachets using two and adds then to the packages when she ships out orders of her handwovens. She also keeps a bag of them with her when she goes out and gives one to anyone who looks like they are having a bad day and can use a little love. She says she has changed kiddies sobs to smiles with these little “hugs”. So you can see there are plenty of ways to enjoy these little looms. I’m sure you’ll enjoy yours in natural woods or prettily painted.
It is still a UFO. I have torn the place apart, nearly literally, and still have not found my pattern. I am hornswoggled. But i did find a couple other’s that might work and i can use my last jacket as a guide as well, i suppose. But it beats mw what i could have done with it. I’m beginning to suspect it may have been accidently tossed out. But I have decided to try the shape weaving thing and weave my yoke in one piece. I laid out the pattern today and hope to get started weaving it tomorrow. I’m not going to try for fancy this time.
Other than that Stella is settling in pretty well. She had her ”wellness” vet visit and is on antibiotics to help her bites heal and another pill for a bladder infection. She need a tooth pulled as she has a broken canine tht is showing signs of abscess. But she is has all her shots, including rabies so is also now licensed and legal.
She also got to roll in the snow and thought that was pretty wonderful! She loves being outside, but is not quite sure what she’s supposed to do there. She walks around in squares, for the most part. Randy says it’s room size, a habit from living indoors. Could be. But she is learning to ride in pickup and golf cart, She’s learned she can drink from a creek and even wade though small ones. She & Robin are getting used to each other so I may try introducing Taz, who is the hard case in our cat family.
Hope you are enjoying your looms. Don’t give up on me!
We decided it was time and Randy found this lady on a rescue site. We contacted Shelby and Wyatt and they liked us and so Stella has a new “forever home” in Coffee Creek. I think she has been a city dog all her life (6-7 years) but seems to be adapting to country life rapidly! She did fine on the 4+ hour trip up yesterday, did not want her dinner but had a ‘bone’ for breakfast and has now gone with Randy, in the rain, to check his business up the hill. We are working on the No Dogs in the Kitchen rule, but when I point she knows already to back up! lol Randy is getting lessons, too. 🙂 Stella is a lap dog, something Randy isn’t used to.
No yarn stories again. I still haven’t been able to find what the heck I did with my pattern. I guess I’ll have to go see if I can find another one that will work. I know this one will show up, probably about the time I don’t need it anymore! You know how that goes. Meantime, I hope you are making better progress on your projects and keeping your looms dusted off!
Wishing you warm and dry!
Looks like it’s been over a month since I last posted. Time flies whether you’re having fun or not! Not that I haven’t been having fun… well… not no fun, anyway. Just busy. I am nearly finished knitting MIL’s xmas gift so thought I ought to get out the squares and see if I have finally woven enough. It looks like I may have. I might need a couple triangles, we’ll see.
It looks like this lighter cardigan may even be too heavy for this ‘winter’. I mean, it’s Dec 2 and 45 degrees out! We’ve had killing frost exactly twice so the garden is dead but the apple still has it’s leaves and the weeping willow is just now losing its. There was a bit of snow on the 7000 foot peaks before this last storm. That should have dumped a bit on the tips. Not encouraging for next years water supply. New England and the Great Lakes are hogging it all. Hey guys, we need some, too!
But back to weaving. I am going to spend as much of today as I am allowed, working on this project and will get back to you asap! Hope you are getting a lot of weaving done! It makes great gifts!
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!
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!
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!
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!
Hazel Rose 