The studio is live again!

I finally got enough unpacked to call the studio live! I suspect I'm missing a box... Which is fine... And there are a couple of "I don't know what to do with this boxes". But it's cleared out enough to start working in it. Here's Z doing yoga in the long window!

View from the studio is impeding my progress.

Meanwhile, this is what I've been up to fiber wise; I have used a lot of words to describe what's really very little progress...

• Some spinning on the orange cashmere silk I've named "45"
• Some spinning on this wool fiber with a demin like color; I spun at the Black Sheep Guilds Booth at the Redwood City Jazz Festival. Sadly it's not very even, but that should be okay. The yarn is destined to be a pin woven wrap.
• I got off by one stitch on my Seaside Affair. I took it off the needles to rip out the 12 offending rows and put it around my body just to make sure that the size was right. GOOD THING as it's 10-14 inches too big. I frogged it last night, so now have no easy knitting projects in action.
• I couldn't find a good place for a projects worth of yarn, so I finally put the project on the rigid heddle loom. I picked that loom since it's all springy knitting yarn. Two of the skeins were Dyed In Fresno but not palindrome skeins; I tried to warp them for warp pooling using Syne Mitchell's Painted Skein Bonus method that was in Weavezine; I'll get photos of that once it's going; I'm wound on but have not finished tying everything up yet.
• I started school again. Not sure how I feel about this.
• I pulled out the Green Handmaidens Towel kit I bought a hundred years ago and will decide whether it belongs on the Mac or the New-to-me Gilmore. 
• I've also been eyeing the pile of dyeable yarn in the studio and the toyon bushes in the back yard. Stay tuned on that one.

Moved, partially unpacked, having nightmares.

We moved 3 1/2 weeks ago. So far, I've emptied all the kitchen boxes, all the bedroom boxes except one, and all the living room boxes except one. I've ordered a sofabed for when DH's family visits. I'm getting the cats settled in, and working with the gardeners to put in food crops and dye plants. Today I met with the guy who will get the rats out of crawlspace.

It's been an eventful couple of months.

On the fiber side, I unpacked all the books in the studio today (9 boxes total!) and have already unpacked the spinnables and a lot of the knitables. What I need now is bins to fit in the Ikea furniture (recently built!) so organize things, so I can fit a full cubit of items in the space currently taken up by a cascading triangle of items.  Do I make these? Do I buy ones that aren't quite the right size? So many questions. I am having nightmares about settling another 7 or 9 boxes of "stuff" into the one cabinet unit that is unfilled, and thinking if I put the yarn on the loom, I won't have to store it.

Good thing I bought a new loom! It's a 40" 8 shaft Gilmore, used of course.

Hoping to post photos of something I'm making in the next week or two...

Placemats, and 45

Progress!!! Despite the moving there is progress..

I needed to clear the loom prior to moving; feels easier to move it empty than warped. So I finished the runner that was on there and added one more place mat. It felt like I'd made every mistake a rookie can make... Lack of planning, lack of keeping track of progress, letting enough time go by to forget what the plan was, changing plans mid stream, and so on. And then I made a near fatal flaw of weaving to the last inch; four of the staples holding the apron strings to the warp beam popped as they had pressure in exactly the wrong direction.  Yet I finished them, hemmed them, threw them in the washer and dryer, and ironed them when they came out. They are exactly the size I'd wanted! And nearly straight and flat. I clearly need a lot more weaving practice but am thrilled with the outcome.  Here they are, two from the green side and two from the grey side. The 30+ inch runner has the longer contrasting lines on it.

I spun some 45 tonight. It's a silk and cashmere roving in the color way "Peach Melba" that was one of the prizes from Sheep to Shawl last year. It pleases me to call its orangeness 45.

So I suppose despite everything that's going on, I can still indulge in fiber projects.  I'll name these as the next few:

• Spinning 45 and the blue roving for the pin woven shawl.
• Reengaging on the Melon Shawl.
• Knitting on Seaside Affair.

I also need to make plans for the new Studio, specifically identifying August projects.  I'll do this on paper, then transcribe...

New Studio in planning phases, old Studio in boxes

Yep, we're moving. A large part of my studio is now in this big pile of boxes. I'd brought out some batting to pack, and the beasts claimed it; see white beast just above the green chair?  I can't bring myself to take it away from them.

The new studio has no closets but is roughly 3 times the size of the old studio; it's also located conveniently next to the laundry room aka dye studio. The plan is to put low storage cabinets on two of the walls, and my two bookcases in a little alcove. That should leave the rest of the space for looms and the sewing tables, and a small comfy chair. Right outside the studio space is a lovely comfy sunny patio which I've christened the spinning deck.

So much to do...

Little to no progress...

I have little progress to report since my last Blog entry. My life is roiling with, well, life, and I'm trying to practice some of the skill I'm learning in  watercolor and drawing classes; hoping this will improve future fiber artistic endeavors.

I have been knitting slowly along on my Seaside Endeavor; for some reason it's a very slow knit. Maybe because I'm knitting fronts and backs at the same time? Anyways, I'm bout 5 inches into it, and progressing at a snail's pace.

I also warped up more thrums on my tablets and have been attempting Egyptian Diagonals, which aren't Egyptian but are very old never the less. Out of roughly 18 inches, I have one 3 inch stretch that looks like it should. I believe I'm starting to get the sequence into muscle memory, and learning to read the pattern like I should... I'll keep at it and will take photos when I've woven to the end.

Looks like we're moving, so I'll need to spend some time sorting out what to keep available during the move process; the studio might be in boxes for several months and I don't know what I'll do if I run out of idiot projects for the duration.

Now if I could only find my reading glasses...

Carmel! Aglets! and Inspector Owl

I spent last weekend in Carmel with a lovely group of women; I've been knitting with them for about 10 years! Lots of knitting, laughs, good company, and wine. I worked mostly on the border for the Melon Shawl, from Victorian Lace Today. I started the shawl while helping my mother through hospice, and had bought two balls of yarn for it in Ventura; after I got home I realized that one was a very similar but slightly different colorway!!! I finished the body about 4 years ago and was determined to use the 2nd color for the border. I got one long edge done last weekend, and knit around the corner; I'll need to pull the corner out and redo, but otherwise it looks fine. 

I used some thrums from another project and made a band; I want to make two, to use to lash my leash sticks to the loom. It's 4 cards of 5/2 cotton, threaded two dark, two light, then woven with some black cotton something that was on one of my shuttles. I wove about 5 chevrons forward and 5 backward. I've also been looking for the best way to do the aglets, on these cords and also for shoelaces, one of my current obsessions! Ian Fieggen has a wonderful site with lots of info on aglets, different ways to thread shoelaces, and knots to tie them with... For this piece, I whipped it with the black weft thread and then coated it in clear nail polish; for the next lace, I'll whip and then try glue.

I finished two of the placemats, and got tired of the same old pattern... I switched to this. Owl is inspecting for me.

On other fronts, I finished spinning the light brown Merino I talked about in the last post. It's all washed, dried, and put away; someday I'll weave it into something lovely and very, very warm; maybe a ruana. I may dye more of it, as the overdyed brown is lovely.

I'm also taking a watercolor class, and just signed up for a beginning drawing class. It's all Art, all the time. I felt somewhat guilty about engaging in these frivolous activities, with the current political climate, but then realized if the world goes to hell, what a better way to spend my time than drawing, painting, weaving, and so on?

I probably need to set some priorities; I've got default weaving and knitting projects so they won't show here.  Here are some possibilities in no particular order:

• Figure out the next steps on the pub quilt.
• Start another card woven band so I have 2 to lash on my leash sticks. 
• Use the pattern book from New Zealand to create a fish table runner.
• Plan the next loom project, maybe a scarf for the DH in the bamboo I bought for that.
• Plan and sample the next spinning project, maybe the demin colored roving for the pin woven shawl.

New!!! Since Tokyo

I'm finally getting back in the groove after coming home from Japan... I've been grumpy, the cats have been needy, and things in general have needed attention. My progress so far this month has been mostly driven by events.

I attended the local spinning guild meeting and spin in last Saturday, and needed some thing to spin on, so made some progress  on the hand carded merino I've been playing with for months.  It's a lovely light brown sheep colored fleece that was a destash from G.

I'm retreating for a weekend of knitting with my weekly knitting group, so a bunch of us broke out some UFOs and worked through what is needed to get them back on track; I'm putting the border on the Melon Shawl from Victorian Lace Today; I started this while helping my mother through Hospice five years ago; it's been languishing for at least 4, and only needs the knitted on border to be knitted on. It's on progress as well as Seaside Affair, a cute little summer sweater from Drops Design. Neither of these seem like a good project for Knitting Under the Influence, so if I can clear the wheel this week, I'll bring along some roving to spin for the pinwoven/knitted shawl I learned about at Stitches.  

On the weaving front, I finally warped up for some double weave placemats.  It's unmercerized 8/2 cotton in a dark green and a green grey; pattern is from the most recent Handwoven magazine  (March/April '17). I've warped for 6, and I'll likely get bored, so I expect to change things up a bit on some of the mats. Maybe vary the dot pattern? 

And here's a creepy picture of me checking the under layer to make sure it's coming out okay. So far so good!

One more interesting tidbit...  I'm using WeaveIt software and have put this project into their planning tools to see how it works.  It includes a full weaving calculator and will tell me how many heddles I need on each shaft!!! How cool is that!