summer flowers

summer flowers

Friday, February 14, 2014

Today is My Daughter's Birthday

My daughter was born on Valentine's Day.  This was about 30 years ago, when we did not know the sex of the child until they were born.  Everyone told me I was going to have a boy, I wanted a girl...I told everyone that I would have a girl on Valentine's Day.  Shocking to me, I did have a girl on Valentines...and she continues to surprise me and bring joy to my life.

She wasn't smiling for me that day
Here she is in the dress I made for her the month before she was born...I really wanted a girl.  By the way the blanket that she is laying on was my weaving.


I made her a princess dress for Halloween one year and she loved it.  Now I do less for her and more with her.  Happy Birthday Sweetheart.


In my weaving I have been doing more with my rigid heddle loom and playing some with tapestry.  Last time you saw the Fall Leaves scarf.  This time I needed to demonstrate a random warping process.  I mostly used a ball of hand spun that I had left over, then added some small balls of colored yarns to accent it.  I even found a tube of grey in my leftovers box, that would work for the weft.

The color looks a little intense in this shot.
I was happy to use up some small bits of left over yarn and also get another example piece for my teaching.  But when I washed the piece, the water really went dark gray...which yarn was giving up that color?

The scarf didn't change that much, but there was sure a lot of color coming out of something.

I also finished weaving a couple of small pillows that I had started several years ago on the rigid heddle loom.  Each pillow as a separate warp, after I finished one...everything just got put away and forgotten for a long while.  So when I put the second warp on, I found that I was short of yarn for the weft.  Of course, being several years old, the color was discontinued.  I moaned and ranted for a couple of days before I remembered "Ravelry".  There is a yarn exchange group on there and when I looked up my yarn and color number, there were more than a few people that had some.  One of them came to my rescue, and I was able to finish the piece.  (I think that I was packing the weft in more densely that the pattern called for...so not enough yarn.)  I even wove the tubes to trim the outside of the pillows.


Now I just need to wash the two pillow fabrics, and the two trim pieces and make the pillows.  I think I even have some pillow forms that will fit them...somewhere...!!?