Tuesday, August 29, 2023
In the pipeline...........
Tuesday, August 22, 2023
Comedy of Errors.........
Many thanks for Peg for sharing this draft in her late July blog post. I just started weaving on this today and love the look although it is fiddly but then she warned it was......lots of color changes and I haven't gotten a rhythm yet, also always trying to make sure the colors get carried up the side for their groupings.
But it was a comedy in errors getting this on the loom - I'm blaming it all on the prednisone I started on Saturday for intense sciatica pain. It is helping quite a bit but I'm wondering what will happen when my 9 day course of this med is over, will the pain return??? I'm waiting on the scheduler to get me in with PT so hoping that happens soon. Now back to this project. I wound the warp, got it wound on the back beam yesterday. I threaded the heddles. Then I sleyed the reed - I'm using 24 epi in a 12 dent reed only I didn't double check which reed was in there and it's so close to my 15 dent reed. You can guess what happened - I got to the end of sleying the 'wrong' reed and sat back and could see it immediately so I pulled all 476 ends out, put in the 12 dent reed and re-sleyed. I got the warp tied on the front beam and started to weave to make sure all was correct - nope. But it wasn't a threading error, I had 3 out of 10 treadles tied up incorrectly. I have NEVER used the wrong reed and NEVER tied up treadles incorrectly in my 37 years weaving so I've determined it must be from prednisone brain, if there is such a thing. At least fixing treadle tie-ups is much quicker than dealing with a threading mistake.
I stopped to watch HGA's Textiles and Tea zoom presentation at 1:00 and now am having a hard time going back to the loom, just can't seem to focus. While the presentation was on I did cut out fabric for 4 tote bags for gifts (maybe one a gift for me) - I'll get to sewing those another day as I need a color of thread I have none of........isn't that always the way it is.........
Sunday, August 13, 2023
Phew........
Friday, August 11, 2023
Another start...........
Another pair on the needles of the socks I'm knitting for holiday gifts. I finished pair #2 the other night, started pair #3 last night. I love how this one is turning out. I'm using a solid gray for the cuff, heel and toe. Getting a lot of sock knitting done in the evenings while we watch Suits on Netflix - we're hooked.
In other crafts I'm working on small holiday gifts here and there. Hoping to get a warp on the loom soon but need to finish up a couple of other projects first, feeling very scattered. Would love to get holiday gifts finished up in the next 2 months so I can get back to a wall quilt I had taken a class on.
Wednesday, August 2, 2023
Moving right along.......
Not much else to say. It's hot, but not as hot as it could be, that's coming this weekend. Just like every summer we're in extreme fire season - fire just a bit to the west occasionally throws some smoke in our direction but it's mostly blowing the other direction. Counting down the days until the end of fire season. I hate summer.
Friday, July 28, 2023
Sox in progress.........
Sunday, July 23, 2023
Inkling away..........
Thursday, July 6, 2023
Christmas in July............
Monday, July 3, 2023
Sunday, June 18, 2023
Almost done.......
Saturday, June 17, 2023
Polka dots.........
Here's a picture of the 8 finished towels - I wove each one with a different color weft. Feels strange to only put on enough warp for 8 towels but now that I'm not selling I don't have the need to. Four of these will immediately be used as gifts, others will be stashed away for future gifts or for me. Next up at the loom is to finally weave off a scarf warp that's been on the AVL for way too long. But first I need to trim and sew binding on the quilt I picked up from the long arm quilter this week - picture of that to come once it's finished.
Sunday, June 11, 2023
Berries......
Tuesday, June 6, 2023
On the loom........
This is weft color number 3. I'm not sure what color will be next. I had hoped to have this warp woven off this past weekend but it didn't happen. Since I no longer sell woven goods I'm not weaving much these days but would really like to get back to it. There have been many projects on my very long to-do list that I could never find time for.....not sure how to get my mojo back........
Saturday, May 27, 2023
Ready for garden goodies........
Now all I need is for the rolly bugs and earwigs to stop eating my veggies as they pop up from the soil. I have noticed they don't bother the veggie starts I've bought, just the tender starts from seeds I've planted - this happened last year too. I even planted some marigolds amongst the veggies last week and noticed this morning that they're eating the leaves off those - I thought marigolds were a deterrent. Sheesh. I've tried a organic bug spray meant for gardens last year, trying a different brand this year - not working so far. if anyone has any ideas please leave me a comment.
Thursday, May 25, 2023
Quilts.........
I'm finally getting back to the loom. I wound a towel warp on the back beam the other day, threaded heddles and sleyed the reed yesterday. But have other things on the calendar the next few days so will get back to it soon.
Sunday, April 23, 2023
spider webs........
Earlier this week I finally finished piecing the spider web quilt. It's hanging over a table in this photo. I started this right after the holidays. Very slow piecing with all those fabrics and widths. Yesterday I ordered some fabric for the backing - I was limited in my choices since I needed 118" wide to avoid piecing. I really don't like dealing with huge amounts of fabric at the sewing machine - putting this one together was a bear as it's king size. I'm hoping where all those 'slices of pie' come together in the center of the spider webs it's not too thick for the long arm quilter.
Even though I have a need for another king size quilt that may wait until next year - smaller quilting projects as well as weaving and other crafts are on the agenda for the rest of this year. Yesterday I was working on a turkey wall hanging/table centerpiece quilt. A friend gave me the kit for Christmas. I've got the turkey all pieced, actually pieces cut out of numerous batiks and fused. Will post a picture after I sew the two borders on. I'll quilt this myself since it's small. I've also got 4 placemats all sandwiched and ready to quilt which I'll also quilt myself.
Our weather has finally turned to spring - we are out of the freezing temps at least for now. I've got apple and plum trees flowering so sure hope there's no hard freeze. I haven't planted any of the early veggie seeds yet - maybe this week. I'm afraid what's going to happen is that we'll go straight from winter to summer in a week.
Saturday, April 8, 2023
It's been a while
Sunday, February 26, 2023
A little bit......
Snow off and on here the past couple of weeks, has been some on the valley floors but mostly a bit higher in elevation, enough to mess up driving on the passes to the north and south of our valley, and then many feet higher in the mountains, that is great thinking ahead to fire season.
Sunday, February 19, 2023
Paper piecing......
Last month I signed up for a 3 day paper piecing quilt class at Stitched on Second in Gold Hill. Friday was day 1 which was to learn the technique. Here is my block from that day, it's made up of 4 smaller blocks. The pattern is out of a Carol Doak book, the instructor provided it. It's fittingly called 'Cindi's Block'. It was suggested that we should make 4 more big blocks and use them as the center of a baby quilt. I have no use for a baby quilt and I don't have a use for a wall hanging in these colors (I was working from bits of stash fabrics). I have decided to use them to make a set of placemats - I will add borders to 2 sides so I end up with a rectangle. They will be bright and cheery to use on the deck table once it's eating out weather.
I'd love to be working on this over the weekend but the weather is nice and we need to get the plum and apple trees pruned - 2 plum trees done yesterday, will do the apple trees today. Did grapes last month. Roses still to come sometime in March. And it's getting time to think about the garden. There has been lettuce, spinach and chard growing under ground cover all winter. It's amazing how much we have growing on a city lot - more than we ever had when we were on acreage.
Day 2 & 3 of the workshop come in a couple weeks. We have homework to do - buy our fabrics, cut out paper patterns. I already bought my fabrics but need to decide what will go where. The pattern we'll be doing for those 2 days is called Arizona Cactus - more complicated and includes curves.
This month was a bad one for me to sign up for a class but I'm so glad I did - I love learning new! I'm really enjoying the paper piecing. Of course I 'had' to buy a lightpad from the quilt shop halfway thru the day. I have a tiny lightbox that I bought for who knows what over 25 years ago but it can't compare to a lightpad that has cutting mats that fit on top and it's big too. And I even got a carrying bag. Added benefit of being so flat to store, it won't take up much space. Every new technique comes with a new set of tools that must be added to the cupboard!
Tuesday, February 14, 2023
I originally thought I'd weave a second scarf but then came to my senses and cut this one off to finish it. Since I'm no longer selling my handwovens what would I do with 2 scarves with sequins, even if I did use a different weft. I suppose I could have rethreaded to a different draft but still, I just don't need more scarf inventory, still have quite a bit from my selling years. Instead I tied back on and am weaving using different variegated tencel wefts to create fabric to make notecard inserts. I will use notecards......I'll be using a dragonfly punch for the cardstock.
Sunday, January 29, 2023
Sparkle.......
It's not evident in the photo but those are sparkly holographic sequins in this tencel scarf on the loom. The Saturday Handweaver's Guild will be celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and our challenge for the year to weave gold. Hopefully there will be an exhibit along with other celebrations.
At first I was going to weave this with gold warp & weft but in my sampling it looks so flat so I started trying out different wefts. I really like this greyed teal weft. I put enough on for 2 scarves, still trying to decide between a few colors what color the weft will be for the next scarf.
This is plain weave with double weave pockets that I slip each sequin in and then close them up on the next shot thrown. I made some scarves many years ago using this technique. This scarf will have a repeat of 5 rows of sequins on each end. For a conference exhibit (2001) on recycling I wove fabric with bigger pockets and slipped small circuit boards in them. This is a 6 harness weave. At some point I'll need to figure out how to weave a fancy twill with pockets........I'll add that to my very long to-do list.
I tried out 3 different styles of gold sequins when sampling. They all happened to be from my way too large stash of specialty sequins. These are square and holographic gold. I buy my sequins from Cartwrights Sequins. I don't know if they still have these, haven't explored their website in quite a while since I have such a huge stash in a multitude of colors, sizes and shapes.
This project is a nice break from working on quilt blocks. I've made 40 of the 72 needed - they are slow going. I'll get back to them sometime this week.
Friday, January 20, 2023
Spinning.......
I got back to spinning before the holidays......not spending a lot of time spinning but I am spinning. I'm working on some merino/tussah silk/tencel blend dyed by my friend Whitney of Twisted & Dyed Fibers. I got the first 2 braids spun and finished plying a couple nights ago, last night I wound the first of it into a skein. Two more braids to spin. And no, I'm not sure what this will grow up and be, will start thinking about it once I'm done and see how many yards I have. I'm spinning it between a lace and fingering weight. I tend to spin fairly thin, will have to concenrate on spinning a little thicker after I finish this because I find so many patterns I like that require DK or worsted weight yarn.
Thursday, January 19, 2023
Sox on the needles
Last year I think I only knit one pair of sox, or maybe I finished a pair from the year before and then knit another pair - can't remember right now. Recently I decided I need a pair of black handknit sox so went searching through my stash and found this fun black yarn with specks (will take the 2 skeins I have). I haven't gotten very far and they'll be a long term project to cart along with me places......although it would be nice to wear them this winter.........
Still working on quilt blocks - think I have 34 now, not sure how many I need, at least 60 but probably more. I'll figure that out shortly. I've been listening to the audio version of Outlander's book 7, An Echo in the Bone while I stitch. I downloaded it from the library so only have so much free time to listen to 46 hours, I 'think' I'm going to finish before it disappears from my Kindle.
I've signed up for a quilt class in Feb/March. It has points and curves so I'll be learning new stuff. It's been so long since I've ventured out for any kind of class or workshop - I'm so looking forward to it. I have finally gone back to my weaving guild meetings as of this past Saturday - nice to see many who I haven't seen since the start of covid. I did wear my mask though with illnesses on the rise in our area.
Monday, January 9, 2023
Wall pouches
Sunday, January 1, 2023
A better year......
Here are strips of fabric cut at varying sizes from 1 14" to 2". There are 38 different fabrics plus the dark charcoal gray background. I'm afraid tables in the sewing room will look like this until the project is finished which means I won't be working on any other projects at the machine until it's done - basically the thought of packing it all away to work on something else is overwhelming. I'm hoping I have plenty of fabric, I've only cut a very small amount of it so far. There were 3 other fabrics I had but they got culled for being too gray.
Here is the first block. It actually consists of 4 triangles. It's around 13". This is sewn on paper to keep the bias edges from stretching out of shape. I've pulled the paper out from behind the charcoal gray but the rest will wait until it's sewn to squares around it.
And this is what it looks like when 4 blocks are finished (16 triangles) - it created a spider web of sorts, an octagon. I'm loving the look. I looked at 2 different patterns, one in a magazine, one a free pattern online, to come up with my final design.
Thursday, November 10, 2022
Pick up stix...........
Here's my quick sample where I was getting it drawn in to the correct width. I did 3 more letters after this fairly quickly. It's fun. The only issue I see is that there are long floats, see the bar on the H......and there are fairly long floats on the back. Will be just fine for a bookmark but wouldn't be good for something like a strap. I'll have to go back and look at pickup I've done a number of years ago to see how the floats look on that. I need to draw letters on graph paper so I can design other words to weave on this warp. I'll be getting together with my friend this weekend to show her how to do the pickup. Will be fun.
Friday, October 21, 2022
Once again..........
I went to the Hugo Quilt Show the beginning of the month, always fun as it's mostly an outdoor event. I always buy raffle tickets and I won a big basket filled with kitchen/grilling related goodies. Very fun. There are many things we'll use, some we won't that will be passed on to others.
Tuesday, September 27, 2022
This and that.........
A big thank you to Susan of the Thrums blog for posting this plaited twill and herringbone draft she got off of handweaving.net . Her baby blankets are so beautiful. My towels are much plainer as I want to weave many colors. I used two different off whites in the warp, one of them a barberpole of two colors of off white. I love this draft so much I'll probably weave something else in it soon, maybe some table runners.
I've also been working on small cross stitch projects in the evenings but can't show those since they're gifts. Actually, I shouldn't have shown this towel pic above as most of this warp will end up being gifts. I'm getting close to starting a quilt top for the trundle bed in the guest room/office but need to finish all holiday gifts first.
Fire season isn't over yet, not sure when it will be but we have had some rain which has given some relief on the fire front. Unfortunately, it's been in the mid 90's and dry again. The next two days will go down to the mid-70's but then temps back up to the upper 80's/90. I am so ready for fall weather, hoping it happens soon.
I really haven't had anything to share lately, kind of still in a funk, and just not doing anything I think is share worthy. Maybe that will improve, maybe not but I can't worry about it. I do appreciate all who check in when I do post..........
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Seas the day........
And then there's this sweet little piece, looks big here but it's really very small. It's hard to see but there are pulled threads in this one. I'm pretty sure all three of these will end up in our bedroom as other walls are pretty full but the bedroom walls are lacking. I still have many cross stitch pieces done over a span of 30 years that need to be up on walls, on pillows, whatever - maybe this winter I'll figure out what to do with them all even if it's giving some away because I have nowhere for them.
Monday, August 29, 2022
This and that............
'This' is a warp of some holiday towels that are on the loom right now. it's an undulating twill that many made candy cane towels out of several years ago. They're fun.
'That' is the forest fire that is ravaging in our area. I thought we might make it through fire season this year without a major/mega fire but not so lucky. On July 17th we had a lightning storm come through parts of SW Oregon - our county alone had 58 fire starts the last I knew. Almost all of them were put out quickly, none remain a problem except for the Rum Creek Fire up river from us. It has now made national news programs.
It's in very steep terrain, very dangerous for fire fighters, one died there last week. They are working on putting in fire lines and contingency lines but most of the fire fighting efforts are by air because of the terrain - bombers dropping retardant and copters dropping water. There are crews of structure protection fire fighters working on protecting homes. The evacuation orders go from 1 - get ready, 2 get set and be ready to go at a moment's notice, level 3 go now you are in grave danger and you may not be able to be saved. There are all 3 levels on this fire encompassing a huge section of the county. For how far the fire is we are still seeing level 1 approaching where we live which is on the outer western edge of the city of Grants Pass. Levels are changing constantly - first change for the evening just a bit ago added more area near us to level 1. Governor Brown ordered the Conflagration Act on Saturday which brings more resources to the area and yesterday declared a state of emergency which brings even more resources. Some are already arriving, hope they continue to come in to help our area.
We already have a fire plan in our house - our GO bags have been packed most of the summer and are on the floor in the bedroom to grab and run, rolling carts sit near paperwork that could be thrown in quickly. We have friends in towns just to the east who have offered us refuge if we need to leave. Two vehicles have full gas tanks. I could make light of it and say it is what it is but I can't - I get very anxious over fire and I'm not doing well, I'm very scared for those closer to the fire including many friends, I'm very scared for the fire fighters, I'm very scared for not just my city but others in the fire's path and I'm very scared for us. Please send positive thoughts our way, we need them right now with temps around 100 forecast for the week.
Tuesday, August 2, 2022
Frayed........
Friday, July 29, 2022
turn your head.........
Anyhow, so I have done a little weaving, not much but a little - 10 towels on this warp. I do have 2 more projects in the planning stages to get on the loom. I went shopping in my own cupboard in the sewing room to find several small cross stitch kits - been stitching on those in the evenings while we watch tv - they will be small holiday gifts.
I've cut out squares to make a toddlers blanket out of recycled blue jeans with different sheep fabrics on the back side. I need to google how to make it - it will have raw edges and will get washed so they fray. I have plenty of jeans but not sure if I'll make more than one of these..........
Hoping others are keeping cool enough in this heat spell. We were already in the process of getting bids on a new HVAC system when our AC went out yesterday. It's limping along today with the outside unit being continually misted to keep it cool, not sure how long it will last, if it will even last the day. (hmm, wonder what our water bill will be) I think it was 111 yesterday, today the forecast is for 113. Dry thunderstorms are in the forecast for the next several days - not a good combination with how dry the vegetation is and this heat - additional fire strike forces are now in the area in prep for a possible big fire. We have had numerous small fires in the region, all human caused, morons......
I know I haven't been posting much at all for a long time, I guess I just don't have much to show or share.......not sure when that will change but I'll post when I've got something.
Monday, June 27, 2022
Struggling........
I just took this warp off the loom and washed it. This undulating twill was being woven by many weavers a couple years ago. I wove it using 10/2 perle cotton to use as the fabric for our holiday cards this year. I like it so much I may have to weave myself some towels. Of course I have very little white and red 8/2 unmerc. cotton in my stash which covers 2 walls in the studio from floor to ceiling so I'm going to have to place an order. I suppose that means I'll order some other colors I'm low on at the same time. In the meantime I'm winding a warp for some turned twill towels. Hopefully before fall I'll have a number of warps woven for gift giving.
Thursday, June 16, 2022
This and that.......
I did some sewing - 17 tote bags for the Head Start kids. Our neighborhood group of the American Sewing Guild does quite a bit of charity sewing. This is one of the groups we sew for. We fill these with fun stuff we buy from grant money and deliver them at the holidays.