Q4 finished things (5)

I'm very pleased with my new table top.

Once again, a list of the things I finished this last quarter.

• Rep runner from a guild library magazine, for a guild study group, pictured in an earlier post.
• Two baby blankets (same warp, different wefts) in a weave structure called Summer and Winter, one for a grand niece and the other for a friends first grandbaby.
• I grouted a mosaic table top for the kitchen deck today! It just needs sealer and to be mounted to the base that's been waiting for it; DH even removed the crappy piece of plywood that's been the temporary table top. It needs a name, and a coordinating 2nd table top. Then I'll move it to the garage or someplace safe until after the house painters have finished.
  

  

  Christmas quilt top, just in time for New Years!

• The Christmas quilt top is done and partly basted! I'm declaring the top as a done thing because of the effort involved, and when it's quilted it's gonna count too. Expect that just before Christmas next year.
• I also started working making pillows out of the old worn out Kilim that I rescued when mom was going to throw it away. Sadly, she was right; there's no 18x18 inch pieces that I'd like to have as pillows, it's just in very bad shape. So that's off my list.

So I finished 26 things in 2019. Wow! What's in store for 2020? I have some ideas, but will have to think about it!

Frantic Pre-Holiday Projects!

Runner is done!

I'm in a frenzy of activity right before the end of this year, slightly out of sorts with the holidays and therefore frantic for no good reason to finish some unrelated projects.  There are so many reasons to like and dislike Christmas; of course it's different for everyone yet so much the same... Anyways, we'll be hiking and then making tamales on Christmas with friends, and at some point there will likely be potato latkes, and homemade marshmallows.

Same quilt, more border.

The runner is finished, on the table, and guarded carefully by Z cat! I'm very pleased with the way the colors are working in this room. I needed to finish this piece by January 6th and have done that!

The two projects I'm working on frantically are the Christmas Quilt and the mosaic table top. I've redrafted corners for the Christmas quilt border and am about an hour's worth of work away from starting them! The rest should go together easily and my goal is to have it basted by the 2nd weekend in January. 

Wanna be table top.

DH  hasn't exactly been grumbling about the temporary end tables on the deck, but I can tell he's not pleased with my apparent lack of progress. So I've spent the last two days in the mosaic studio while the arborists were working on the trees. The foreground pieces are done except for the blue sliver and the red partial circle which need to be finalized and glued in place. With beige background and a dark brown grout, I think this piece will be lovely. The second table is cut, bordered and ready to go, but I'm thinking of doing the same colors in another design; not sure I can do two of anything!

Thankful

I gotta make more empanadas...

It's a few weeks after Thanksgiving, but I still need  to say I'm thankful. I'm thankful for my health, my family, my friends, for all God's gift around us. I am particularly thankful this week for all the fun things I get to do on a nearly daily basis. This life has been very good to me!

I don't feel like I've mentioned food lately.  We spend Thanksgiving with a friend and his twin 10th graders... My cooking was okay but frankly I'm suffering from lack of practice. Some dishes were good, others just okay. A couple of days later as I was dismembering the carcass and making turkey mulligatawny soup (yum!) I realized I had leftover pie crust and all kinds of things that go in empanadas: leftover turkey, onions, garlic, potatoes, cinnamon, chipotle, and turkey gravy on the inside; we ate them with cranberry sauce.

Summer and Winter baby blankets

The baby blankets are both done and will be in the mail this week. It makes me smile to send the grandmother blanket as the recipient is Knit Worthy (or Weave Worthy); the other I know will never be acknowledged but I had fun weaving it ,I hope they use it, and I wanted to celebrate their baby.
The name of this type of weaving is Summer and Winter; would I do Summer and Winter again? Yes, in an instant, for a baby blanket  or for something else.

Rep Weave runner

I did mention that my Weave Structures Study group is doing Warp Rep projects; I've finally got weaving on my project. Colors in the photo are crappy but here it is. Weft is  3/2 perle cotton sett at 30 ends per inch; thin weft is 8/2 tencel and thick weft is 12 strands of the perle cotton held together. I'm intending to put it on the credenza in the den that should arrive at the end of January; the credenza is 72" long, and the runner pattern as written is 66" long. If I want the runner shorter, 51 inches long works well with the patterning. If I make it shorter, I really only need to do the final border and I'm done; the other benefit is it would fit on the coffee table. I'm on hold while deciding what to do. I won't take long to decide as it need to be done for the Study Group by January 6.

I've made considerable progress on the Christmas Quilt: I'm done with all the parts I've finished design on.  I'm dithering about what to put on the corners of the border, and if I want the top of the quilt to have the border swag design or just a quilted in design. The argument for a plain top is that it'll be under the pillows anyways; and the skin oils and the other things we all put on our faces at night won't mar the lovely applique. Arguments in favor of making all the borders the same are that the quilt can be used in any direction on the bed, and that if I show it, it'll score better with the judges. I refuse to stall on the quilt while I dither and will make a decision by tomorrow. My hope is to have the quilt basted so I can start quilting at the January knitting retreat.

I've had two days this week where I needed to be at the guest house; I spent my time  straightened out the glass studio  (where studio is a fancy word for garage bay). I spent some time on my first table top and am hoping to accelerate and get better circles using an indirect method. I had leftover thinset one day and used to to glue random green bits to a small concrete cylinder; I also finished grouting the money piece.

On other projects, I've done no more spinning; I've been working on Lake Breeze sweater off and on but making it low priority; I worked on the pillows I wanted to make from the old Kilim but am quickly coming to the conclusion that there isn't a 18" square piece of the rug that's worth keeping. Mom's opinion was that it needed to be thrown away and sadly I am coming to agree with her.  There are other projects queued up and I'll blog about them when they're no longer dormant!

One last photo, taken last Sunday about a mile from our house; there had been enough rain to get the stream running well! What an amazing find. Someone had cemented in some stones in the middle as large stepping stone so it was easy to cross and a complete treat on a Sunday afternoon.

More back to normal

Center pull ball wound the old way

I'm busily trying to get back to normal, whatever that is... which means I'm off and running on a hundred different things.

The cardigan I mentioned last post is called Lake Breeze; this is the yarn I'm making it from. Like all Donegal tweeds, you don't really appreciate the nuances of color until you see it in the sunlight; it's glorious. I'm knitting along with only one misfire on my cabling (which I'm leaving, it's not that noticeable), and have knit from the top down nearly to the armholes. Check out my center pull ball finely wound by hand the old way on a notespinne.

Summer and Winter baby blanket; loving the grey

I went to my spinning guild yesterday and should have started the second braid of the blue wool silk that I was plying a couple of days ago... But instead I started spinning silk that I dyed years ago in a Camp Stitches class with my sister. No pics yet but it's looking decidedly pastel, or maybe slightly opalescent. I'll also need to be thinking about what to do for the CNCH  2020 spinning contest; everyone who enters starts with the same fiber and it's up to us to spin something clever from it.

Won't be done for Christmas

I've finished the grey baby blanket for little Elli Price, and have moved onto the green one; hope to take them off the loom before Thanksgiving so I can get on with the Warp Rep project I'm doing for the study group.

I also promised myself I'd get a quilt going again. The Christmas quilt was a little easier since I lost the color chart for the pub quilt. I'll resurrect that and get it going as well soon enough; but I'd like to get the Christmas quilt done and basted and I can make it my TV project. I think my current issue is how to carry the darn thing around? I'm going to ask the restaurant at knit night tomorrow for a pizza box, that should do quite well.

Back in the studio, getting caught up

Sheep to Shawl fabric closeup

I'm finally back in the studio and wanting to post some photos of stuff I did but did not post...

The first weekend of October I was in the Dixon Lambtown Sheep to Shawl contest as a spinner and we won! Too much fun, and it felt a lot easier than it did the other two times. Here's a close up of the fabric; with an natural off white warp and natural grey-brown weft, it was lovely.

Whoops! This is ungrouted.
I need to replace it with a grouted photo

The substrate class I took with Wilma? I came home with a few substrates, lots of ideas, and two finished objects. One is here,  molded in an ice cream mochi tub and featuring money. This was a total pain to grout. The other was molded in a toilet paper tube and features leftover glass from some of my fellow students past projects; it feels nice to have something that reminds me of them. We laid out the pieces on contact paper and rolled it on just to see if we could do it.

About the size of a toilet
paper tube

I've also been knitting on the sleeves for my woven jacket while being terrified of the next steps; I now have silk organza for the underlining, a zipper, and a lovely batik for facing, so really no more excuses other than I'm unsure if I want pockets.

I'm also weaving two baby blankets; I'm about 1/3 done with the first of two on the loom, woven in summer and winter.

I started knitting a cardigan from yarn I bought in Ireland; it's a top down raglan sweater with a slightly funnel neck and a big cable down the back. I started that as "easy knitting" after I got my sleeves to a certain point but turns out it won't be idiot knitting until I get past the armholes... Luckily the worsted weight wool knits up fast and is feeling lovely in my hands.

I'm not sure if I listed the reason I've been away from the studio... For a variety of reasons we've had to do a major yard cleanup including removing brush 10' from flammable fences, removing a lot of foliage from next to the house, and cutting the trees back from the roofline. Most of the work has been done with others, but I was spending 4-6 hours a day doing some of the finer work (cutting out deadwood, etc) while the guys tackled the larger tasks. I did do a fair amount of sawing down brush and hauling it around, some with a handsaw and some with my brand new battery powered reciprocating saw; it was exhausting. The landscape, both visual and aural, has changed so much that I find it very disturbing, but it's finally starting to settle down again and the cats and I are making peace with it. I am feeling pain and grief for the loss of bird habitat.

Q3 done things, no photos. (11)

I can't resist adding this photo of the
only pomegranate on my tree!

All of the photos of this quarter's objects are in other posts... So I'll summarize here by category.

• I knitted Mystic River (lacy short sleeved summer jacket) and the Devan baby sweater.
• I made a tablet woven badge lanyard for guild meetings and a tablet woven strap for a wine bag, and finished the wine bag.
• I wove a random ikat scarf for DH and took a class in ikat, in which I made a scarf for the dresser. I also finished weaving the black and white fabric on the small loom, that I'll store until I'm ready to use for something. It failed as a scarf. 
• I made a 6" square mosaic sunflower and a larger mosaic picture with bubbles.
• I finished two 3D mosaics in Wilma's class on concrete substrates I made; I have several more substrates that need to be mosaic'ed. Photos in a later post.

Here's what I'm thinking about for Q4. It's primarily themes, not specific objects.

• a rep woven item for the study group.
• one of the item listed here should be from a Guild library book.
• something knitted
• the two baby blankets
• one table top
• something on the loom that delights me
• sew something
• something tablet woven

Bubbles, concrete, babies...

Bubbles!

A few weekends ago, I went to a mosaic weekend retreat, 8 of us with two teachers for three days. I made this lovely picture of bubbles with the help of Wilma and Ilse! The iridescence of the glass does not come through on this photo... I'll have to get DH to re photo for me. I learned a lot and I'm very pleased with the outcome.

I'm finding the 3-4 day workshop format (regardless of media) with a finished object at the end a little tiring; I find I don't have time to look at and reflect on what I'm doing and I think that's not good for my art. I do like the feedback I get from the artist instructors and the artist participants. I'm trying to figure out how go forward.

I did sign up for a couple more of Wilma's classes; two days ago I learned how to make these concrete substrates suitable for mosaic. Nope, the photo is in color, not black and white; it's just concrete forms on a white surface. I'll be making more of these! Next weekend, I'll mosaic one of them (also in class); I think I'll do the top right.

Substrates.
Lower right most is the size of a toilet paper tube.

Meanwhile, Mollie Stone's (a local grocery chain) brought in a truck load of Hatch Green Chile and a roaster... I bought 20 lbs of roasted chiles, which is somewhat less than that roasted. DH helped me strip off the skins and take off the stems and seeds. OMG the kitchen smelled good! I immediately bought a big hunk of pork and made some green chile stew. I used this recipe to make some corn sticks to eat with them.

And I've been making baby things. I made a baby sweater for one of DH's coworker; I powered through this thing to get it done in time for a dinner later this week. I just have to sew on buttons and sew in all the ends and I'm done.  This has to be my favorite baby sweater in the world to knit! It's self striping sock yarn, so it's easy to make. I'm also pulling the warp for 2 baby blankets, one for the new grandniece, the other for a friend, hoping to get it on the loom soon!

Devan

I'm also starting to think of what I want to do in Q4, seeing as I only have a week left in Q3...  More on that later.

Double wine bag, ready to go!

Classic profile pic

A year ago (August 2018) I made a rep rug for the studio. It was my first rep weaving and I loved making it! When the rug was the right length, I found that I had about a foot of extra warp left... I changed the big weft from 4 strands of mop cotton to one strand of mop cotton and came up with a much finer fabric.  I made the fabric into a bag, then padded it with leftover rug padding, then it languished on a shelf while waiting for a strap.

Last month, Gudrun helped me get my Anglo Saxon band weaving going again! I'm getting better at unweaving when I make mistakes but still have issues making things work the first time. I had a few fits and starts but finally finished the band last week. The Anglo Saxon method, where you turn every other card every other pick, results in a very dense band that is the same on front and back, just offset by a half motif... Perfect for a bag strap.

Ready for two bottles of wine!

Today I lined the bag with fabric from my quilt stash and now I just need someplace to go with two bottles of wine! I need to pickup my wine club allotment at K&L, that might be it's inaugural journey.

What did I learn? Don't get me wrong, I love the bag. But in the interest of doing better next time:

• I didn't line up the sides carefully so the pattern matches better on one side than the other.
• I eyeballed the bottom so the triangular ears I sewed to make it squarish are not symmetrical.
• The above two points indicate that I need to slow down and measure more. 
• I tacked down the insert divider before attaching the straps which made it hard to attach the straps with the sewing machine.
• I didn't make the warp for the band long enough for two straps; I would have liked to have put one on each side.  Having said that, I think it's sturdy enough for two bottles anyways.  Ideally, I could have looped the strap all the way down around the bottom.
• I didn't finish the bag seams nicely so it's a little messy between the top of the bag and the lining. 
• I measured each section and added an inch for seams plus and for wiggle room on each lining insert; this apparently was the wrong measurement. I could have used another inch, though I made it work.

Ikat at the Eugene Textile Center!

Solid weft, pattern weft, and a slightly blue hand

I took a 4 day class last week/weekend in Ikat weaving from Marilyn Rogers at the Eugene Textile Center. It was an amazing experience! As a class, we spent the first day learning how calculate where to tie our warps, then we tied them and dyed them in indigo. On the second day we learned how to do the same for the weft. The next day we dressed our looms, and the last day we wove.

Hashtag Ikat!

I'm not going to describe the entire process in detail... there are plenty of books that do that. I'll just note the things that I need to pay attention to.

• Measure very carefully for the tie placement.
• Make sure the ties don't extend a lot further than they should (this is hard).
• Ensure that any choke ties are loosely place or remove them.
• Marilyn recommended taping the dyed warps to the back beam before winding on to prevent shifting yet all of us had some issues; I think you have to be very aware of where you place the tape. I am wondering if it would be worthwhile tieing one tie on each pattern bundle in the loom waste near the cross end to use as a "registration" mark to ensure I've got it right.
• We used an 8 1/8" template for the 8" weft. The 1/8" is to account for the yarn going over and under all the threads, but doesn't account for draw in. Marilyn suggested weaving 10 inches or so on a dummy warp to check what the actual length of the weft should be. This would reduce the little loops on the side of the ikat where I've place the pattern threads.
• The weft squidges around when you place it then beat even with in a close shed. Marilyn said this is normal and fairly regular so I should be able to anticipate it with practice.
• This is a precise art! So be very careful when doing the setup, then the weaving is easier.

I figure I should make a couple of travel notes.

• Flying into Eugene is pricey! but convenient. Flying into Portland is a better deal but then you have a two hour drive after your last class.
• I stayed at the Inn at the 4th, which is the shi-shi hotel in town. It was very nice, very quiet, and within easy walk of lots of restaurants. They have a bizarre chicken theme.
• I had a vegetarian entree at Marche; it was amazing! Wish I'd gotten back to taste their fish.
• Another night, the group of shops and restaurants next door had a live band, so I had wine and small plates while listening to the music. It was very tasty.
• Nearby Ta Ra Rin had good Thai food.
• Provisions had some tasty wheat based breakfast treats, and I tried them, and my head still hurts. But they were worth the headache. They also had good granola and oatmeal.

First Ikat, a cautionary tale...

My First Ikat on the loom

I promised the technical details of the ikat scarf... It's 7" of 20/2 cotton in the reed, at 40 threads per inch. Warp is 3 yards long. 

I tied it in bouts of about 15 threads and randomly bound of some pieces (see photo in my last post). I dyed it in a 2% dye solution using Procion MX dyes from Dharma; I used a small amount of "Indigo" and the rest is from a 20 year old jar of "Teal Blue". The color is slightly darker out of the pot than I wanted but I like it.

I want to document my four gotchas:

• I didn't put in enough properly formatted ties and the yarn isn't balanced. The yarn corkscrewed a little in the dye bath and my warp chains were a little tangled. I overcame this... sort of...
• I thought I had all the crosses well marked and put on the lease sticks I screwed it up so am warping mostly without a cross. I do have some well organized threads but not a lot. I had to warp very carefully.
• Remember in disaster 1 where I said the yarn corkscrewed? Wow, how fun to try to wind that on without a good cross. I'd probably be just as unhappy if I had a good cross. Yarn should behave.  And its 20/2... so tiny... I broke a couple threads.
• Messed up the threading; I have two 1-8-1 runs together instead of alternating 1-8-1 and 8-1-8. Decided to leave it and proceed anyways. 

There actually is a fifth gotcha. I didn't sample... and was surprised that the scarf wasn't as drapey as the last 20/2 cotton scarf.  I went back to my notes to find his grey scarf was at 30 ends per inch and this is at 40. Oh well. It's still lovely, and I was testing technique; I may do another one day in silk.

It could also be a little longer; I wove to 68" but it shrunk back to 63".

Most of the strong vertical lines in the top pictures are reed marks, and went away after wet finishing. I did find one strong vertical that ended up being a blue thread that got lost in a white section. I blame the lack of cross.

I realize I've just listed all the things wrong with this scarf. But after all, this blog is primarly a way for me to record what I've done and identify how I can avoid the same mistakes. Despite all the issues I'm beyond thrilled with the outcome and more importantly, my DH is in love with his new scarf!

FInished Scarf on the new granite

Things are getting done!!!

OMG I finished a sweater!

DH left 3 days ago for France to bicycle up three mountain passes on the same day... I did not go because I can't handle heat, altitude and that much climbing in one day! I have been back on the bike lately but even in my strongest riding days I doubt I could have ridden that... While he's gone, I've been trying to get some things done around...

For the fiber part of it, I finished Mystic River! Okay, almost, I still need to sew on two buttons. It's drying right now, and I'll sew the buttons on tomorrow before I put it on to wear to Knit Night. I'll swap the photo out for one on me when I wear it the first time.  I think it'll be adorable over a tank top.

Card woven badge lanyard

I've been hosting the Guild's Card Weaving Study group every two weeks to make lanyards for our guild badges, hoping to get folks past the fear of making simple bands. Last meeting, I used a warp that was  John Mullarkey's class demo, which he gave it to me because he couldn't remember my name. Win! I added two border cards to each side and wove it up into a lanyard. Looks like 27 inches finished length puts in mid chest; I sewed one end to a lobster clip and tied the other one on with twisted fringes.

I don't know what I'm doing

Did I mention that I've become the guild librarian? It's a heady feeling to have all those books and magazines at my fingertips. I'm working on getting enough shelf space for all of it as well as moving things in. I want to drive more interest in the library so I decided to weave something from the library books periodically and wave it around at guild meetings with the book it's from. I picked Handwoven Scarves as my first book. They have a twill scarf in blue with random bits of white in it (she calls it random ikat) that I thought would look fabulous on DH and it's time for him to have a new scarf anyways. Note that I've never done ikat, but am scheduled for a class on it next month. So I pulled an ikat book from the library shelves and dyed the warp and weft today; it's drying outside.  I'll put technical details about the scarf in a future post.

I noticed something interesting looking at older weaving magazines and weaving books. Most books I've looked at contain exact instructions, numbers of threads, colors, yarn, tie up, methods, etc. The older books are more like a suggestion; there's data on how it was woven, but so much depends on the weaver knowing what needs to be done. Have you ever looked at an old cookbook? Where an instruction might be "prepare the dough"? Depending on the cook to know what needs to be done? I'm fascinated.

Next up? I have too many things in flight.

• Sew two pillows out of that Kilim of my mothers that I have for the couch in the den. 
• Clear the Mac and cut texsolv cords for all of the tie ups. 
• Warp up a strap with a new card weaving technique (AngloSaxon?) and get a little bit done before the next card weaving meeting.  I'd like to use the strap for my new wine bag.
• I'm also working on a Devan sweater for one of Scott's coworkers who is expecting a baby in the fall. This is easy enough to qualify as "idiot knitting".

It's the end of Q2 '19 (5)

I spent way too much time making this cute little mug bag.

Realistically I'm not going to finish anything else by the end of June four days from now so I might as well sum them up now.

• I finished the little cell phone bag to carry my phone about when I don't have pockets.
• I tried to weave a doublewidth blanket from stash yarn and ignored all the things I know about yarn and it failed. I'm still counting it as a project that is complete. And the scraps went into my mug bag
• Scraps from the above failed project above became mug bag, with the addition of a cardwoven band that I wove 2 or more years ago, a piece of marbled fabric I made YEARS ago, and a kumihimo braid I just made to coordinate with the band. It's just big enough to hold a coffee mug. I freely admit to having sewn the button on in July but will count it as Q2.
• I knitted a pair of socks that are warm and wonderful.
• I finished the rep placemats for the new kitchen but might relocate them to the lodge.



Awesome placemats, crappy photo.

• I'm not counting the 6 class samples from The Weavers School.

Q3? I'm still thinking about it, but I suspect it will include some mosaic work, Mystic River, and a card woven lanyard for the guild meetings. The rest is to be determined!

The Weavers School

I spent last week at the Weavers School in Coupeville, WA. What a beautiful place, and I learned so much!!! I learned some basics of weaving, like the proper way to wind a bobbin. More importantly I learned to look at blocks in weaving, and from a block design how to substitute in different weave structures, and how to figure out all the pieces (threading, treadling and tieups) needed to weave it. I wove samples in 6 different weave structures, learning how to tell if I had the right beat. I met a bunch of wonderful weavers and had a very good time. Photos are here, most with notes in the info field. I expect to clear my looms soon and start working on something I learned in class!

Placemats on the Gilmore loom

I feel in love with a new loom in class... I may or may not sell my larger loom and buy a new one. I came home and wove a bit to see how I felt, and the thing that annoyed me the most is advancing the warp. M had told me it was kitted out with the anti-spin kit but somehow it was still spinning. I had S take a look at the documents and there's a missing piece of wood! Gilmore is shipping a new one to me for the cost of postage, which is very kind of them, and S will put it on for me as soon as the placemats I mentioned in the last post are done. I'm about 10 inches of weaving from the end.

The failed alpaca blanket in the last post? I sewed together two parts of the scrap that I'd woven into a mug bag for guild meetings. I lined it with some marbled cotton I made years ago, and plan on using a card woven band as a strap. I think I'll need a tie to close it, so will try kumihimo. I should have it ready for the July meeting.

Mystic River continues, I'm about half way down the back. Apparently the pattern is Feather and Fan, not to be confused with Old Shale; this article explains the difference for any who are interested.

The real time sink the last two months has been the house.  We're doing a kitchen remodel as well as all kinds of yard things like tree and brush removal; it's felt like a slog but I'm hoping that things level out in the next few weeks so I can get back to enjoying my craft instead of just sneaking it in. And hope to be back to cooking...

Life Before Fiber!

Just big enough for my cell phone!

Our kitchen remodel is in full swing, and I'm working a lot in the yard with or without helpers, so the blogging has languished; I have had some progress on a number of fiber projects.

I wove a hand for a little cell phone purse so I can carry my phone along when I go between here and the other house. It's super useful and I'm more than pleased with the kivrim card woven band but I definitely could have done a better job on the bag and on sewing the band to the bag. So I've learned a lot for next time.

I'm hosting the card weaving study group every other week through July and have started a card woven band using thrums (the unweavable yarn at the start and end of any woven piece) from an other project; I'm trying to conquer a few tablet weaving techniques; the latest is Egyptian Diagonals. I think I'm doing fine.

I think I mentioned starting an alpaca blanket... I suspected one of the yarns would be problematic and it was!!! I ended up having to cut it off the loom and throw most of it away. It would have been beautiful, too.

I was so discouraged by the blanket that I bought a rep weave placemat kit from Gist Yarns, swapping out one of the colors for one that I preferred. I'm in the process of warping the Gilmore loom with it, so expect a photo once I get started on it.  I'm hoping the colors of the placemats coordinate well with the new kitchen.

Part of one of the front panels for Mystic River

The "Mystic River" sweater I started is half done; I just started knitting the back side.  We travelled to Albuquerque for a family event and it was frankly too big for airplane knitting; so I started a Delavan (my third) for a baby due later this summer... I'm making it in the 18 month size so I've got plenty of time to finish. I brought everything on the plane... Then realized after I cast on that the needle had started coming loose from the cable, so the yarn caught with every stitch. I made my DH drive me to the closest LYS and announced to them that I had a knitting emergency!! Anyways, I got one of the front panels about 1/2 done on the plane flight home, and am looking forward to knitting on it.

The other exciting news for me is that I've become the Guild librarian; this means that I have all the Weaving Guild books at my house!!! I'm in heaven. I suspect I'll enjoy this resource immensely.

Springtime catchup

So much has been going on but not much fiber or cooking related!

We took a three week trip to Italy; visited Rome, Orvieto, Montepulciano, Citta di Castello, Ravenna, Ama (population 5), and Florence, and many points in between. The food was amazing; the wine was amazing; the sights were amazing; the trip? amazing.  I'll come back to describe several of those places in later posts. Before and during the trip I listened to a book about the Etruscans, a Great Courses lecture series on the Roman era, covering the monarchy, republic, empire, and fall, and stared a Great Courses lecture series on the Renaissance in Florence, so was able to put what I saw more into context; I think DH was entertained as well.

Socks!

I came home to an empty loom and an empty house; DH took off almost immediately for some business trips, so I went from having a constant companion to being constantly alone; this is a little depressing. I'm finally coming out of that and starting to be productive again.  So here is what I'm up to.

Fabric for a bag by one of
the 4H students

• I finished a pair of socks from some of my oldest yarn.
• I am working on a cotton summer jacket called Mystic River; I got part way through a front panel and couldn't decide on the length so I put it away and started the second front panel; I'll have to decide on length in the next week or so.
• I wound a warp and started dressing the loom with some alpaca I bought in 2001 and some alpaca that was gifted me around 2010. One of the yarns is a singles yarn and one of them is a two ply; so I'm doing a plain weave pattern called log cabin, and weaving it doublewidth on my loom. This'll be my first project using doubleweave to get an item longer than my loom will support. It'll be a throw blanket to use in front of the TV; it should weave up pretty quickly once I get the loom threaded.
• I did spinning demos at two events and went to the Spinning Guild meeting, spinning on some wool/tencel mixed top that I've had for forever. I hated spinning it, it was not a happy fiber to work with. It's done and I've moved on to the next blue fiber that I have, a dark blue merino Tussah.
• I poked at some tiles on the mosaic but haven't had the concentration to keep going on it.
• Most of the kids in the 4H group finished their bags!!! I have no photos of the finished ones, but have included one of them before it was sewn together and straps added.

I have been spending a lot of time on the yard, getting the new yard in shape and getting the pond cleaned out. I came home from Italy to find it full of pollywogs and string algae! Also, we're starting work on the kitchen on May 6, so I've been spending a lot of time chasing down materials. 

Completed Objects Q1 19 (6)

Why do I make these posts completed objects posts?  First, if I don't, I end up wondering where all my time goes, and what I've accomplished.  Second, I've also recorded a lot of data about some of my projects that I've referred back to for details. Third, it gives me a sense of how my work is evolving (or not evolving).  And I like to organize my textile related travels in a way that makes them more accessible.

I'm going to close out Q1 early as I know I won't finish anything else this quarter. Since all of these have photos on other blog posts, I'll just do a quick list summary.

• Handwoven twill scarf from hand dyed and hand spun, which was very well received by it's recipient. 
• Fingerless mittens that match my ram tam.
• A mosaic painting of a cypress tree that looks like a tree!
• Fabric for the stitches class jacket.
• The Frog Prince sculptural mosaic.
• Oasis, a little poncho is cotton with a touch of silk/wool.

I'm going to document my priorities when I get back to work on my textiles.

• Weave the doublewidth throw blanket from stash yarn that I've planned (weaving)
• Buy backing fabric and make pillows for the den that out of the nearly dead kilim (sewing)
• Finish the two little bags I've started (wine bag and little blue bag) (straps)
• Make significant progress on the mosaic table. (Mosaic)
• Work on the pub quilt (quilting)
• Keep spinning 
• Knit sleeves for my jacket (knitting)

Prince of Frogs

Small 3D mosaic featuring a
very special frog

I started this piece last September at one of Wilma Wyss' workshops... I got stuck on how to finish the sides. It finally occurred to me that something shiny but dark is what I wanted, so here is the Prince of Frogs waiting patiently for his epoxy to dry. I ordered a tiny crown for him which should arrive later this week. What would I have done differently? I think I would have trimmed the green tiles around the round opening neater, and I think the frog would have looked better slightly elevated; if the epoxy fails I will certainly do that. Otherwise, it's a whimsical and engaging piece which will find a happy home in my yard. On the mosaic front, I also cut glass for the border on one of two tables I'm making for the deck; I should have time in the garage tomorrow to cut for the other table. Then I can start on the fun motifs!

Brand new baby goat 

On the fiber front, I did another spinning demo for first graders at Deer Hollow Farms. One of their goats had just birthed 4 kids... So here's a 5 hour old baby goat.  They were amazingly adorable. I'm spinning a wool tencel blend and not enjoying it. The tencel is clumpy and it drafts out oddly; looking forward to having that done.

I'm also working on:

• a poncho in a color gradient yarn
• a pair of socks from a very old skein of yarn
• the pattern for a jacket make from the handwoven in my last post, with knitted sleeves, after which I will start working on the sleeves.
• Yes, there's a lot of other projects languishing. . I do have a list and someday I'll get around to finishing things.

Marshmallows made from Scharfenberger
cocoa powder;  some of them (not pictured)
were dipped in Tcho chocolate.

I joined a Stash Busting group on Ravelry; it's a strict yarn diet but most of the group is trying to finish a number of projects without buying yarn. I know from my own experience and watching some friends that sometimes you just can't make your stash work for a project... but I'm looking for projects I can knit from what I have. The fabric I made for the jacket ate up a whole bunch of sock yarn! And I have an alpaca blanket planned after which I'll have used up a whole box of yarn and created two beautiful and useful items. 

On the cooking front, I made marshmallows again. I had some issues with the pattern, as in I didn't follow it very closely, but here are the chocolate marshmallows I made to take to a dinner party.

There's been a lot of other things going on involving getting ready for a kitchen remodel (starting this summer) and getting some yard projects out of the way; even with contractors doing most of the work, it takes a lot of time! 

Editing this afterwards to show the results of the frog's coronation:

What's on my loom and what a weaving pattern looks like

Ever wonder what is generally used by handweavers to set up their looms for certain patterns? Here's what I'm working on right now. The four component parts are:

• The chart at the top left shows what order to thread the loom through which shaft; I just keep doing that until I run out of yarns. For my current project, which is quite wide, I have over 600 individual threads.
• The chart next to it on the top right show which shafts to tie up to which treadles.
• The chart at the lower right tells which what order to treadle in; this one is a very easy to treadle!
• The lower left is what the smallest unique bit of this fabric

Here's the project on the loom

I also have to know how to space the yarn; the current project is pretty thick, 18 ends per inch, but the reed I'm using only has 12 slots per inch, so every other slot has two threads in it.  I'm using odds and ends of commercial sock yarn, including a couple of full skeins, some leftover green alpaca from Paulie sweater, and some over dyed partial skeins. This is an ambitious project; I need a piece of fabric that is 30ish inches wide and at least 2 yards long after being woven and finished; to do that, my weaving software tells me I'll need  1836 yds of weft (the sock yarn) and 1512 yards of weft (Jaggerspun Zephyr merino silk).

Normally one would "sample", that is to create a test piece to see if I like the fabric it ends up being when I take it off the loom. I need this fabric by next Thursday so I skipped the sampling step and am hoping that it's not a bad decision. I've woven sock yarn at 18 EPI before so I feel confident.

I'm over a yard into the weaving now; so should have finished pictures in a few days!

Mosaics at Esalen and a knitting retreat!

I spent last week at Esalen taking a mosaic class with Wilma Wyss... What a wonderful experience! This is the third class I've taken with Wilma, and the second one at Esalen... There were 6 or 7 of us that had been in the class last year, and the rest were mostly new to mosaic. Wilma handled the various levels of knowledge and skill perfectly! I love her classes. Here's last years next to this years:

Last year

This year

So my technique is getting better, although I think my artistic expression still needs some work. I spent a lot of time talking to Ilse, Wilma's assistant, who is a very experienced mosaic artist, and learned a lot from her. These are the things that I want to remember:

• Using tile tape to pick up and move a whole design; I didn't do this, but Angie did. It's fast, but has some risks for gaps under clear glass, splugy adhesive,  and tiles shifting, but I may try it anyways. 
• Ilse's been making "cookies", which are motifs laid into a very thin layer of thinset, then applied to a larger mosaic; the benefit is that you've got a chunk of a design you can lay all at once. The downside is because of the extra layer of thinset, it may be slightly raised from the rest of the design.
• We also talked about using clear shelf liner (sticky side up) as a temporary substrate; you lay your tiles out on it, then put a second layer on top of it. Flip it over, remove the bottom shelf liner, and then apply a substrate covered with thinset to the upside down mosaic. Hypothetically you can then peel off the shelf liner (pull back, not up) and adjust any errant tiles.
• K, one of my classmates, bought a card in the Esalen gift shop and worked on making that image in mosaic. Her husband had brought a laptop, so they used Wilma's projector to project the image on the wall, traced it onto paper, then simplified and transferred the image onto the substrate. 

There was a professional artist in the class, and a couple of trained artists...  Their pieces were so lively with a wonderful sense of light and depth that my works lack. This is in fact what I want to work on this year, I'll be figuring out how to study that in the spring.

After the workshop, I joined my Monday Night Knitting group in Carmel for our yearly retreat. The storm blew in shortly after I arrived, and the next morning we woke to a power outage. Power was out until about 10PM; there we were, knitting by candlelight. Thanks to G for picking up candles and for the rest of the group for emptying all those bottles before I arrived so we had candle holders! I finished some fingerless mittens to go with the tam I knit last year, and even added a little embroidery to them. I changed up the foreground and background colors for a little variety. They'll look a little more together when they've been wet finished.

It's probably time for a What Do I Want to Get Accomplished in the Next Period of Time post... I'll get to work on that for next time!

The first project of 2019!

Handspun and Toyon dyed

I'd wanted to make a scarf for Peter... he's greatly admired everything he's seen of my weaving, and frankly the way to my heart is to love my craft... I've only seen Peter in jeans and jeans jackets (probably because he's always working), so I made this scarf to go with denim. It's the last of the hand spun that I used with the Ligeia shawl, combined with some commercial MCN (Merino/Cashmere/Nylon) sock yarn that I dyed with Toyon from my yard. It's sett at 15 EPI and woven at 15 PPI in a simple birdseye-ish twill. I just took it off the loom and will put it in the mail to him soon. (Hint, if you're reading this and want a scarf, feel free to say something).

I like the drape of the scarf, but would like to sample fingering weight sock yarn at 12 EPI; I think it would drape better for a scarf. I'm currently warping up fingering weight sock yarn for some yardage for a class I'm taking at Stitches; I'll be setting/weaving that at 18 EPI as I want it to be firmer for a garment.

Five dishtowels, finished in December

Other than  that,

• I finished the Melon Shawl I'd started in December and blocked it on New Year's Eve! 
• I finished a run of 5 towels and set two to friends in Sweden, complete with card woven hanging loops.  
• I've got a couple of knitting projects in flight; some fingerless gloves to match the ram tam, and I'm working on the skirt again.  
• I'm ready to start on my next stained glass mosaic project.
• I'm getting ready out to a week long mosaic class, then to my knitting retreat, leaving my DH to manage the barbarian cats.

All that and I'm looking at remodeling the kitchen later this spring; we want to do it anyways, and it was the best way to attract someone to fix the leaky deck. So I've been researching appliances and looking at granite slabs. I'm not unhappy about all this! But it is getting in the way of my fiber work.

The Christmas quilt and the Pub quilt

I have two quilts that have been in progress for Quite Some Time (20+ years) and need some design work and some hand work to progress to the next steps. Every few years I take them out, figure out the next steps, and do a small amount of work on them... Then I forget all that I figured out and the cycle starts again. So why not document things in this blog?

I'll tackle the Christmas Quilt first. It's a collection of 12 18" blocks of hand pieced stars; I decided to make appliqued border for them. It'll have  6 swags and 5 flowers on the short sides, and 8 swags and 7 flowers on the long sides. One short side is done and one long side is done except for finishing the flower.
If I recall correctly, I was going to run out of one of the flower fabrics, so I need to alternate them on the next long side.

Next steps:

• Finish the flower on the one long side.
• Draw the guide lines on the 2nd long border and make some swags, then start appliqueing while I make the following decisions.

Decisions:

• Do I do the corners as designed or change to something simpler?
• Do I do swags on the top border or not, give than the top border generally sits under pillows? Or do I do a different pattern across the top?

Here's the layout I decided on for the pub quilt. It's progressed slightly further along; all the blocks are now bordered with a small 1" border in the dark red color. 

I'm stuck on the setting triangles on the border (and have been for about 18 months now). I think they need to be pieced semi stars; if so,

All the same? Some variation?

Apex near the center? or at the edge?

Some type of soft-edge applique using the amazing border print featured in the blocks? 

Some interaction between the setting triangles and the next border?

What, in fact, is the next border?

I'd like to finish this one soon, as the whole cloth quilt on the bed is slowly dissolving, and it is indeed our anniversary year. I'll go work on this now.

And yes, both of these quilts have a story. I'll document that when I have the quilts in progress.

One last bit... I have 3 egg whites leftover from key lime pie; they're now pecan meringue cookies; super easy and super tasty!

The Four Slaws of Christmas, a food post

Happy New Year!!! I'm sitting in the window chairs looking out over the ravine and the hills beyond, drinking Costa Rican coffee with Strauss cream (my favorite!!!), surrounded by the Beloved Husband and cats. Later, a friend is joining us for a hike and dinner; I did all the prep yesterday so there's very little to do today other than update this blog! Few of my posts lately have been about food, so it's due...

I've been doing a fair amount of cooking over the holidays, really more than most years; we did some entertaining on non holiday occasions so I wasn't bound by traditional menus. Working from the premise that vegetables are healthy and that everybody loves a good slaw, I tried some new recipes, all with slaw pairings:

Salmon Pie with cabbage, mushrooms, and caraway

• 
  On Christmas eve, I cooked a salmon pie, and served it with a fennel and red pepper slaw. I knew exactly why there's a layer of rice on the bottom crust; thank you British Baking Show! Next time I'd used one of those tasty Lundberg rices for a little more flavor.
• We joined friends for Christmas dinner, and I brought a cabbage and apple slaw with pomegranate to go with their big roast beast.
• G&C joined us a few days ago, and I made Green Chile Stew from Hatch chiles that I mail ordered to delight my Darling Husband, and made a southwestern slaw to go with it; I also found my new favorite cornbread recipe. 
• Tonight, B is coming for dinner and we're making jerk seasoned chicken, black beans, cornbread, a Jamaican inspired pickled cabbage salad, then my first ever key lime pie for dessert.

The Four Slaws of Christmas recipes are here. A small word of advice: with 4 slaws in 8 days, we're definitely over-slawed. Be careful you don't suffer from the same problem!

• Fennel and Red Pepper Slaw 
• Red Cabbage Slaw with Apples and Pomegranate
• A Southwestern Slaw from the Santa Fe Cooking School Cookbook
• Pickled Cabbage Salad

Marshmallows getting dipped into Tcho Chocolate

I can cross Make Marshmallows off my bucket list, If you've never had a homemade marshmallow, they're nothing like the Kraft ones in the bag. I made vanilla ones, and dipped some of them in Tcho dark chocolate.  I prefer them plain, DH liked them better with chocolate. There will definitely be more marshmallow in my future.