Everything but the Kitchen Sink

I haven't forgotten you. In fact I have been madly looking around for what I can share with you and very conscious of  how long its been since the last post. There's no project ready for a big reveal. In fact it seems that everything is "in between" and no matter how much time I spend weaving, there's nothing to show you. So I thought I'll show you what I do have...

There's a satisfying inch and a half on the cloth roll on the Louet Spring.  I'm on towel number seven of nine and doing plaid turned twill.  I'm calling this 'Drall Style' treadling... (my invented phrase) and its a slower slog now that I'm constantly changing colours.

I'm mindful that the end is eventually coming to this apparently never ending warp and so have a project planned and dug out some likely yarns for winding the warp...  silks!

Looks like I have a whole lotta ball winding to do first!

The Woolhouse loom has the snowflake twill scarves on it and nothing has changed there.... and its keeping nicely.

The Megado has seen action. I cut the old warp off and had to get something on it right away. I wanted to be able to have a learning warp, use more shafts, practise the program and weaving action, be able to have something useful and not be worried if I had to start over...... so, book marks fit that that list!

Another linen and cotton combo, sett 50 epi and a draft that I made up one evening playing on Fiberworks PCW. This is treadled as threaded and its two inches wide. I already had one bookmark go south on me and so I simply moved the warp and started again. Perfect! I'm having trouble learning how to 'unweave' when a mistake or float is detected as I have to go into the program and scroll through and click unweave. In a long treadling sequence, if I miss the right pick I have to work out how to get back etc.  Its  a lot slower than simply going backwards on the other "Luddite" looms.  Perhaps once I learn how to do it right the first time, I won't have to go through quite so much effort!

Want to see something silly?

Yup, a two inch wide warp on a 45 inch loom.

I also started knitting last spring and stopped when the weather got too warm. It felt icky in my hands and too hot on my lap. So here's my first effort!  

Its not washed or blocked as yet, which I'm told will improve the overall appearance. Its soft like a cloud and it is for me. There are a few 'questionable' places but bunched up around my neck this winter, it will look just fine. The yarn was Louet's Kidlin and its a softly plied (barely plied) yarn and I had difficulty with the plies and so it was slow going. The entire scarf used one skein which I think was 50 grams. Knitting and weaving use very different terminology and such. Another learning curve!

So I'm making another....same pattern.

Its a merino wool and the feel is quite different. It keeps my hands busy at night (and keeps me from aimlessly wandering the internet.)

I also have been reorganizing my samples..... here's one of two binders for my personal samples:

You can get a fair amount into one binder!

Here are a couple of pages from recent projects you might recognize...  I use the heavy duty non glare protective sleeves (don't let the flash fool you!)

So, in addition to my two full binders, I have these six more filled with samples from individual weavers and guilds:

Now bear in mind that I have been slowly collecting samples from guilds and friends since 1996. Two friends have their own dedicated binders!

This one alone is Dorothy's  and its full. Time for a new one. (Happy Birthday Dorothy by the way!  :)   When you are stuck for ideas and inspiration, nothing beats sitting down and looking at a real sample.  So, its starts with a little 12 inches extra on your next warp!

So that's about it for news. Its our usual winter rains and very blah. Halloween tonight but no one ever comes for treats as we're the creepy house at the end of a long driveway in the trees. But we have to have some candy in the house just in case you know!

Bye for now

Embracing my Golden Years

We have a cactus plant with fine branches that once in a blue moon produces stunning pink blossoms. Well, it took a super moon but we have ten blossoms this spring. The camera sucks the colour out of the flowers so imagine them at least two to three times more pink than they show here. They are also only just under half an inch  across and so quite dainty.

I promise no baby pictures this time. I don't want to become one of those annoying old ladies who talk non stop about their grandchildren, but there will be an odd picture now and then!  :)

I have always resisted learning to knit for some reason. My mother was a beautiful knitter and tried to show me, but she always went too fast for me to keep up and then she'd get fed up trying to slow it down and show me over and over. I was a teenager then so that should explain 99% of the problem! Sadly she passed away young at age 61 in 1995 so she never did see any of my weaving.

Me, at the back left, along with my other brother and sisters on a white sand beach in Dunedin, NZ in approx 1972 or 73. I was about 16-17 years old and was crocheting and doing needlepoint as taught in my school, Otago Girls' High School. That beach was as amazing as it looks!

I have learned to crochet, do needlepoint including drawn thread work and hardanger, kumihumo, dye my own silks, bead and oh, ya... weave!   But no knitting.   I had told a dear friend some years ago that I was saving it for my "old age".

Oh, I have been tempted along the way! What to do with all my hand spun yarn? Since I weave by day, knitting would be nice in the evenings. Go to a guild function and everyone was knitting and I sat empty handed.  

But I resisted.   (Hubby dearest would throttle me if I took up yet another activity!)

Then this past weekend I looked at my grandson and realised that my "old age"  had just arrived!  I was going to pin it at age 60 in the future, but the kidlet arrived sooner than the birthday.  So while we were in Kelowna I went to Kelowna Yarn and Needlecraft and had a great visit with owner Ann, and the afternoon knitters and came home with this:

Two sets of Hiyahiya interchangeable circular knitting needles with bamboo tips. I went for the bamboo over metal as the metal seemed so cold to my hands (and I also have acidic skin and turn needles black in time!) There is also a Hiyahiya group at Ravelry

Since I'm new to knitting, I labeled all needles with the metric, Canadian and American sizes. They are quite different so its a big help to me at this stage.

The case comes with four varying lengths of cable and connectors and a storage pouch for stitch markers and such.

As you can see I have a set in use already. I have been working with a 'sacrifice' ball of Paton's Astra yarn and practising. I can do a long tail cast on now, and provided I don't drop a stitch, I'm knitting up a basic lace scarf using KidLin by Louet.

This is what I have accomplished as of today and I'm quite enjoying this.  Thank god for You Tube videos is all I can say! It turns out that I sent all my "how-to" books to my daughter and so got caught flat-footed. What was I thinking!?   :)

I picked up some basic brochures at the LYS  "The Loom" (yes, that's its real name!) :

and because my heart lies in this direction... (sorry about the flash flare)

So my lace is really basic:

Cast on 37 stitches

row 1: knit

Row 2: knit 1, *YO, k 2 tog*

Keep going till the length you like, cast off.

I can do that!  (till I drop a stitch that is...)

Next post will be extra special.... I will have a friend along as a guest.