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.

The Best Present Ever!

I got the best present ever from my hubby. Before I show it to you, let me give you a bit of background history...

Last year, my hubby suggested we each make a present for us. If you know my hubby, you will be floored by this suggestion like I was. I was good with that idea.

This year, we (I) decided to continue this new tradition. He grumbled and groaned about how much work it was last year. My response was that's what makes the gift special...you're giving a bit of yourself in the gift. In the end it was decided that those who felt like it (me)will make stuff.

Christmas day rolls around and there's a long flat package under the tree for me.


...it's a shelf for my loom! And knowing how un-handy this man is, I appreciate this a whole lot more.

Thankful for:
1. Hubby' shelf.
2. A light dusting of snow on Christmas day.
3. Dog didn't throw up until after everyone left.

Good Year!

I wrote a great long post about my feelings and thoughts on this time of the year and what it means to me...blah, blah, blah. It was long and wordy and it really didn't say what I wanted to say.

In the end, all I wanted to say was that I wish you and your family the best for this upcoming New Year. I hope that, after tallying up the good and the bad, 2007 was a good year for everyone.

Thankful for:
1. A sound and solid house to live in.
2. Family and friends to eat, drink, and be merry with.
3. Good health.

I'm not ignoring you...

It's not that I'm trying to ignore anyone...it's just that I've run out of time.

I'm sure December is the shortest month in the entire year. And this is with us doing only the bare bones for the holidays.

Ack!!

We all scream for Ice Queen

Sometimes you just can't help yourself. I have no willpower.






Ice Queen at Knitty.

A simple feather and fan lace pattern with beads knitted in Kidsilk Haze. Knits up super quick.

Thankful for:
1. Good tires on the car.
2. One of the bestest week off work ever!
3. Christmas tree done.

Stalled Christmas Knitting

My MIL has larger hands than I do. That's a problem because, while I do know her hands are larger than mine, I don't know how much larger. So I guessed. And I think I guessed wrong. The index finger might be right but the rest of the others will be too small for her. Darn!

I have three options here...I could reknit them, I could turn them into mittens, or I could go and buy her something. I can't even keep these for myself as the index finger is too big for me.

This is what happens when you anger the Knitting Goddesses by boasting that you're on schedule with your Christmas knitting.

Thankful for:
1. Today's sunshine.
2. Dog didn't throw up.
3. Tree outside looks wonderful with the Christmas lights.

Dog, Fibre, and Chocolate

I asked my husband to remind me how much we love the dog. My one week off is slowly turning into a week of carpet cleaning, thanks to him...the dog, not the husband. On Monday, as I was cleaning one area, the dog was busy throwing up in another room. Today, same thing. It's really not his fault. He's old and he eats too fast. Add that with the household upheaval of moving furniture, etc, he throws up.

Yeah, sorry...dog barf is not good blog material.

On to fibre stuff...

Last night was the last class for weaving but I signed up for another session in January. I did learn a lot in this class. Considering that I knew nothing at the start, I think I've come a long way and still have much more to learn. Now, I know what is the difference between weft and warp.

The Christmas Knitting has been picked up again. I'm halfway through the fingers for the first glove. Fingers knit up fast but are tedious. You have to knit them one at a time. The cuffs for the second pair have been started.

I've added a new project to the list...a knitted teddy bear. I couldn't resist when I saw the Blue Sky Suri alpaca sitting in a basket at Three Bags Full last week. It just looked so bear-ish.

I think the carpet is dry enough to go move the furniture back now. This afternoon was going to be devoted to chocolate making but I'm out of chocolate. Not true...I'm out of the chocolate discs. I have a slab of Valrhona but don't feel like chipping it. It might be a quiet afternoon of knitting instead.

Placemat #1

WOO HOO!! Halfway through placemat #1! :D

I seem to be having a problem keeping the tension on the warp. It's either the brakes are slipping or I didn't do the warp properly.

Thankful for:
1. A week off.
2. Continuous Christmas music playing on satellite sations.
3. A warm and toasty fireplace.

PS...the previous post was deleted due to me not paying attention to what I was doing.

Pithy details of the loom

There really isn't anything more boring in this world than sitting through 8 hours of WCB regulations. That was my day today. I think my brain melted and leaked out of my ears around 2pm. How I made it to 4:30pm without falling asleep and, thereby, falling off my chair and embarassing myself, I don't know.

Anyway, here's a couple pictures of my Minerva. I removed the really bad tape marks off with something called GOOP OFF! It smelled really toxic but it was my last resort. I used oil and got a little bit off. Next came vinegar and that took off a bit more. Murphy's oil soap got the loom nice and clean but didn't do much for tape marks. I tried Citrisolv and that worked for most of it. The hardcore stuff like GOOP OFF! removed the final really dried crusted tape.



It's not an 8 harness but 4 harness. It has slots for another 4 and it looks like it should be easy to install should I go that route. I emailed Leclerc and they said I can still get harnesses for it. The total width is 25.5" and 39" tall. Fully opened, it sits 34" long. It's a nice little loom.



I think I will get a new reed for it. It's going to take me a while to clean the rust off the other ones. I want to start weaving NOW!

Thankful for:
1. Having so much to be thankful for that it's hard to pick 3 things.
2. No snow yet.
3. Random kindness of strangers - Dunn's Tailor seamstress.

Christmas countdown

1. 1 pair of red gloves.
2. 1 pair of grey gloves.
3. 1 pair of socks.
4. Weave 4 placemats (optional)

That's all I have left of my Christmas knitting. I have 30 days left. Piece of cake, right? If I don't finish the placemats in time, I'll just put everything away and pretend they don't exist.

Other things to do for fun (and me):
1. Block and sew grey cardigan.
2. Knit Misson Falls sweater.
3. Finish Kiri shawl.

Funny string pictures

This is where the cord is. It's nicely chained and out of the way. One diagram I came across had this attached to the friction brake wheel.

But there's another cord that's attached to the brake wheel on the botton. This is attached to the lever and it's working well.

The missing crank is for winding on the warp. I think I can find a socket that will do the job for now.

Thankful for:
1. Full moon - it's really beautiful out tonight.
2. Warm woolly mittens - it was really cold today!
3. Cheese nachos.

Minerva Loom!

The loom is in excellent shape. She bought it new years ago and other than dust, it's fine. Ok, there's tons of tape marks...she went wild binding everything up with masking tape. I'll have to find some kind of solvent that will take off 15 year old masking tape.

I think there's a crank missing that she can't find. There are two reeds but they're a bit rusty. Hubby thinks the rust can be cleaned off. It's missing the treadle hooks. I have thick wires that I can use.

It took me forever trying to figure out the brake thing. From what I can tell from the diagrams on the Leclerc website, I may have to take the whole thing off and start from scratch.

I got got a huge bag of bobbins and a bobbin winder but she couldn't find the boat shuttle. The warping board was in excellent condition but her husband had taken it apart and now it's missing a side. Not terribly useful, a three-sided warping board.

There are cords all over the place that I haven't worked out what they do. I think it's going to take me a while to figure everything out.