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!