Finally, an update

June 25, 2018June 26, 2018Leave a comment

I really did try to update this blog before now. I really did.

Things and Stuff have been happening. I am (finally) nearly almost practically done setting up an online shop. I nearly walked away from my day job, but then didn’t (it’s all good). I went to VT to see a friend graduate from college, and to visit another friend there. I have been practicing cello like a fiend – because every month I have lessons may be the last. (There are some calluses on my fingers, yo.) And I’m trying so hard to get things made that need to get made and get things done that need to get done.

The extremely good news is that the tendonitis has been continuing to recede, and some days I don’t even notice it!

On to the visual proof of what I’ve been doing.

I had this idea for a series of mostly handwoven, hand-dyed sort-of panels that would hopefully be shown at a local library’s art gallery next year – or maybe just hang on the wall where I live. It’s still swimming around in my head and would be oh so

The tannins in black tea turns the cloth black where the cloth has been exposed to iron oxide. Behold! Chemistry!

cool – I haven’t made any art in years and years. Part of it involved an indigo dye vat and another part involved rust stains. The indigo is straightforward, and the resulting fiber requires no special treatment afterwards. However, staining with rust means that there’s rust still on the fibers (I think), and my original plan involved staining the yarn and then weaving it – only the reed in the loom is stainless steel, and I’m betting it’s not that stainless when literally up against actual rust. So, I decided the cloth would have to be dyed. And then I read about overdyeing rusty cloth with tea, and instantly learned about iron mordants! I’m still thinking hard about this potential art. We’ll see if I get to it this year.

I finished the two cotton scarves. They were difficult in ways I didn’t anticipate – the weave was planned to be loose, which means paying very close attention to beat. The selvedges are a mess – that is, they’re not perfect or close to even, and it drives me a little batty. One could attach the label “rustic” to them, but I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m trying to decide if that should go to my shop or not. I do have a large-ish pile of things to sell.

I’ve been going to a knitting group at one of the local yarn shops again – it’s been about six months since the last time, but being in a space dominated by lovely yarn, knitting needles, and loads of people knitting was not conducive to the tendonitis healing, so I stayed away. When I finally went back the other night, a friend of mine showed me some really luscious fleece she’s acquired, and some examples spun up – she’s an excellent spinner! Apparently, she’s prepared at all times for any spinning emergency as shown in the above pictures of the contents of her car. There were six drop spindles in that plastic tote. The bags are full of fleece. (Even I’m not that prepared!)

The things I find in Amherst.

Sorry about not providing an update of Emily Dickenson’s grave – I’ve been back, but failed to take pictures. I will next time!

And here’s the next project! It’s tiny yarn (24/2 for those who want to know), and I’m hoping it will make nice cloth suitable for napkins. I didn’t sample (I know, I know, I’ll kick myself later), but I figure the resulting cloth will still be useful? I hope? The thing that really worries me is the selvedges. I recently found plainweave.net, and there were some helpful suggestions both for producing good selvedges and also for letting go of that selvedge perfection goal. Stay tuned.

OMGOMGOMGOMG!! I can spin wool again!! I can’t believe it. I have been positively aching to spin wool, and there’s still so much of it, and and and and! I had borrowed a couple of movies from the library (btw, The Shape of Water is a must see – really) and dusted off my wheel. It felt soooo good. I finished up the bobbin that was on there, and started another (pictured). Hopefully, a little every week will be spun and then I can weave the yarn. This project, of course, was supposed to be finished last October.

And finally, I CAN KNIT AGAIN!! Okay, in small doses. My thumb starts to get kind of tingly after about four rows, which is a sign of Overdoing It. So, as long as I’m careful to not knit more than about four rows at a time with a couple of hours in between (for now), then there will be slow progress.

I’m also reading up on some really exciting overshot patterns. The loom has four shafts on it now, but can accommodate up to ten shafts (I think – possibly twelve?), and I think the next step might be eight. My buddy Lee has asked me to weave a blanket for her, and so of course I’m thinking about a complicated, beautiful pattern with, of course, more shafts. Because New! Shiny! Complicated!

And I’ve been reading about bookbinding, because I’ve only bound one book and I’m weirdly itchy to make some more. This time, I have idea about weaving cloth for the cover (yes, I have ideas about making paper out of linen or cotton scraps and possibly also thrums and binding that into a book – that’s a long term project). I’ve got some really lovely cotton paper and some ethereal blue Japanese paper (don’t know what the fiber content of that is), and string…where would I find some string…..? The only thing I need is some Davey board for covers, and a Coptic bound book is mine.

Also, I got out my camera again. Oh boy. I forgot how lost I can get in photography. Whole chunks of time just whiz by without me taking any notice – what’s that sound? It’s my stomach! Why? I just ate lunch! Oh. No. That was nine hours ago. Oh. The sun has set. Oh. It’s actually time for bed. Damn.

One of my favourite pictures I have ever produced featured an orchid:

Grace

I love that picture more than I can say. And so I thought because I made such a pretty thing before with the help of an orchid, I would try again with other orchids (of course, none of my current orchids are blooming, so I needed new ones). I have to admit, they do add some lovely color to that room – I really miss gardening!

Yesterday, I found some peonies. The kitchen was transformed into a photography studio, and away flew several hours. I’m still in the process of editing, but when I am done, I think they will become prints and cards.

Did I mention I also bought a shoe pattern last month? Well, I did. With the intention of weaving the cloth that would become shoes. And if I could grow the fiber myself that I could use to weave the cloth, I would. Oh – of course, I will use some of that wool I’ve been spinning. And it may go into an indigo vat.

Hopefully, next time I’ll have news about stuff for sale! What have you been up to?

Moar Stripey Goodness

March 26, 2018April 3, 20184 Comments

I swear, I have been making things. Okay, it’s been slow (tendonitis still recovering), and I’m busy now with The Great Cello Experiment. And this time of year drains away all my spoons so by the middle of March I’m wishing I could just stay in bed all day…

I digress.

Right after I finished that baby blanket, I moved on to another round of dishtowels. The same ones, it turns out, I did exactly one year ago. Except, in light of my Yarn Shrinkage Research, I decided I wanted them to be a bit wider once the cotton was done shrinking so they were a bit more useful. (I will write about the shrinkage thing in another post, but essentially, it takes 8-10 washings/dryings to get to the maximum shrinkage.) So, I added two inches, which meant adding 60 more yarns across. The resulting warp consists of 660 yarns across 22″.

I can hear all you non-weavers out there falling out of your chair and thudding to the ground. Yes, that’s 30 ends to the inch. If you’re wearing jeans right now, I can promise you that that cloth is 55-64 ends per inch. Which can absolutely be woven by hand using the tools I use right now, it just takes a little longer than weaving dishtowels because the yarns are thinner and there are more of them. Weaving is always a test in patience. Nothing about it is quick.

So, of course my plan was, two weekends ago, to get the warp measured, pre-sleyed, and beamed by the end of the weekend so I’d have mornings and evening to throw the shuttle. Did this work? It did not. Sigh. I decided during the course of winding the warp onto the back beam that the paper I was feeding in between the layers, though wrinkling at an increasingly alarming rate as it rolled on, would be fiiiine. That Monday morning at 3am, I awoke with the realization that this would change the yarn tension going on and then coming off the beam, and that I should unroll it and do it again. Ugh. But you know, you only have to do it right once.

So, I unwound 4 or so yards and spent the week’s mornings and evenings rewinding. In between, I read This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin, and I practiced scales and études.

The beginning:

Measuring the warp

Laying the warp bundles out in order

Getting ready to pre-sley the reed so the warp gets wound onto the back beam evenly

The middle:

So much yarn. So much.

Weaving is just organized string under tension.

Re-wound

I left out pictures of the ReWinding, because that was slightly traumatic. There were some tangles due to uneven tension, both in myself and in the warp.

Someone asked me the other day why I put paper in between the layers on the beam. This is to prevent the top layers from cutting into the layers of yarn below them during and after the winding. Without the paper, the even tension when winding on would become very uneven very quickly. Some weavers use sticks to separate the warp layers, some use lengths of bamboo window shades. I have tried the sticks, but I prefer paper because it is easier to deal with and quieter coming off the beam.

And now, a random interlude.

At my day job, I’ve been trying to go for a walk during my lunch break because try as I might, I cannot burn calories throwing a 3 oz shuttle or leaning on a 3 oz bow. I visited a well-known spot in town:

Emily’s headstone is well-revered.

It’s always entertaining to see what her fans deem worthy gifts. I’ll go burn some more calories today and check again. Stay tuned for an update in a later post.

And now, back to the post.

Right. So, with the warp now successfully on, I managed to thread all 660 heddles, sley the reed, lash the warp on, and start throwing the shuttle. Whew!

The first leg of The End:

Purpley goodness!

Purple weft, green weft

Winding a quill

Once again, you can see the color change due to weft color choice. Above is how I left things this morning – I finished up the second purple weft towel, and began the first green weft towel. The plan is to weave eight towels (nine, if I have enough warp, which I should have), two with each of the four colors: purple, green, yellow, turquoise, and then an additional yellow one. Probably.

People always ask me how long it takes to weave. Like, all the time. The answer is: it depends. On the project, on the yarn, on the pattern. Probably it takes longer than you think? For this particular project, to measure the warp, get it wound onto the back beam, get all the heddles threaded, get the reed sleyed, lash on the warp at the front, and then start throwing the shuttle – provided there are no mistakes – for me with this loom, it takes about 12-15 hours. I’ve timed myself throwing the shuttle for one towel, and including advancing the warp, backing up to fix mistakes, winding new quills, etc, it takes me 1.5-2 hours per towel. So, for this warp, I anticipate it taking an additional 14 hours this week until I can cut the cloth off the loom. (EDIT: with practice, once I get up to speed, it looks like I can weave a towel in 1.25 hours.)

(If you are a weaver, I would really like to know how long it would take you to complete a similar project!)

What I marvel at so often is that the clothes we wear today evolved from women’s work creating cloth, both by means of weaving and by means of knitting. The technology hasn’t really changed – the fundamental structure of cloth demands the same process to build it – it’s just faster now.

Once this project is done, I have some really lovely fine wool yarn I want to dye and weave. Still. Unless I decide to measure out a warp for upholstery.

Tarot of the North Atlantic

March 5, 2018March 7, 20181 Comment

I had to share this with you all!

Lee Thomson – artist and dear, dear friend – has started a very small kickstarter to sell a really amazing tarot deck that she’s created. Each card was handmade and then photographed, and will be printed into a beautiful deck of cards that you can buy. I have seen the originals and the first set of proofs, and I can tell you that the cards are really gorgeous.

The Magician – one of my favourites!

Click here to go to the Kickstarter page!

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming…

The Return

March 1, 2018April 3, 20186 Comments

I’m finally, FINALLY back to weaving. I can hold a pencil and write with it. I have not yet tried knitting. Or spinning.

But so much has happened in the interim. Where to start.

Due to that hand/wrist tendonitis thing, I was forcibly introduced to the World of Left-handedness. Guys, the world is set up exclusively for right-handed people. It’s awful. Things with handles all have the marks and words on the side you see when you hold a thing in your right hand. If you can’t hold it in that hand, you either have to develop a left elbow that bends the other way, or spend time putting a thing down, turning it, turning it back, and picking it back up again. Lefties, I will never make fun of you again. I get it now!

I practiced cello with the bow in teeny, tiny chunks of time. I watched many DVDs in lieu of weaving/knitting/spinning/embroidering/insertActivityHere. I looked at my loom with the brilliant rainbow yarn not yet actually threaded through the heddles.

Then I drove away out of town for 10 days where I did not practice or make anything. And you know what happened? It got better. Not all the way, but definitely over the hump.

When I got back, I very carefully threaded a few heddles one day. Then, a couple of days later, threaded a few more. Wash, rinse, repeat, and voilà! Like the tortoise I’ve been, slow and steady got the job done. Pretty soon, I’d tied the warp on the front cloth beam, and was ready to throw the shuttle. Then I wove, and that took what felt like no time at all.

Alas, I forgot to take in progress shots. This is right at The End.

I cut the new cloth off, and spread it out along the floor. I like doing that because 1. I live in a place currently where the floors will allow it (read: I can), and 2. because it gives me a sense of intense accomplishment: I made clooooth!!

The difference in color from one towel to the next is entirely dependent on the weft’s color. I find this fascinating to no end.

Look! A pile of cloth that I made! (Also, I believe I knit those socks when I was living in Germany 2+ decades ago.)

Soooo pretty. I was sure these would not be beautiful when I was weaving them, but they really are.

I even found some color combinations that are obvious now that I see them in that last picture, but that I hadn’t really considered before. I love these. However, this Weaving Thing is also a business, so most of these will be up for sale as soon as I’m finished hemming.

And then, I had to put another project on the loom as soon as possible. I’d been invited to a baby shower for a woman who I still think of as a tiny, adorable child of four years sitting in my lap or playing in the leaves with me. She’s 28 now, nearly 29, and will be having a baby boy sometime around the first week in April. Of course I needed to weave her a baby blanket. (Probably I’ll make a bunch of other stuff too, but this I could do right away.)

Weaving draft was acquired! Yarn was purchased! Measuring was initiated! Progress was made! I had to get it all done in about 10 days. Totally doable. It’ll be fiiiiiiiine, I said. Just get the warp on in the weekend before the shower, then I’d have all week to throw the shuttle. Wash it the morning of the shower, hem, and done. Just in time.

So, you know when knitters say you should knit a swatch? And you don’t? And you spend a hundred hours knitting a gorgeous fisherman-knit sweater, you put the first sleeve on, and you try it on because OMG NEW AWESOME SWEATER, only to discover that it’s just not going to fit. Nope. Not even slightly. If only you had knit that swatch first so you’d get the right gauge, right?

Weavers have the same advice. It’s advice worth its weight in gold. And sometimes you don’t have to heed it, but you’d better for projects that are going to count. I did not weave a sample. I did not check my numbers. I relied on thinking I knew what I was doing, even when the warp yardage didn’t seem to be quite enough. 468 ends? That seems…not quite enough. Oh well, fatter yarn than what I’m used to, it’ll be fiiiiiine. This mistake was not wholly apparent until I had started throwing the shuttle that Sunday night.

This was measuring, beaming the warp, and threading the heddles. The first time.

You’re supposed to be able to see through the yarns, but not this much.

I went to bed and thought about it for aaaages. The plan I came up with seemed complicated, but the simplest way: I was going to have to unweave what I had woven, untie everything from the front apron rod, remove the warp from the reed, remove the beater, pull the entire warp forward until it was no longer wound on the back beam, shove all the heddles over to make room, measure 117 additional ends, add that to the back apron rod, wind the warp back on, thread the additional heddles, put the beater back on, re-sley the whole reed at the right ends per inch, tie it all back on and then I could throw the shuttle. Which is exactly what I did. And it took me all week. That Friday night (you know, the night before the shower), I started throwing the shuttle. I got up at 4am the next morning, thinking (ha!) that I might have a chance of getting the cloth woven enough to cut if off so I’d at least have something to take to the shower – “see? I really am weaving you a Thing! It’s pretty! I’m almost done!”

Now you can actually see the pattern, which you couldn’t really before.

Part of what I love about weaving and what I find perhaps the most astonishing is that each bit of yarn passes through my fingers. Every inch. Twice. Both warp and weft. I have to physically touch all of it while I’m weaving, and after it comes off the loom, I look it over for mistakes, fix them (there were two in this blanket that ran the length of it that I had to fix with a very tiny crochet hook – you can see one in the picture on the left above), wash and dry the cloth, trim errant weft ends sticking out, iron it, cut the cloth, fold and sew hems. And then it’s finished and can be packed up and sent to the recipient.

I’m very happy with this pattern – it came out exactly as I wanted it to, in just the right size and weight. It’s been lovingly handmade for being peed, pooped, and puked on, and then washed to within an inch of its life. I hope the baby likes it as I expect it will last for many years. It was finished yesterday morning. Washed and dried five times, hemmed, and is now wrapped up to be mailed tomorrow.

I have a couple of other project on the list to start, but have been dealing with some headache/middle ear/sinus/possible allergy or cold stuff, so sleeping is currently at the top of my list. But now that my hand/wrist is better, it occurs to me that it’s high time to not only get on with weaving (for I need to fund further weaving adventures and my cello lessons), but also with combing and spinning wool.

OH. And my winter scarf is pretty much dead, so I got some lovely very thin gauge wool yarn, which is currently white, so will need to be dyed. Which I anticipate being heaps of fun. Maybe I should weave some wool instead? I don’t know. Is anyone interested in buying handwoven wool scarves? I have enough for several. And oh, Webs was having a sale on their silk/alpaca yarn and I thought shawl and oh swoon….

Right. Must get busy.

Time, connections, love

March 1, 2018March 8, 20181 Comment

January. Oh, January.

On January 22, 2018, my dear friend Michael Anderson passed away from colon cancer. He was 48.

We met each other in Tübingen, Germany, living in the same dorm in college. He’d been there for a couple of years before I arrived, and he showed me all the ins and outs and made me feel not quite so lost. As the two Americans on the floor in a sea of mostly Germans, we talked about home quite a bit – about our lives, about our hopes and dreams. I introduced him to the campiness that was Xena, Warrior Princess, which we’d race down to the TV room to watch once a week, snacks having been acquired just for the occasion, laughing uncontrollably through the whole show. In between, we’d find ourselves in the huge kitchen with his huge copy of the American Heritage dictionary, usually starting out in a serious pursuit of knowledge, and ending up laughing so hard tears would gush down our cheeks – there is some funny shit in the dictionary, yo!

After two years (two of the best years of my life), I went back home to the US. He stayed to finish his Magisterarbeit (Master’s degree). Then he got married to another American he got to know there. They both came back to the US for a bit, during which they celebrated their wedding with friends on this side of the Pond, and I went down to Brooklyn to celebrate, too. We went to the Guggenheim, which was delightful. We ate good food, and laughed a lot. It rained so hard one night, the subways were closed. We walked all over the place, enjoying each other’s company.

I went to Wales to do my Master’s degree, and while I was there, they were in York, so I took the train to visit. It was during the Jorvik Viking Festival. We watched the boat race, wandered through the faux Viking medieval village, took in the sights. Michael had stopped smoking, and his wife had gotten him to start exercising, which I knew he hated but knew was good for him. It was so good to see him then. A familiar face in another foreign country.

We lost touch for a long time after that. He was doing his thing, and I was doing mine. There were good times and bad in both our lives. A couple of years ago, I got a call from him: he had been diagnosed with cancer, he had to find a home for his dog. He’d gotten a divorce some time before. I didn’t know much more than that. He was clearly scared. The diagnosis was not good at all. There was a farm in New Hampshire where his dog would be happy, and he might come out to visit me, and he’d let me know when. But I didn’t hear back.

I emailed a few times, but never got a response. I did check up on him, though. He’d been teaching at Purdue, and there was a listing for him. I figured as long as the listing was there, he was still alive.

A year and some later, I got the word from his partner that he was in remission. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Then he contacted me again last year to tell me the cancer had come back, and it was terminal. I visited them in July. We talked sometimes on the phone, but mostly texted. He taught right up until this past December. I texted pictures, I told him little things about my day, I wanted as much as possible to stay in touch and distract him from his suffering. The semester ended, he went into hospice care. I missed seeing him one last time.

I am so glad I went out in July. I am so glad I took the time to send stupid little texts. I miss him so much, and I wish so much that I had tried harder to stay in touch. 48 is too young.

So, as I said in July, value the time you have with your friends and family. Love them, tell them you love them more often than you do. Try to remember than nothing is static and one day someone close to you and to whom you are close will no longer be there. Spend time with them. Listen to them. Share with them. Stuff is just stuff, dictators rise and fall, aging is unavoidable, but none of this really matters. It’s stuff and circumstances, and the in between is what matters. Life is so, so short. SO SHORT. For some people it’s shorter than it really ought to be.

Photo by Zsuzsanna Beard

Photos taken by Zsuzsanna Beard, his partner of seven beautiful years.

October is a Baroque month

October 16, 20171 Comment

Summer is finally over. (Whew!) I was sick for the entire month of September with a gross sinus thing that made my ears ring and my head ache. Two rounds of antibiotics later, my sinuses were finally mostly free of gunk. My Super Sekrit Project is slightly less secret, but is taking up a portion of every day (sorry, it’s still Sekrit here for now). So, making hasn’t really been happening.

The autumn brings yard work involving moving leaves around to designated areas. This past weekend also involved moving said leaves, hauling some brush, and stacking up some firewood. Of course, the moment I was done cleaning the driveway, the front yard, and the porch of leaves, a front came through and blew more down. Sigh. I’ll be doing more of that this coming weekend.

I did finish hemming the trousers for J with those chili pepper pockets, and I made a something else for my friend in Indiana:

The Baroque Wrench Roll! If it’s not Baroque, you don’t need to fix it! It’s quilted as well for ultimate wrench comfort.

If anything, it’s absolutely useful, and I really hope it makes my friend laugh. I’ve also given him instructions to open the box while listening to Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3.

So this happened on Saturday evening:

Soda pop can camp stove. Almost.

One of my geeky friends (okay, that’s not much of a distinguishing word…all my friends are geeky…) decided to figure out how to build a camp stove out of a soda pop can, aluminum tape, and some denatured alcohol. This is the first try of this particular design variation, which nearly works. In fact, it’s impressive at the level it nearly works.

This is how PhDs keep warm on those cold, cold nights.

And on the weekends, I’ve been going over to another friend’s house to help repair his pop-up trailer. The whole thing seems to have been sewn together with cotton thread, which has just rotted to bits. (Honestly, who would use cotton thread for something that you use outdoors??) I sewed together most of one end of the trailer so he and his family could go camping last weekend, but as soon as he set up this end, the seams let loose like a zip top bag. Oops. I was using doubled 80/3 linen line thread waxed heavily with beeswax previous to this, but this time, my friend produced a 25% cotton/75% polyester button thread he got from his mom, which we doubled and waxed heavily. I don’t know which will last longer, the cotton/poly or linen thread, but it should be a good experiment. In any case, the whole seam below needs redoing, so I’ll be over again next weekend to finish up the remaining four feet:

It’s entirely possible that my stitching will outlast the trailer. Heh.

I am still in the middle of measuring a new warp in lovely bright colors for another batch of dishtowels (still!). I’m hoping the colors play well, but even if they don’t, it’ll be a learning experience, and I’ll have Moar Dishtowels. The red and white dishtowel I kept for myself from the last batch is still shrinking, five or six washes later. It’s amazing, and slightly irritating. I’m so interested to see which brand of cotton shrinks the most!

In other news, I went to this yesterday:

It was great to hear and see a viola da gamba in real life! I had hoped the musicians would come out and speak with the audience after the performance, but alas, they did not. Or, I didn’t wait long enough? Maybe next time!

The plan for this week is to get those dishtowels at least started, and get another pair of trousers at least started! Though, really, this is the start of drier weather here in New England, and I should be thinking about combing and spinning wool. Perhaps it is time to set up the combs and the wheel and unpack the fleeces…

Chilis, cows, stars, and organization

September 15, 2017September 15, 20172 Comments

Making is still slow, but it’s all good. I finished the red and white weaving project, and really need to get to the post office to mail the couple out for my friend in Indiana. Of course, a sinus infection turned up and made me feel like Teh Awfuls and I didn’t get that done, or a whole lot of other things for that matter. I’m better now!

I’ve also been working on J’s trousers. I found some really awesome fabric in my quilting stash for the pockets!

Nearly done with them. This particular denim was narrower than I wanted, and the length was not quite enough to cut the pieces when the cloth was folded, so I had to get creative when laying out the pattern pieces. In order to get the grain running the right way for all the pieces, the waistband was sacrificed – this only means that I’ll have to cut out smaller bits and sew them together, which I hate doing because so many seams, but oh well. It is what it is and the trousers need a waistband, right? I cut out a bunch of smaller pieces last night and sewed them together. It doesn’t look too bad, and I think the seams won’t be thick enough to chafe, but man. Next time I’ll be more careful to note the fabric width!

A couple of weeks ago, we had a partial solar eclipse in my neck of the woods. Pretty much nationwide, there was much cheering, travelling, and buying of those special glasses with which to view the eclipse. I am fortunate in that I work very close to a large university that has kind of a kick-ass astronomy department that is always trying to get the public interested in the universe. This meant that they had an event at the Sunwheel featuring a couple solar telescopes where the public could queue up to get a chance to look at the sun through them. I met up with some friends down there about 20 minutes before the maximum, and we watched it through various pinhole cameras and binoculars:

SCIENCE!

The lines for the telescopes were soooo loooong. We just stuck with our own indirect methods of viewing.

The best thing was that the place was packed. I mean, there were hundreds of people there, all members of the public. I love this area.

There were some spectacular photos of the eclipse on NASA’s website, lots not copyrighted. One in particular caught my eye, so I downloaded it and had it printed out:

See that little ‘H’? That’s the International Space Station! The other spots are sun spots.

These were growing in a pot outside the frame/print shop!

EEEEeeevil petunias!

I am continually amazed at the magic that happens with weaving. It still seems like magic! Making something out of nothing, although I know that’s not true – it’s really organizing things so well that the result can wipe up spills and dry off fine china. It also can combat nakedness and cold floors.

In other news, I’ve been trying to ride my bike in to work more often, which is to say, more than once this year. Mission accomplished! The bike path is built on an old railway that’s been out of commission for years and years, which means it’s fairly flat and there are no real hills. I like the lack of hills a lot, but I do have to tackle at least one on this commute. The trip is about 9 miles each way, and I get to ride through the most beautiful landscape. This is in Hadley:

MOOOOOO! Seriously. Moo.

I can’t tell you how in love with this area I am. I have really enjoyed living in other areas of the world, but there’s something about here that makes me so happy and I count myself super lucky to be here where it’s so beautiful and so full of art and debate and conversation and museums and books and music and food.

Speaking of that, I am currently involved with a Sekrit Project of my own devising. There’s been A Thing that I’ve wanted to do for, oh, 35ish years, and I finally took the first step. This first step is very tall and very long. A hell of a learning curve, but strangely, it is fabulously fun. I haven’t told a lot of people because…I am afraid of being judged. I’m doing this thing, and part of it is not expensive at all, but part of it is, relative to my current finances, kind of expensive. Everything else in my life right now is just right for it, so I decided now was the time to take that First Step, because I don’t know if these Just Right Things will stay as they are. I am afraid that very likely everything will change in a few months and I’ll have to put the Sekrit Project on hold for a year or so, which would suck. I want so much to tell everyone, but can’t just yet.

But this Project, while OMG fun, is also eating into my Making time.

Anyway. The only other thing I’ll say about it is this:

Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt!! I promise!

Okay. So this blog is about CRAFTURGENCY!, which I have been slacking on. Really slacking. There are SO MANY THINGS TO MAKE! On the list right now:

Moar dishtowels (brightly colored!)

Sweater vest (green!)

Button-down linen shirt

Scarf for myself made from the olive green alpaca I’ve had in my stash for the last two or three years (basically since my first weaving project)

Dishtowels first.

Slow craftiness

August 14, 20171 Comment

And it’s not the buzzword definition – I’m so busy with non-crafty stuff (and tired) that Teh Crafturgency! isn’t going at the speed or quantity one might otherwise expect from me. Alas.

Here’s some of what I have been doing.

I finished the pants – woo! and I managed to use all but about 8″ of the spool of matching thread for top stitching. They have been mailed to J. Behold my extreme luck:

Whoa. Just, whoa.

This guy was in the backyard. There’s just so much wildlife back there!

Froggie! He was so very beautiful, with gold eyes. And very quick. I couldn’t get any closer, so the resolution is dreadful.

I continue to be delighted by the bright colored flowers I find in downtown Amherst. The thistle is wild, the zinnia was planted by a landscaper. Aren’t they beautiful?

I went to the mineral, fossil, and gem show in Springfield this past weekend (largest on the east coast!) with my brother, his two daughters, and our friend M and his family. It was just too delightful for words! I got to see beautiful gemstones, uncut crystals, polished stones, pieces of petrified wood, pieces of mammoth tusk, all with my nieces. With my nieces!!! WOOHOO! Part of our adventure also included a trip to Michael’s for art supplies where we found some much needed things for art to happen at their house, and I found a bead reamer set. I had been thinking about buying a set of jeweler’s needle files, but have been feeling oddly cheap about it, so when I saw this reamer set for $5, I snapped it up. When I got home, I applied it to the shell I made into a diz to see if I could smooth out the holes a bit. I think it worked? I’ll have to test it later to see if the wool comes through with less of a struggle. I may end up with a jeweler’s file set anyway.

And FINALLY! I got 1100 heddles (thank you, Stephan and Judy!!), put on 800 of them – I’m going to use only 4 shafts for my first warp on this loom and will need a total of 600 heddles. 800 means 200 per shaft. Easy.

I fretted about what warp to measure next, and decided that I need to figure out the actual shrinkage (after many, many washes and trips through the dryer) between the two brands of cotton yarn I’ve been using because J tells me her bathmat has gotten irritatingly smaller (!!!!). AND, I realized I could get two functions out of these experimental warps. The red and white below (one brand) will become red and white dishtowels, a couple for Z in Indiana, and a couple for me. The next warp will be with the other brand of yarn: a couple for someone else, and a couple for me. Everything will be measured and photographed after every trip through the laundry. Then I will have completely useful and pretty presents AND experiment data.

Yeah, I’m a crafty nerd. If I win the lottery, I will both set up a massive maker space for my little area and go back to university. Cross your fingers!

Once I get the warp on the loom (and that will be an adventure in itself), I’ll have to figure out how to tie up the lamms. TWO sets of lamms. Upper and lower. I will admit, I’m nervous about the whole thing, which makes no sense. It’s not like I can mess it up. It can take a lot longer if I don’t think about the steps properly, but that’s the worst that can happen. Probably.

I think this will be the draft I’ll use. I mean, I did figure out where to put stripes so they fall symmetrically down the pattern, but since that’s the first time I’ve tried that, there’s a chance I messed it up. I didn’t draw a draft, and I didn’t use any computer software. I used… arithmetic.

I’m a bookkeeper (among other things). I can totally add and subtract. Uh-huh. Honestly.

Just, uh, wish me luck, okay? Please?

Not a lot of making going on

June 5, 2017June 5, 2017Leave a comment

So, for the past few weeks, there hasn’t been a whole lot of making. This has meant that there really hasn’t been all that much to post here. Also, I’ve been crap lately at actually taking pictures, but hopefully at least one of them I have managed to take will make up for that.

I’ve been working on my socks. The second one was well on it’s way to completion after knitting it up a second time, so I ripped out the first one and started that one over. That one, as of yesterday, is now nearing completion. Soon I’ll have another pair of socks I can wear. Woo!

The Gothic Cross shawl is finished and has been tested out – it’s warm, but not overly so. It provides me with a snuggly alternative to wearing a coat in the office when the air conditioning is on (which it really hasn’t because although it’s June, and we put the air conditioners in the windows, the temperature has really been in the “England” zone of “New England”). Everyone who’s seen it in person has commented on the softness and the (extreme) length, all in a positive way.

I have been doing yard work every moment I’m home and it isn’t raining, which, if you live in the northeastern United States, you know is not as often as I’d like. There’s been raking, leaf blowing, brush hauling, tree felling (small ones), branch cutting…wash, rinse, repeat.

When I’m not outside, I’ve been tidying inside, trying to tame the making sprawl in the house. The fleeces are all washed and put away in new bins. I’ve tidied up some errant yarn that I’d bought on sale for knitting sweaters later on. There was a spare bin (after some reorganizing) for filling with weaving yarns. (After filling that, I determined that I cannot buy any more weaving yarn until I start selling stuff!) And I’ve been making pants for my friend. She sent me a box of several fabrics a while ago, which is now rapidly being washed, dried, cut, and sewn into pants. I’m very happy with how they’re coming out!

The foxes trot more often through the backyard these days. There are a bunch of new martins flying around. The owls have been hooting – I’ve not seen them lately, and was worried that they’d flown away, but I’ve decided they’re busy raising little owlets.

I can’t wait to have time to get back to weaving! The embroidery bug has lurking on the horizon as well. I can feel it watching me with its beady little eyes. The mosquitoes and black flies are out, so spoon carving will have to wait a bit.

Let’s see…oh! I participated in the MA Sheep & Woolcraft fair over Memorial Day weekend as the weaver in a fleece to shawl competition (though, because there were no other teams, it was billed as a demo). I had forgotten to bring a measuring ribbon with me, but knew I’d put on extra warp, so we all decided that I’d weave until the end. This meant that instead of the required 2 yards, we accidentally produced a shawl 120″ long (plus fringe). Oops. The spinners did a terrific job supplying me with yarn! Lots of kids and parents showed up, we talked with them and answered questions, so over all it was a successful demo.

Over this past weekend, I also got to hang with my nieces, which was thrilling beyond description. I hadn’t seen them in about seven years, and even then it was never a real visit, just a brief ‘hi’. Actually, the time I spent with them this weekend was the most time I’ve ever spent with them in my (and their) whole lives. Can’t wait to hang with them again! They’re growing up into really amazing people.

And now for some pictures:

This poppy and a bunch of its friends nearby opened last week.

Can you believe I took these with an iPhone? I can’t.

I uncovered these guys while I was raking yesterday. They didn’t move a muscle, but I’m pretty sure they were just trying to blend in so as to not get eaten.

Fingers crossed that I’ll be able to get the mundane stuff done soon so I can get back to the usual program.

So. Much. Wool.

March 7, 2017March 8, 20172 Comments

There’s been a lot of crafturgency going on lately. Frankly, it’s been difficult concentrating at my day job, especially when I work in front of All Teh Internetz, basically. I mean, weaving drafts, knitting patterns, colors, dyes, how to make [insert thing here]… I’ve been fortifying myself with tea and chocolate, quietly determined to cross things off my work diary list, but man. Just… man.

Maybe I should just post some pictures. That should get things started.

The week of Valentine’s Day, I wove two bath mats, washed and dried the cloth three times for maximum shrinkage, hemmed one, and gave it away just last week. The other is for sale! When I get a chance to get some more blue thread, it’ll get hemmed and can be packed up and shipped. It’s 20″x 30″ almost exactly. (If you’re interested, please leave a comment!!)

Sunday, February 19th, I went to visit a shepherd friend of mine with another friend and I bought two fleeces, fresh off the sheep 24 hours earlier. The one on the chair turned out to be huge – that’s from sheep 420. The smaller fleece is from 807. I started washing 420 right away, and you can see the lovely grey locks I got! I was sort of hoping the yellow tips would come off with carding, but they mostly haven’t. Of course, as soon as I had some dry wool, I spun up the tiniest bit – so shiny!

So, this wool. This particular fleece from 420 was large to begin with (5 or 6 pounds?), but after I washed it all, it pretty much doubled in volume:

The bag in the back is only a tiny bit less full because I combed some.

Which means I had to buy combs so I could comb the wool. Which was fiiiine. I’ve been wanting a pair of combs for a while. For some reason, I’d been taught that a flick carder was all you needed, and I hated that stupid thing so much. No one told me about combs until kind of recently – it turns out that combing not only lets you produce a greater quantity of ready-to-spin fiber, it also gets more of the crap out (you thought your wool was really super clean? Comb it and watch what else falls out!), AND you have much better control over the quality of yarn you’re spinning.

But before I get to the combs… last weekend, I had to go back to see my shepherd friend and buy 420’s sibling’s fleece:

Yes, 421. 421’s fleece is perhaps slightly bigger, but also greasier, so it was heavier – 7 lbs. I love it so! It’s still waiting in the queue to be washed as I’ve started washing 807:

The fleece on the floor – darker brown, but there were some surprising greys in there too! I am currently very carefully working out of buckets. Two cold soaks, then a hot soak in slightly soapy water, then a hot rinse, and dumping all the water outside so dust, dirt, and dissolved lanolin don’t affect the septic system. I read something about someone using a dash of vinegar in the rinse water to restore the pH to the fiber, which I thought was a good idea. I think it also makes the fiber shinier and softer, which would make sense according to other things I’ve read about shampoo and conditioner for humans. And my experience dyeing silk, which is also a protein fiber, includes a lot about a mild acid restoring the pH. In the same place, I also read that adding a few drops of clove oil might repel moths, though there’s no proof. I liked this idea too, so I’ve been doing that. I love the smell of wool – raw, clean, wet, dry – but this new smell is really good too, if extremely subtle. And hey, if it repels moths, I’m all for it. Plus, I just happened to have clove oil from a previous project. So.

I’m not done washing 807 yet – I’m about 2/3rds of the way through. Hopefully, I’ll have it done by the weekend! There’s still so much to get done, but I really would love to have 807 off the floor at last.

Last weekend, I also started a hat (finally). This hat had a very long start. I think I cast on four times and had to rip it out, threw the pattern in the corner for a while, pointedly ignored the hat, then had to finally get a new set of double pointed needles because OMG the circular one I’d tried using, the one recommended in the instructions, was too long. I nearly gave up. I’ve knitted two sweaters, countless pairs of socks, even cabled socks before I learned to read a pattern – I just made the cable up, and fingerless mitts. A hat shouldn’t be difficult. It’s a hat. I should be able to bang one out in a weekend, but noooooo. Murphy and I have a very special relationship. Easy? Then for Kate it will be difficult. I persevered. There’s a mistake in it, but I’m not ripping it out. I didn’t notice until about two inches past it, and this hat needs to go to it’s intended recipient (where it should have gone two months ago, dammit). I have strong feelings about this hat. Strong feelings.

It’s coming along. I’m calm. Honest. Calm. I’ll knit two or three more after this.

So THEN…

…there were pancakes. I had a bunch of things that were going to go bad, mostly buttermilk. But also some eggs. And I had the dry ingredients left over from a cake that wasn’t to be (the wet ingredients didn’t make it, but the dry ingredients were set aside for a couple of weeks). And there was a half of a container of sour cream left. And hey, oh, hmm. Here’s some almond meal that’s been in the fridge for I don’t want to think about that. Smells okay. What else? Orange flower water. Sure. Oh! And some fresh blueberries that somehow made it through the week without getting eaten or going bad. Huh. Better use those up. I might have added a bit of cornmeal too.

I literally poured things into a big bowl, added more baking powder, and stirred, then ladled it out onto a buttered sauté pan, and voilà! Pancakes. Some with blueberries. Two with chocolate chips (turns out, I’m not much of a chocolate chip person when it comes to pancakes). There are still quite a few in the freezer. They’re delicious!

Yeah, so while the hat was happening, this is as far as I’ve gotten on my cardigan that I really wanted to be done for April. Yeah. Um.

Then there was the local Orchid Show! I finally, finally remembered this year and got myself down there nice and early. Alas, I did not buy a single orchid (such restraint, don’t you think?!), but admired all of them, and checked prices for next year. I have three phalaenopses that I have not only NOT managed to kill, but they’re actually growing (one has decided to bloom again from the same stalk it put up last summer without me having to do anything). I think another orchid or two would not be out of place at my abode one day. However, I’m saving to buy a house, and that comes first. sigh

In the meantime, I did a little more spinning. I think this was while 420 was still drying and my hands were just itching to spin some wool. (What about weaving? I know! I wanted to weave too! Such is the curse of crafturgency!) Last year, I bought a couple fleeces – Scottish Blackface, in fact – from this same shepherd, and having done some pre-purchase research, had decided to spin yarn to weave a hearth rug. See, wool doesn’t burn well at all. Linen and cotton go up like crazy (and honestly, you should try dryer lint in the fireplace or woodstove one day – just try it, it’s mostly cotton, it’s pretty and makes you take those warnings about dryer fires a bit more seriously), but wool just smoulders and goes out, which is why traditional hearth rugs are made of wool. (YAY WOOL!) Sparks can fly on them all the want, the wool will save your floor. (Further experimentation is required to see if a burning stick or log can burn the wool, however.) Plastic fibers will melt. Linen and cotton, as I said before, will very happily burn very brightly and quickly. Wool won’t at least where sparks are concerned.

Anyway, weaving. So, this particular breed is special because it has three particular types of fiber: tog, thel, and kemp. The tog is the long hairs, the thel is the fine undercoat of squishy, soft wool. The kemp is dreaded by all spinners: it’s a weak, crunchy fiber that doesn’t really contribute (that I’ve found) to your yarn, breaks and gets everywhere while you’re spinning. You can sort of see a bit of it sticking out from the yarn on the bobbin in the picture above, but some of that is also tog. Some spinners separate the tog from the thel and spin them separately, but you can also spin them both together, which is what I decided to do. I experimented spinning both ways last fall, but ultimately decided that any rug I wove would be nicer with all the fibers incorporated into the same yarn. (I might do a whole post on this breed and a bit of history…)

Mostly, I kind of thought I’d try to get this wool spun up before starting to spin 420, but OH! I want to spin 420!! Crafturgency!!

But first? I have to comb the wool. With those new combs I went on about earlier. Behold!

They’re really sharp, and really good at getting all the fibers lined up nicely! I’m so very happy with them! Yes! I did already stab myself and bleed all over them! Here are the results of combing:

The top bag of nests is 420 – I can’t believe how full that bag is and how little of a dent I made in the fleece. The bottom bag is of 807. Because I’m still not done with washing that fleece, I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Though, this morning, I decided to spin a little 807 just to see. That wool is just so soft. And isn’t it beautiful?? I’m surprised at how dark it came out and how shiny and soft the resulting yarn is, though 807’s fleece is a bit softer than 420. Did I mention that 807’s wool is soft? I’m so very happy with it! I’ll take that yarn off and probably Navajo ply it so I can see what a three-ply yarn looks like. Then I’ll likely carry it around with me, taking it out to see it in the light, petting it, oh yes, my precious…

Ahem. Yes. Wool. We loves it.

So, Projects Also Planned!

These four cones are of mercerized 10/2 cotton, and they were purchased for a commission. I am to weave some dishtowels for my friend Lee who needs a gift for someone later this month. I’m not 100% sure how I’m going to arrange the colors or what sort of twill I’ll do, but there’s enough yarn that I could likely do another three sets of four (I think), and that will give me Options. The weaving draft next to it isn’t necessarily related, though it might be interesting to do this pattern (Gothic Cross) with these lovely pastel colors. Otherwise, I’m definitely weaving this pattern with WOOL. I think it would be really beautiful in a single color wool, not fulled as much as that sample from my last post so that the pattern is super subtle, but wows you when you see it. I had thought that Gothic Cross was only for 8-shaft looms, but came across this (the voice in the back of my head said, no! Surely a 4-shaft loom can weave this! It’s diamonds!), and quickly saved/printed it out. I. Can’t. Wait. I want a shawl in a medium to dark spring/willow mixed green. Right. Now.

I told you. Crafturgency has set in pretty firmly these days.

Oh! I nearly forgot! There are a bunch of black birches in the yard where I live. Up until yesterday, I had thought there was only the one huge, tappable one, but once I wandered around in the woods a bit, I discovered at least two more. Three black birches! I have one tap and bucket. I shall buy two more taps and buckets, and just maybe I’ll be able to get some sap and boil it down and make birch syrup. Maybe. Cross your fingers!

Crafturgency

infinite ambition. finite resources

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