[weaving] Practice coaster and mini-rug

I wrapped up a couple small projects that I made on my table loom:

The one on the left is a small coaster and the one on the right is a little rug for either my cell phone or notions while I weave (scissors, needles, etc). Both are done with Elann Sonata cotton that I had in the stash.

The coaster is pretty cute. I finished by tying the warp ends in overhand knots, which looks a little disorderly. I'm not sure yet what the best practices are for weaving- first and final wefts rows to keep things tidy, when/where to join new yarn, securing ends, etc. 

I practiced color blocks for the rectangular mat:

These didn't take too long and were pretty fun. I've since warped the loom to try and make 4 coasters at once. I just need to find the time to do them all.

[weaving] Free Form Tapestry

I don't think I ever shared a picture of the free form tapestry that I made during a class at the Vermont Sheep and Wool festival:

It's a riot of textures and colors and I love it. I want to hang it where people can touch it- because it does invite touching. Commercial yarn, art yarn, roving, fabric, fiber locks... It was very fun to make.

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TGIFFFFF. It's been a mutha f'in week. Rhinebeck (NY Sheep and Wool Festival) is this weekend and I'm going to alleviate any FOMO feelings by spending the entire weekend crafting my brains out.

- Work on the cat couch and afghan

- Finish weaving practice coasters

- Warp for a set of 4 coasters

- Swatch for a toddler sweater

- Start a knit teddy bear

- Prepare fiber for a new spinning project

- Taking inventory of all the yarn and fiber and craft supplies I have and reminding myself that for god's sake I don't need any more stuff

We'll see how productive I end up being. I have a feeling I'll be snuggled into a couch and browsing the #rhinebeck #nysw hashtags all weekend.

[weaving] First scarf

Finished my first wearable woven item in time to be submitted to the fair:

Weaving goes quickly (when you don't leave the project languishing on the loom for literally years) and doesn't really use that much yarn. I just need to practice warping quickly and getting tension right. I just need to devote an entire day to a project- if I start and then walk away, I won't ever come back to it. I think when I take a two-week vacation over Christmas/New Years, I'm going to dedicate a few days to just weaving.

[weaving] Resurrecting an ancient project

This project has been on the loom for years.

And I'm finally going to finish it. Nothing motivates me like trying to scramble together entries for the fair.

[misc] Mmmmm, raw eggs.

[playing] Deadwood. Scored this game in a Yankee Swap before Christmas and I've played it 4 times. This is a cute game- you've got a gang of cowboys that go to Deadwood to annex various buildings: the bank, town hall, newspaper, gold mine, casino, saloon, etc. There is some player interaction in the form of shoot-outs. If you don't want to fight and you have a horse, you can skedaddle to the abandoned mine. Players gain infamy in the form of wanted posters (but you better go to the church and get rid of as many wanted posters as you can before the Pinkertons arrive). It's a fun game and only $23 from Game Surplus.

[reading] A Game of Thrones. I'm late to the series but have become so obsessed with the story. It's so well written. It took a little perseverance on my part to get over the fact that bad things happen from the very beginning. Bad things happen to people you like. Bad things happen to people you don't like. Bad situations abound. But it's so. well. written. And compelling. I only get a few chapters in every couple of nights, so I should be done with it by the time the first HBO season comes out on dvd in March.

[cooking] Ice cream. I received an ice cream maker for Christmas and I've made the best homemade ice cream. I ordered the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream recipe book and their sweet cream base is awesome but uses raw eggs. Beat 2 eggs, add sugar, add heavy cream (hurg, this stuff has the consistency of white paint) and milk. Then whatever flavors you want. Then you add it to the ice cream maker to do it's ice-cream-making-thing. When I made my first batch, I told Dollar, "There's eggs in it." He said, "Weird." I said, "Raw eggs. Not cooked. Just... raw eggs blended." He said, "Uh... Oh... kay." I've been pretty careful about only using local eggs when I made this ice cream (from a farm two towns over). I don't know, we eat rare meat and runny eggs, so this can't be that different, right? ... I was a little apprehensive about the raw eggs but the ice cream is coming out so amazing that with worth the threat of salmonella. Also, this might help me to screw up my courage to make some homemade beef tartar with a raw egg yolk on top. Dollar has already told me that he will not eat that. Which is good, because I'll probably need him to drive me to the hospital.

[knitting] I made a little sample for a pillow cover:

Penny! Sigh. Anyway, I did a small test using yarn scraps to get exact measurements. Now I'm ready to cast on to the actual 16" x 17" pillow. I don't often swatch but I do know when it's important to.

[weaving] I hate weaving. What a tedious nightmare.

[crocheting] I can't get the idea of a mega doily rug out of my head. I just think this one is a little too mega. The .5 inch cotton cording that the artist uses appears to make a 1 - 1.5 inch thick rug once you crochet it up. I know a rug so thick and a lacy would be an open invitation in my house to trip and smash your head on a piece of heavy furniture. I think I'd go with 8/32 cotton cording and a slightly less open design.

[cross-stitching] Yeah baby, you know what I need? A new craft. I ordered some books and aida cloth. I am ready. 

[weaving] Golden Runner

So here's the first for-realsies project that I wove. Weaved? How do I say 'weave' in the past tense? Uh...

Here's my first woven project- a small table runner. ... Or is it a dresser scarf? 

How do I not know how to say what I'm making or how I'm making it?

It doesn't matter because I love it. My woven'd thingie to put on stuff.

Here it is, all tied onto my 24" Kromski Harp. There's only ~60 ends, which ended up being about 5 inches wide.

The paper on the back is nice, thick plotter paper that I was able to nab from work. It's excess cut from a map that I printed and is just the right size and weight for weaving.

The yarn I'm using is Aslan Trends Class, in a pretty golden color. I picked it on in Florida when my sister and I were down visiting our mom. It's a cotton/rayon blends with nice sheen and drape.

After some weaving and rolling weaving and rolling:

Not bad. Not bad at all. My selvedges on the left side were wicked wonky, but I attribute that to my noob skillz and the tension not being tight enough. Weaving is not something where you can go, "Bah! Tension Shmention!" No, the tension needs to be. just. so. OR ELSE.

The finishing wasn't so bad. I cut the project off and tied knots a either end:

The thing that's hard for me to get past is that there's a lot of waste. Or, there feels like there's a lot of waste. All those ends where the project was tied on are cut. And I'm left with ~120 4 - 6 inch short bits of yarn. 

Interestingly, these ends are called "thrums". Which automatically makes me think of thrummed mittens. I guess I could use these yarn ends as thrums for various projects but I usually think of unspun roving for thrums. If I used these leftovers, it would feel like lots of loose ends hanging out inside the mitten. Right?

Currently my plan for the ends (because, yes, I will obsessively keep them and not throw them away) is to use them either:

1. Tie my handspun yarn after I skein it.

2. As stuffing for toys, like these little dumplings 

3. Cut the thrums much shorter, put them out in a cage/mesh bag for the birds to take in the spring to build their nests.

Any other ideas for short lengths of yarn?

The runner in the entryway:

Yay! 

[misc] Happy 2012!

Happy New Year! I had a nice, long vacation which I spent doing... uh... doing... what did I do? Not any of the house stuff that I had planned (painting, sanding, staining). I knit a lot and started weaving.

WEAVING IS SO HARD. SRSLY. No one told me that 60 - 70% of weaving is prep work and set-up. The actual weaving, passing the shed and beating it down, is after hours and hours of measuring, threading, warping, drinking, taking a break by watching an episode of Entourage and eating chocolate. You have to ask yourself, "You know what I'd like to do 8 hours from now after non-stop, painstaking fussy work? Weave."

Siiigh. The upside to this is that once you actually sit down to weave, the project moves along quickly. I made a little table runner/dresser scarf and just started a simple scarf.

My new year's resolution (more like a 2012 challenge) is to knit 50% of all my projects with my handspun. My handspun is accumulating and I'm not putting it to any use. So. I started a pair of mittens and they are turning out omg so cute with my own handspun.

It was nice having a week off to hang out with the kitties. Santana, who's the meanest B-word in house, was really sweet and cuddly all week.

Penny's growth makes me sad. I didn't take enough pictures of her as an itty-bitty-stinky behbeh kitten. 

Murderface is a good boy as always. So handsome. So sweet. The best kitty ever.

Got to take pictures of all the recent and current projects...

[weaving] First strip

I finally took my first weaving project off the loom and tied fringe.

Here's how my weaving looked at first:



Messy edges, uneven beating, skipped warps.

And at the end of many hours of practice:



Side by side:



The whole thing. While my warp wasn't many strands (not very wide), it was very long. So I just kept going. I used odds and ends from my stash, trying different fibers, colors and thicknesses.



I need to working on my finishing technique. I didn't hemstitch the ends, which prepares the ends of the project for fringe. My fringe here is messy and uneven because I just wanted to get it off the loom.

Tonight I'll warp for my next project: a scarf.

[weaving] Kromski Harp

After returning from Florida, I went down to The Fiber Studio in Henniker, NH with my sister to pick up a 24" Kromski Rigid Heddle Loom. I love The Fiber Studio and they've got anything and everything you need if you're a knitter, crocheter, beader, spinner or weaver. I walked around the shop, inspecting the woven items on display with an appreciative eye. They were all so beautiful.

Saturday morning, I started putting the Harp together.

Before (morning):



After (afternoon):



Here, the loom is warped and it's ready to begin weaving. I used the written instructions that came with the loom as well as the DVD, which features an actual person putting it together on screen. That helped so much.

I started weaving a bit at the table and it wasn't pretty. When I first started knitting, it was hard to remember the differences between making a knit and a purl. Now, with the loom, I have to go slow and think, "Beat the weft, move the heddle away bottom-first to the bottom rung, slide the shuttle, beat the weft, move the heddle away top-first to the top rung," etc. It's very slow going. But it should be second nature after 300 hours of weaving or so.

I put the Harp's stand together and (after many frustrating exclamations of "This loom doesn't fit in this stupid stand!") managed to secure the loom.

Later (night):





And my first woven strip (only about 3 inches wide):



I'm still doing all kinds of things wrong but I'll get better. The books that have helped me the most have been Hands of Rigid Heddle Weaving by Betty Linn Davenport and Weaving Made Easy: 17 Projects Using a Simple Loom by Liz Gibson.

Here we go with another fiber related hobby :)