Warping Board

We made a warping board last weekend. Ok...hubby cut, drilled, and hammered while I did the measurements and supervised. :D

I got the free plan & instructions from allfiberarts.com. We had to make a few modifications because we couldn't find the right size oak boards. The plans and instructions were easy to follow even for us un-handy types. The board works well. It still could use another light sanding and one more coat of finishing though.

Now I can wind longer warps for yarn painting too! :)

I still haven't found my charts yet. Unfortunately, they were my own. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I left them at work.

July 14/13 - Edited to add: the measurements between the pegs on the long side is 10" from centre to centre of the pegs. The measurements between the pegs on the shorter side is 4" from centre to centre.  It looks like All Fibre has updated their plans to show the measurements better. After all these years, I still use my warping board. Not just for weaving but handy for winding out long lengths of anything.

Drat! Drat! Drat again!

I can't find my charts for my shawl. This is serious because it was my one and only copy. I did this up on the computer before things went haywire and we lost everything last year. It was backed up on the external but that went weird too and lost everything there.

I've looked everywhere in the house. I think it might have fallen out of my bag on the train. Crap! It took me so long to work out that design.

It's a snow day here!

After two attempts to get in to work, I did the smart thing and phoned in to say I'm not going in today. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at things) I can do some of the work from home and there's nothing urgent that can't wait until tomorrow.

Finished & washed!!!

Finished measurements are 19"x96". Originally, I was thinking of making this into cushion covers but it's a nice snuggly wrap. It's long enough to wrap around me a few times. Perfect for a day like today.

Thankful for:
1. Being able to stay home today.
2. Family was able to stay home today.
3. Computer & internet so I can do stuff at home without getting behind.

Snow Queen

This is my last Ice Queen and I'm keeping this one. This is #5. It seemed appropriate to photograph her in the snow. Not sure what's up with the weather but I think we had more snow days this season so far than any I remembered.

Apparently, the gifted Ice Queens were well recieved. I'm glad. I think the last minute decisions to switch from socks/mittens was a good one. I might make one more Ice Queen as one of the mitten recipients has been eyeing my Ice Queen.

Psst! Angela, stop by & say hi!

Thankful for:
1. My dutch oven.
2. Hot chocolate with a spicy kick.
3. Warm fuzzy slippers.

What to do?

What to knit when you have stuff to knit but nothing you want to knit? And all you want to do is start another knitting project when you have stuff you should knit?

Doing all those Ice Queens have put me in a lace knitting mood. I've started my new shawl in Harmony but it's too finicky to be a mindless knitting project.



Boy! Lace in progress is really ugly stuff!

Warning: Bright Colours!

Really didn't do much, kniting-wise. I just made another ear for the Sock Monkey and sewed that on. Now all I have to do is knit another ear & he's done. Not sure why I keep procrastinating on this. Poor monkey.

I've been working on the weaving off & on today.

I really like the gradual colour changes of the Kauni wool. You can see the little mistake when someone was talking to me as I was weaving. I'm not at that point where I can talk and weave at the same time. I thought about un-weaving to fix that but the thought of picking out all that was just too daunting. I had to un-weave 3 rows and that almost killed me. I was thinking of repeating that "mistake" and call it a design feature. :D



I have the yarn wounded on the bobbins in the order it came off the ball. This way, I can try & keep the colour sequence and have the colours gradually fade from one to the next. The bag was the inspiration for the pattern. I couldn't figure out how to to do the the horizontal stripes between the diamonds so I kept it simple.



Thankful for:
1. I'm thankful my family is whole and intact.
2. Wool comforters.
3. My sister.

Too lazy for pictures

My other balls of Jojoland Harmony arrived in the mail yesterday. The little express envelope was so packed, it was like a tube. When I opened it up, 4 balls of Harmony exploded out of the bag. Call me weird but that was so cool!

What have I been up to?

I'm redoing the warp on my loom. After doing a few inches, I decided that the Kauni would be much nicer in a rosepath weave. So I cut off the sample bit and redoing everything. I can't wait to see how the colour changes will work out on this pattern.

On the wheel is Ping in progress still. It seems like I'm spinning and spinning and there's no end in sight. The bag of fibre doesn't seem to be getting smaller. Once in a while, I switch bobbins and spin some silk that I dyed last summer.

I still have to put my grey cable cardie together but first, I want to reknit the shoulders. I didn't like the shaping. That was part of the things I wanted to do over the Christmas holidays. I think the best thing to do is to set aside a weekend and get it done.

There's talk on Ravelry that we might be able to catalogue our fibre and other non-knitting work soon. I've been looking at my stash and wondering how much of it I should divulge on Ravelry. I'm slightly embarrassed by the sheer quantity of yarn and fibre I have. Not to mention, there's only so much space in a free Flickr account. And the work it takes to photograph EVERYTHING.

Thankful for:
1. Seat belts.
2. Things are going well at work (touch wood).
3. Just a feeling that I'm truly blessed (touch wood again).

Placemats are finished...

...sort of...

I've finished weaving them and have taken them off the loom. I still haven't decided if they will be used as placemats or made into a bag. I'm leaning towards a bag. The placemats are really kind of ugly. The edges are uneven and there are missed threads on the back that I didn't noticed until I passed the point of no return. With knitting, if you made a mistake, you can rip back or drop stitches and reknit to fix things. Can you do that with weaving?

Still, it was fun and I did learn a lot.

I went to Place des Arts to wind another warp but didn't bring enough yarn. I have to go back on Saturday & finish. Don't ask what I'm making next because I'm not sure myself. I just wanted to weave something the whole width of the loom just to see what it will look like. And I wanted to use the reed I cleaned up. The Kauni wool I'm using will be perfect for this. If I don't like it, I can felt it and make another bag.

WOW!!

I looked up Jojoland Harmony on Ravelry to find out more on this yarn since I've never used it before. There were some really beautiful shawls knitted with this yarn. The colours were soft and I love the way it gently fades from colour to colour. I was lamenting last night that I couldn't decide whether to use the Jojoland Harmony to weave something or knit a lacy something. Hubby's response was why don't I phone the store and ask them to put away a couple more balls and I can do both.

Done!

"I'm just going to look"

Famous last words.
My husband always reply with "sure you are.."



Don't they look like delicious woolly apples? 5 balls of Jojoland's Harmony - 800m @ 50g of beautiful laceweight. They should be shown off in a fruit basket, I think.

Thankful for:
1. A hubby who encourages me to buy yarn - a keeper.
2. A hubby who drives me to faraway yarn places.
3. A hubby who makes pit stops at unexpected yarn places.