recycle, upcycle, reuse

This box of many layers of scrabble tiles headed north yesterday to my cousin Claudia who has an etsy shop and blog everyone should check out. She's doing some very fun things with recycling/upcycling.

I was using these scrabble tiles for pins mixing in glass beads and charms, I did many for sale and for gifts but it's time to move on which means tiles are moving out.

I thought I'd just dump them all in the small flat rate priority mail box for the least expensive shipping method but that box is about the size of a vcr tape, pretty small. Tiles wouldn't fit so then I proceeded to do something that was time consuming but made me think of my father the entire time I was doing it. He would have layered them in the box in perfect order for shipping so I did the same and fit every single tile in. Then he would have taped the bejebbers out of the box to make sure it made it to it's destination safe and sound....I put a bit of tape but no where near what he would have done. If Claudia opens this box up with the right side up she'll see my message.....if I had thought ahead I would have had a message on the other side too....or maybe she'll just open it up and those hundreds of tiles will fall all over the floor!

...a bit of spinning.....

Not much happening fiber wise here, have a pile of sample skeins of Ashland Bay roving spun up that need photos taken so they can be added to the etsy shop listings. I must have a total of 80 that need to be photographed.

Nothing much to say.....

I don't have much to say, nothing to show.......very sad state of affairs. But we did spend 4 days on the coast just relaxing. Did a little sock knitting, started a seashell cross-stitch......found I really need reading glasses or better yet a magnifying lens for working on that small count linen......must be getting old. Got my hair cut....numerous inches, do like the cut other than the 'texturizing' in the back....when I was young it was called thinning, same scary scissors but now it's more 'IN' to call it texturizing.....won't be letting those scissors near my hair again, just some layering will be fine. Am dreaming of weaving but seem to run out of hours in my days......paperwork seems to be winning out, afterall it is tax time and other than keeping track of my sales I leave everything to the end of the year beginning of the next year to imput in excel....bad me.

So, since I have nothing worthy of sharing I thought I'd share another blog. If you don't read Daryl Lancaster's blog please check out today's post. I took a class from Daryl on sewing with handwovens at the last ANWG conference, she's a great teacher, so much information my head almost exploded.

Today was my spinning group get together, it's the most wonderfully diverse group of women around, and we all get along great. How blessed I am to have them in my life.

Not being creative.....

No time for being creative this week, out much of Monday, weaving guild meeting Tuesday plus errands afterwards and yesterday was spent weighing, bagging and labeling 106 pounds of Ashland Bay roving. I was out of so many colors, got a few new colors, also lots of time spent listing it in my etsy shop. Most of what I weighed was merino solid colors - got some nice new colors in. But there is some multi-color Polwarth roving that's a limited offer from Ashland Bay. I haven't had time to spin up the samples yet but it feels lovely. I especially love the green colorway....but then I love greens, especially lime greens.

Too much administrivia......

Success!  The top I showed the fabric and pattern of yesterday was sewn today after a trip to town for bias tape for the neck. I love it, it's so soft and drapey....and actually very flattering, will look great with leggings. It doesn't show to it's best on my mannequin. If I had enough fabric sitting around for another one I would have made it today too but being so full and drapey and having that uneven hem it takes a lot of fabric. I have a big bag full of rayon batiks but all just 1/2 yard short for this pattern. A couple of those will end up as the sleeveless version of this for summer. Hmm, tomorrow I'm off to a weaving guild meeting.....I could always leave early and stop at JoAnn's to see if they have anything suitable. I know it's a crap shoot finding a nice fabric there but I'm going to look anyhow. Very productive day between sewing and almost finishing inventory of hundreds of pounds of roving. An Ashland Bay order just came in, 106 pounds that needs to be weighed out into 8oz bags....that will happen sometime next week.

Next under the needle.....

Here's the next top to be sewn, hopefully tomorrow but who knows. Making the long sleeve version but with 3/4 length sleeves as I hate things around my wrist. Fabric is a lovely drapey rayon with gingko leaves. I copied the pattern onto other paper this afternoon and cut out the pieces so they're ready to go......except for the twill bias tape that I never realized I needed to buy (because I didn't read the back of the pattern), might have to run to town in the morning for it. Fixed the tension on the serger this afternoon - put on 4 different colored threads to figure it out.....took a while, seemed like no matter how I adjusted nothing was changing, then all of a sudden I got it - whoo hoo!  (oh, in case anyone is interested this pattern is See & Sew #B5203)

A bit of sewing today....

I really wanted to weave today but I have two tops I wanted to make before my Bernina goes in for it's regular service next week so sewing is what I did instead. I decided to make this t-shirt jacket from a McCall's one hour pattern - hah! It took me an hour to cut out the pattern fabric! It would have been fairly quick to sew if I hadn't been sewing with a knit, lightweight t-shirt fabric. I've never sewn any knits before, all I've ever done is hem up sleeves on long sleeve t's to 3/4 length. Top turned out ok, hangs better on me than on this mannequin. I learned alot about knits that curl up as they're being cut.....I think. Not totally happy with the front hemmed edge that wants to curl to the outside. I thought about turning the hem again but it would be too heavy. It is what it is.....a soft, smooshy, comfy top to wear over a t-shirt with jeans.....and the fabric was only $3/yard at Fabric Depot in Portland.....and at that price I didn't even care that blue is not my color, good fabric to learn on.

Would like to sew up another top tomorrow or Friday, different pattern, rayon fabric, but would really like to get the tension correct on the serger, didn't need it on the t-shirt top. Not sure what happened, tension was perfect, switched from 3 thread back to 4 thread and it's wack-a-do. Need to put on 4 different colored threads to figure it out.

I should have known...

I should have known that the warp put on Saturday using the warping wheel might have some issues....there was that first section that pulled out of the little raddle (because I didn't put the top on it) that tangled and pulled so it wound on tighter than the other sections. Then there was my question on the length of warp from one end of the raddle to the other which was answered in comments to my last post by Restless Knitter and Janet (thank you!). I was trying to follow the warping wheel instructions, they never addressed this issue, neither did the online video. I had a bad feeling about it, should have paid more attention to my intuition. So, after 6" of the first scarf the tension was wack-a-doo.....I can't ever remember having tension issues since I started weaving in 1986. So, I cut off that piece and called it my sample, pulled a number of yards of the warp forward to where I thought the tension all looked equal, wound it back on, tied on the front and started weaving. Phew!

First scarf woven, no tension issues so far, another pattern from the Complex Weavers Greatest Hits book with a few changes on my part. While weaving I kept looking at the area between the bands thinking what could I design to put in those - this only used 24 of the 40 harnesses so I could put all kinds of designs in those spaces....will work on those later after I spend time learning the software, right now just learning what I need to know to do what I want to do...by the seat of my pants.

Learning so much the brain hurts....

There were pictures to go with this post but I accidently deleted them before editing.....pictures of the AVL warping wheel process.Oh well, if you want to see one in action there's a video on the AVL website - go to Resources, Library and then click on Video - there are a couple there. You don't need an AVL to use this wheel - any loom will work, sectional or not.

Lesson learned today - put the warping wheel raddle top on the raddle before moving it to the front of the warping wheel...not a good thing to have all 60 warp ends for a 2" section fall out....leads to a tangled mess winding it on the back beam. I think that section may have been wound on tighter due to my error.

Lesson #2 learned - print out the draft before threading to catch any errors, for some reason it's easier to spot them in print than on the screen...luckily I figured this one out on the first warp so I fixed the errors before winding the warp today.

I think I like the warping wheel, I only put on a 12 yard warp since it was my first time. I think I could have wound and beamed it faster using a warping board but I'll get better at it, I was already getting faster by the time I got to the third 2" section.

If anyone uses one of these I do have one question. When I've finished winding a section and cut the warp, tie an overhand knot in preparation for beaming I find the ends aren't even when I move the raddle to the front of the wheel. It stands to reason because the first ones wound travel further to get through the slots on the raddle. Should I be waiting to tie my knot after I move the raddle? Or actually re-tie it because heaven forbid I drop it not tied! I don't know yet if this will affect this warp, possibly not at all, will find out after I finished weaving the 4 scarves. Speaking of which I also had a picture of the woven sample but that was deleted too.

Gourmet dinner tonight - Kettle Cooked Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper Chips and a Diet Mug Rootbeer. I rarely eat chips and am not much of a soda drinker. Sam had a very late lunch at a golf tournament so no cooking tonight.

Embroidery question.....answer

Theresa asked me a question on my last post having to do with embroidering the water bottle cozies. I thought I would answer here in case anyone else is interested.  For the cozies along with other small items to embroider, collar points, etc. that can't be hooped there's a sticky back stabilizer available. This is where I buy it - ThreadArt. It comes in the little 8x8 sheets or on a roll. I'm sure it can be bought at many other places too but this is where I've gotten it. I watched a video on how to stitch the cozies and it shows hooping the sticky back stabilizer, then scoring the top protective sheet of it and pulling it off leaving the sticky in your hoop (but it's not sticky anywhere that it actually touches the hoop). Now anything can be placed on it and held in place while embroidering. But I found one major issue - within a minute the machine needle becomes gummed up and thread breaks, of course it would going through all that sticky stuff. So, I've added another step - after removing the protective sheet on top of the sticky I actually cut a hole in the sticky part a tiny bit bigger than my embroidery design, then put a piece of regular stabilizer over it, just big enough to stick around the edge of the cut edge, the rest of the sticky is there to hold the fabric being stitched. Not sure if this makes sense but it will if you use the sticky back stabilizer. Works like a charm.

Hard at work.....uh....play...

Yesterday I had some time at the embroidery machine stitching water bottle cozies, the blanks are made out of neoprene, after stitching I sew up the side and voila, ready for a water bottle. I also embroidered some golf towels.

Then I decided to be brave and take part of the machine apart to clean it, so with manual at hand I started on it, glad I did, the bobbin case was filled with dust that I'm sure would hamper the sensor and cause stitching issues. I stitched this cute flower on a scrap piece of fabric to make sure I got everything back correctly after cleaning.

Today I spent time twisting fringes on scarves - they won't sell if I don't finish them. Photography comes next.

And my major accomplishment for the day was teaching myself, with a couple pages of instruction, how to use the AVL warping wheel. I was a little skeptical about it being easy to learn but I've got it, and it didn't take terribly long either. What a cool tool for sectional warping - no winding of spools, just work from the cone(s) onto the wheel, then onto the beam. It's like magic! So tomorrow I'll wind an actual warp and get it on the AVL, after I get to weaving and see how I like the tension I'll decide if I'm buying it from a local weaving friend, right now I'd say yes, I think I'm going to like it but will give it a complete warp to make sure.

knittin'

I needed a quick mindless knitting project to work on, fiber friend Pat gave me this super simple pattern. Yarn is a mystery from early spinning days, no fiber content on my tag, only yardage. Pattern is multiples of 4 plus 2--- K2 *P1, YO, P2tog, K1*. That's all there is to it. I'm not sure how many yards it will take yet, am hoping my 246 yards will make a nice scarf. Nice mindless project to take along places, nice for small balls/skeins of handspun I have left.

upcycling......

Since I have no pictures to share or any news other than that I've been embroidering golf towels for Sam and cousin Jim and twisting fringes on scarves so I can sell them I thought I'd share my cousin Claudia's blog and shop with you all. She's very into upcycling and is making some very fun items.

On another note - I realize getting older means a few gray hairs - I probably have around 10 now, just a guess, at the age of 56.....then a couple gray eyebrow hairs have shown up in the past year or so. But the weird thing is that two weeks ago I discovered a gray eyelash -yikes! Everyday I looked at this eyelash and covered it with mascara, it was so long, how could I only have discovered it two weeks ago??? Yesterday morning I decided I had to document this with a photo, it must be a major milestone - it was gone! So, am I more upset about a gray eyelash or the fact that I've lost an eyelash so quickly???

Slow weaving.....

I only got the first scarf woven on the warp this afternoon. I wove one heart motif, hemstitched and then started to weave again and could see that there was something wrong in the draft. I guess when downloading .wif files they need to be checked over carefully just like patterns in books or magazines, errors do happen. So, I shut everything off, took the laptop to the desk to figure it out. Took a while since I don't know the software very well yet but I straightened it out and got back to weaving. I didn't really mind terribly since it was a good learning experience. I also figured out why I only have 3 full hearts and half hearts on the edges.....I threaded the point twill starting with harness 1 instead of harness 24.....yeah, wasn't paying attention to the draft when I set up a point twill threading in the software for threading purposes....oh well, still am happy, live and learn. Sorry the picture isn't great, chose a color very close to the warp for a subtle effect.

This is the handspun I've been working on - this is the first 8oz spun, have another 8oz to go. It's hard to tell in this picture but each ply is a different shade of olive. My spinning looks different spinning on the electric spinner, gradually I'll get 'the feel' to get the twist I want.

This picture isn't very good - took it through the kitchen window but it's a huge pileated woodpecker. I hear and see them all the time up high in the trees but this one was almost at ground level. I tried to quietly open the door to sneak a picture from outside but he flew off as soon as I did.

Be still my heart....

This is becoming monotonous - I can't say anything bad about the AVL for a second warp....this is a good thing, an excellent thing. Today I wound a warp for 3 scarves; 8/2 tencel warp, 30 epi for this heart pattern. This is my spreading out the warp area/checking the pattern. Scarves will not be using a white weft but it doesn't look half bad. Not sure what the white is, just something left on a bobbin. This draft is out of the Complex Weavers Greatest Hits book - 'Deep in the Heart of Texas' by Charlotte Lindsay Allison.

On the AVL - a great feature is that I can put the draft in tromp as writ and it will raise each harness for threading the heddle. Thing I don't like is the texsolv heddles just because I'm slower threading them, they don't slide easily like metal ones, but can't have the weight of metal heddles on a loom with this many harnesses.

On the weather front - we hadn't had much rain at all since early June, these past three days is making up for all those dry months - it's raining pitchforks and shovels as my friend JoAnn on the coast would say. There is flooding here locally and even more so on the coast where they're getting even heavier rain...and winds to go along with it. And there's snow in the mountains.....finally.....

This is the 3rd scarf on the bamboo warp on the AVL. This loom and I are making friends now that it's fixed. I'm starting to enjoy it. After I finished this scarf I moved over to the Macomber where a chenille warp has been sitting for what seems like forever, would like to finish it up tomorrow. Next warp to go on the AVL will be another twill design - this one in tencel with a heart motif - seems fitting with Valentine's Day next month.

So only one hiccup today which had nothing to do with the AVL, well sorta. The AVL bench is made for someone with really long legs, I know I'm not tall, 5'4", but the lowest of 3 settings on the bench is too tall for me. So while I decide how much I'd like Sam to cut off of it I've moved my Macomber bench over to use....I'm thinking the same height will work for both. We're having torrential rains today (much needed) and this morning while I was weaving on the AVL the lights started blinking so I jumped up from the old Macomber bench to turn everything off. Well, as I stood up the bench fell backward against the bookcase. I assumed all was fine when I righted it.....I never looked under the sheepskin to make sure. I sat down again and to the floor I went as the bench broke into pieces beneath me.....guess that fall against the bookcase did some harm to a bench that's well over 50 years old. So, here it is in pieces awaiting Sam to repair it, probably won't happen until this weekend. Other than a few bruises on my butt and a bit of a sore back I came through the fall in much better shape than the bench.

Hansen mini-spinner

Just a quick post to answer a couple of questions.  First for Theresa - plying is a pleasure on the Hansen mini-spinner (electric spinner). It goes so quickly....which is great for me because I get so bored plying, it seems to go on forever too. I was having a little trouble at first getting the amount of twist right in my plying but I think I've got it now.  And Valerie - if you need someone to enable you to buy a mini-spinner I'll help! The speed of your drafting shouldn't make any difference - there's a speed control to get exactly the right speed for your spinning/fiber. Another nice thing is that when you start it up it gradually gets up to speed. I'm not even spinning at the halfway mark on the little dial.  I love this e-spinner but I still love my wheels and pedaling away on them so I won't let them gather too much dust.

On the weather front, we didn't ever get the snow at our elevation yesterday as predicted but overnight the winds, big winds, and rain came in - maybe winter has finally arrived. We're so behind in rain/snow totals which just leads to more fire danger in the summer so this is a good thing.

The Year of the Wheel

Is this going to be the year of the wheel for me now that I'm speeding along with my Hansen mini-spinner? I still don't spend that much time spinning but today was our bi-monthly spinning get together/gab session and I got this beautiful wool started. This is a shetland/merino blended batt from Spor-Farm. I sure wish she'd get a website up and running since I'm always mentioning her batts in either my blog or on our spinning group blog....beautiful heathery blends. She always has a booth at Black Sheep Gathering and Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. This colorway is called Apple Tree. I'm going to ply it with another one of her blends called Olive which is just a shade darker than this. I've got a pound total to spin.

Uneventful day.....

It was an uneventful day at the AVL which is a good thing. I wove the rest of the red scarf and this gold one this afternoon. Next one the weft will be purple. I kept waiting for something to happen but nothing did - maybe I'll start liking this loom afterall now that parts have been replaced and I have Melody to ask questions of when manuals fall short. If this keeps up I'll only be able to place blame on myself when something goes wrong - yikes!