Moving on to Other Crafts

The Good News:  After retreating the rug with the enzyme solution and washing it out again with the hose, the rug is smell free!!  And not just according to my poor smelling abilities, I had it checked out by both husband and son.  The rug is again covering the floor in the studio,,,and the studio is cleaned up enough to walk around and do some crafts.

And I have also been doing one of my secondary crafts...Bobbin Lace.  I pulled out a couple of the pillows that I have projects going on and have decided to set up a table in the studio with work space for lace.  I need to determine how much lace I need for Betsey's sunsuit and then I will work the lengths to complete her outfit.  Her lace is a miniature one and only uses seven pairs of bobbins, the lace is less than a half of an inch wide, I think I will gather it slightly for her outfit.

I also finished a bookmark, but then I got caught up in the decorating of the bobbins.  I had finished 9 pairs some time ago, but I decided I needed 24 pairs with the flower designs.   I start out with commercial wooden bobbins.

I paint them different colors to coordinate with the beads and the decals.

At this point most people who sell the bobbins will paint pretty pictures on the bobbins.  I can paint lollipop trees and zig-zag mountains, so I apply rub on decals to get a design on my bobbins.

Then I get to add the beads.  Traditionally beads were added to the bobbins to give them weight to help with the tension of the threads.  I love to add them for the bling they give my pillows when I am working on my bobbin lace.

So now I have my bobbins, just 4 more pair and I will have the 24 pairs of flowered bobbins.  

As you can see from the pillow in the first picture, many of my bobbins are just beautiful woods with fancy turnings and then beaded.  I buy or get them from various artists that make them.  These flowered ones are just for me to have...not nice enough to sell and I have fun working with them.  I will be putting on another bookmark later today or tomorrow.

Saga of the Cat Mess

A couple of months ago,  I was not working in my studio (or doing much of anything for that matter).  I was using the studio room for a "just put it there for now" place.  I would go in there for class stuff then just leave piles of stuff...soon it was a pathway room.  

Unfortunately during this, there must have been a time when the cat litter box was not cleaned as it should be and Jasmine decided my handwoven rug was an OK place to urinate.  I have almost no sense of smell, so this added to the problem.

A couple of weeks ago, after I had come out of the fog, I decided to get the room cleaned and start weaving on the yardage again.  As I unloaded the piles and put them away, I found the wet rug.  This started a couple of weeks of work, and it is still going.

First I put a fan in the studio and opened the windows.  This dried the problem, but even with spray odor removers, the smell was still there.  So I got the steam cleaner and went over the carpet and the rug several times (3 or 4 buckets full).  The carpet got the fan and window open and the rug went in the garage to dry.  This wasn't enough...

Next came the visit to the pet store for their enzyme deodorizer, this was well sprayed on the carpet and the rug.  When the carpet was dry, I closed the door and window for 24 hours and the room was declared habitable by the noses in the family...YEH.  The carpet is old and very thin.

The rug was woven in the 70's and has a shag about 2-3 inches, so it was still bad.  My husband moved it from the garage, for obvious reasons, and put it outside.  However, it now attracts the local tom cats and we are having cat fights at night in the yard!!!  Luckily they don't pay any attention to the rug, they just go after each other, but it wakes me up!

 As you can see it has the style and colors of the 70's.  The rug is old, but it was the first rug I made and I would like to keep it.

  Today, I attacked the rug with the high power sprayer outside.  I was out there about an hour, we will see what that does, and if there is improvement.  Right now it is dripping wet and will probably take a day to dry...maybe I will move the fan out there to help.

On the bright side, I finished the second scarf and am building quite a bit on the cloth beam.

And the studio is cleaning up well.  I got a book on CD to listen to and I am going to try to get the yardage worked on.  It may take a bit for me to get back into the rhythm of 36" wide fabric after just working on scarves.

I Finished It!!

Wednesday I spent some time at my LYS, during that time I was able to knit all the points on the shawl but the last two.  Friday night after see my student's Miniature Golf hole at the Salt Lake Arts Center, I came home and finished the last two. 
I was not able to graft the end together until Saturday after going to the Farmer's Market (great peas, lettuce, pesto and eating a fruit pie).  First of all I needed good light and fresh eyes to do the work.  I think that I did a pretty good job, the faggot area of the border is messed up but the rest is passable and I will not be distracted by it when I wear it.

I laid it out on the dining table to look at it in full.

And did an "artsy" shot of it in the front yard.  I had taken it out into the sunlight to see if I could get the metallic and the beads to show up better, but it didn't work.

I stretched it out on the livingroom run and then sat there keeping the cat away.  I decided that I could not sit there for 24 hours and in our dry climate it does dry faster, but I put a low fan in the room to speed up the drying.  Besides I was excited to see it unpinned.  The yardstick is there for a size comparison.

When it was dry, I put it back on the dining table for a comparison.  It is beautiful and out of the Zephyr yarn (50% silk/50% merino wool) it feels wonderful.  The beads provide enough weight to have it hang well.

The tartan weaving is coming along well, almost done with the first scarf and soon to start the second. 

The studio space is becoming usable again (after stacking stuff in there during the black hole period in March) and the cat deciding the hand woven rug was a litter box (more on that later, I am still not finished with that-but at least the room is habitable now). That has been a couple of weeks of cleaning and putting away **STUFF**.

I have been moving on another craft front and have been doing some spinning with a beautiful roving that had belonged to another spinner.  It is 60% cashmere/30% silk/10% merino wool.  I spun up a sample and I think it could work well for a simple shawl someday.

Spinning is a combination of two parts, stretching the fibers out smooth (drafting), then twisting the fibers together (spinning).   For this roving, and for many that I purchase, I like to pre-draft to loosen up the fibers.  Here you can see the roving on the right as it came from the skein and after it has been pre-drafted on the left.  Now the roving is airy and the fibers will slip past each other easily as I spin.  I will do more drafting as I spin the yarn.

I have been spinning it on my Schacht matchless wheel, it is my favorite and has adapted to the fine spinning by using the faster whorl (converts each turn of the fly wheel to more turns of the spindle, thinner yarn needs more twist).   The quarter is for comparison for the size of the single yarn.  I will ply two of these together for the yarn to be ready for knitting.

I have seven skeins of 28 grams each of this roving, so I think I will have plenty of yarn for the shawl.  I like the honeycomb pattern shawl that I saw in Piecework.

More Tartan Weaving

I have gotten a little weaving done on the tartan.  I haven't been working as much as I thought I would, because I have been working on the Evenstar KAL.  It is working beautifully, but I am close to finished and want to see it done.  I have only about 18 points to knit (out of 57).  

Here is a picture of one of the edge points.  I really thing the beads look great, there are over 2,000 beads around the edge.  You can see them pretty good on this picture.

The tartan is also looking good. 

I use a tape measure to get the length right.  For the first scarf, I need to weave 74 inches.  It will also have 2 inches of fringe on each end.  The scarf that my son is using now (a hand spun, hand woven one) is about 65 inches long with the fringe and he said he wants about 6 inches more on each end for a better fit on the coat.

I used to use  fabric tape measure to help me with the length and the pins went through it real well.  The new plastic tape measures are thicker and need a new technique.  I got a small paper punch (thanks scrap bookers) and punched the tape with two holes every three inches.  Now it is very easy to put the pin through the holes.

I use three pins and just rotate them  as I weave.  By that I mean that when there is enough weaving I unpin the first pin and put it in the next space.

When weaving this pattern, the weft order is the same as the warp order, so to keep track of where I am, I move a pin from square to square as I weave.  Last time I did a warp of the tartan, I messed up on one of the scarves, and at 30 ends per inch it is not fun to take apart.  So the pin helps keep me on track and not mess up.

I guess it is time to get back to weaving...or knitting.

Weaving a Tartan Scarf

A couple of years ago, I wove some scarves using a Cummings Tartan.  My Mother's family is  Cummings and I found a pattern with a slight asymmetry and I decided to try it.  I choose a wool/silk blend and the scarves turned out quite well.

Last year I bought some more of the yarn to do some more scarves.  My son decided that it would look great on his new coat, so I wound a warp.  It took many months, but I have finally got it on the loom and working.  I put about 15 yards of warp on and so I will be weaving these for a while.

 The 15 yards makes quite a large amount a yarn wound around the back beam.

After winding the 260 threads, I need to thread each one through a heddle.  Putting them in the heddles in the correct order keeps the stripes of color that will make the pattern,.

Once all the yarns are threaded though the heddles, you can almost see the stripe pattern.  I then need to thread each one through a space (dent) in the reed.

I have a tool to help me thread through the reed, and for this project I am threading two yarns through each space.

When the reed I completely threaded the pattern really shows up.  I love the center stripe, the black with the center threads of red, blue and black.  This area is the asymmetrical part of the pattern.  Unlike the green stripes on the sides, the black strip does not exactly mirror itself on each side.

More to come,

Just some pictures

I have been taking some pictures of older projects and status of projects.  

Here is a pillow in overshot, using rag strips as the pattern.

Here is a piece of fabric.  I gave a warp demonstration and ended up with a piece 4" wide and just over 1 1/2 yards long.  What am I going to do with that?...And to top it off it is two colors, yes I just used the thread in the same size that was left on a couple of shuttles I found laying around.

This is a scarf that I made from some leftover yarn that I had been using for sales scarves.  On this warp I was trying to have the stripes show a distinct change and a gradual change in color.

This is  scarf that I wove with tencel.  I like the way the lace blocks show up.  I wove one for a friend, and one for me.

I was playing with making some knitting markers.  The shawl I am working on has over 20 repeats around the circle and I made matching markers to use.  Oh yes, I really need to have matching markers for my work,  And besides they are shine and look pretty.

I also made me some more  markers with some glass beads I found.  I made enough to give a set to another friend.

Here is a hat I made after taking a dye class at my LYS.  We painted some pre-knit blanks.  I had lots of fun with colors.  I did not want to do socks...that was what was suggested.  Instead I bought some solid brown of the same weight and knit a two color hat.  I made up the pattern as I went, shape from one pattern, color work from another source.  In knitting the sides of the hat, I thought the orange was too much so I cut off a big section of it.  I wanted the color work to balance a little more.  With the leftover orange, I made a cord and stitched it around the ridges.

This is a scarf that I wove using commercial dyed sock yarn.  I wanted to have the stripes look as wide in the weaving as they do in the socks that you knit.  I think that it worked well.  I also knit a pair of socks from the second skein I bought to use as weft.

Well, that's it...a bit of this and that.

Black Hole and Coming out of It

I feel like I have been in a black hole for the past month or two.  It has been a combination of depression, stress at work, stress at home, stress with health, so many things that it is a wonder that I have been able to function.  Some days I know that I was not functioning...

The past week, I feel like I am finally pulling myself out of it.  It helps to get a few days of sunshine that I can enjoy.  It is amazing to me how much it helps to get out in the sunshine for a few minutes each day.

Although I have not been working on my shaft looms, I have been playing with the little hand held looms that I have collected in the past few years.

I bought a couple of old Weave-It looms on ebay a few years ago.  It was a great deal, the looms are in great shape and they came with boxes and instructions.  I though that the little three-pin looms were fun to work on and I made several pieces using them.

When I was attending a conference, I found the new "Weavette" looms and bought a 2" x 6" loom to make book marks.  I had a great time making the bookmarks from left over yarns and samples of handspun, for gifts and sales.

Last year, I was able to purchase two more Weavettes.  These were used ones that the LYS was selling.  I managed to get a 2" x 4" and a 4" x 6".  This gave me an almost complete set of the three-pin looms that  were available.  I went online to find a 6" x 6" and after about 9 months I got an email asking if I still wanted the loom, I was on the phone and purchased it on the spot.  Now my set of these little three-pin looms is complete and I have recently started a couple of projects.

The first one I started is using all sizes of  the looms and I want to put together the pieces to make a jacket.  I am using a couple of yarns that I picked up on sale at my LYS.  I may need to add another yarn to get enough pieces to get a full jacket but I am enjoying making lots of little pieces.

I also started another project from left over yarns.  I am putting pieces together to make a shawl.  It is mostly black (because that is the yarn color that I had the most of), and has pieces of four other colors.  I am trying to construct the pieces into 8" x 8" squares and putting those together for the shawl.  I think I will also have to put a border around it using the black yarn.

I have also been working on a "mystery shawl" with about 1000 knitters around the world.  I am about one clue behind, but it is looking good.

The clue that I am just finishing has a beautiful arch, it is based on the look of "Rivendell".

The shawl is called Evenstar and gets the inspiration from Lord of the Rings.  The motif that shows the evenstar is beautiful and is placed a couple of times on the pattern.

I will be late in finishing it.  I have another clue to finish then we will be putting on a border with beads.  I will keep you up to date on what is going on.

The best part is that I am seeing a happier month now and the black hole is behind me.  I hope to keep it that way and not let the stress of life overwhelm me again.  I have lots a great help from my friends and family, I just need to rely on them when I need it.