Tag Archive | weavette

Valentines Loom!

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.

UFO’s

Jan25

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!

New family memeber

Jan18

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!

Okay, I apologize…

Jan4

I know I have not been posting after saying I would but I figure you have all been busy with Christmas and the new year and all the other holidays this time of the year, too. I have not gotten back to my woven cardigan but in part because I have some new ideas about its construction and partly because I’ve been knitting. Yes, I love weaving but I also love knitting. I finished my MIL’s vest in time and it fit her perfectly and she loves it- really! And I forgot to get a picture of her in it. 😦

Also I have been knitting a cardigan for me. Sis was making this one and I loved it so I am combining sis’s with the vest pattern for MIL’s. Yeah, I liked that ruffle so incorporated it. Now I’m on the sleeves, except I don’t have any #9 dps so I’m going to have to take care of that first.

But I hope you are all having a great start to 2015! It’s been cold here after all the rain but now there’s no precip so no snow. 😦 Mother Nature just can’t seem to get things together.

Himself and I bought ourselves a new bed for our gift to each other. A Number Bed. It’s due to arrive this week from Salt Lake City. He built a base for it, one which will have drawers one of these days. That’ll be handy.

I guess that’s all our news and I’ll get back on the cardigan as soon as I find out if my idea is going to work. Be patient with me and let me see you weavings, meantime!

Have a happy & creative New year!

I’m sorry…

Dec2

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.

laying out

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!

Trying freeform again

Oct11

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!

October already!!

Oct8

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!

A couple of new old projects.

Sep23

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!

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.

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.

Hazel Rose

My Life in the Country