Can't we do better than this?

We decided to buy a bigger chair for the front room.  Our current chair is too small to hold us and Delaney when we read to her.  I went to Lazy Boy and fell in love with this chair.

I measured the area and the chair was just too big.  Plus as much as I loved it, it didn't seem to fit in.

I went back and bought this one instead.  We fight over who gets to sit in it.  We might need a second one, after we pay for this one :-)

Potty training Delaney is still in the thinking stages.

I took her to the park that's just a mile from here.  She loved it and I had to tear her away after an hour.  I'm surprised at how well preschool kids communicate without a whole lot of language.

I finally finished some dish towels which I'm hoping will do well in our guild holiday show and sale.  But I need to try something new.

For now that something new is Jennifer Moore's double weave class that starts in another week.  Getting ready has been hard on many levels, not the least is the limited use of my hand.  I ordered yarn kit from Lunatic Fringe, the most expensive yarn I've ever purchased.  It's 5/2 mercerized cotton and it's  a devil to work with, the way it wants to spiral and corkscrew.  It's awfully pretty and awfully difficult.

Covid has placed our hospital in crisis mode once again and the governor has sent in nonclerical national guardsmen to help with the overload.  They've announced that 98% of those hospitalized are non-vaccinated.  The break-through infections have us masking up again, sigh.   Can't we do better than this?

 

Weaving Workshop

These cones are the eight colors I've chosen for my single shuttle Crackle towels.  They're here because I have stuff strewn all over the place as I frantically work on my Echo and Jim projects for the Linda Hartshorn workshop.  I don't think the workshop is any less intensive than her traditional 2 1/2 day taught in person.  The only thing missing is being able to handle the fabric but I've said that before.

I'm about at the end of my warp and have already selected eight colors in reds and oranges for another warp.  If I keep this up I might have enough inventory for a sale in the future, if that ever happens.

This is a sample from the Echo weave part that we did on the first day.  If you see purple, your eye is fooling you.  The warp and weft are both 8/2 Tencel which is a form of rayon.  The tie-up is a traditional 8-shaft twill.

These are the colors I chose.  The warp is wound at 40 ends per inch - wowzers!  That puts four threads in each dent, and while I thought it was over my head, I only made one warping error and was able to fix it with a string heddle.  I'm so impressed that I even know how to do that.  I can't tell you how much I've learned since moving here and being part of an active weaving guild.

This is a sample woven in Jin.  The only difference is changing one harness on each treadle and the use of a second yarn known as a tabby, which is one shot of a different thread woven as plain weave.  That thread's function is to tie down the weft and keep it in place.  It's slower to weave but it's certainly interesting.   The tabby is where I made the most mistakes, which just tells me that I need to do it more to teach my muscle memory.

Linda recommended that we use a finer thread for the weft and I only had three colors in a size 16/2 bamboo, nothing else finer.  I bought it a long time ago because I was going to weave Huck lace scarves until I wove a couple and realized how time intensive they were.  We were instructed to add enough warp to weave a scarf after we had finished all our samples.  The black is the finer thread and from this sample I decided to use it for my weft.

I chose three patterns and alternated them.

This is the finished scarf.  I'm pleased with everything except the length.  I ran out of warp because I had woven too many samples.  It's not even 60" but it's still wearable.  Tomorrow morning we wrap up the workshop and review our projects.  Ian and I are packing our suitcases and will leave as soon as that it done for a short stay at Yachats on the coast.  We'll resume our babysitting responsibilities next week.

  

 

Entering the sixth month with Covid

I got my materials for the Sarah Jackson workship, Color Confidence, and have been warping my loom as the heat upstairs allows.  Each of us got a packet of five colors, no two are the same.  This is the image that inspired my colors.

You can see how closely they match.  We were instructed to choose the color packet we were least drawn to but I liked them all but one, and I didn't pick it.

The warps arrived already wound but without a counting thread.  I tried to improvise and finally just decided to spread the yarn as evenly as I could.  I reminded myself that this is a workshop sampler.

We started this month off with a birthday - Matt's 40th!  He also started off this month running his own company.  This has been a dream of his ever since he got into setting tile, so in spite of his very successful run as a project manager for a construction company, he got his contractor's license and as of this week is Double Diamond Tile.  Julia is the vice-president and office manager.  She has to continue working two days a week so we now will add watching Delaney every other Tuesday so she can focus on paperwork.  You can't focus on anything and watch a toddler!!

A friend told me that she had solved her earwig problem with soy sauce/oil traps so I read about how to make them online and installed one using a cottage cheese container.  I never thought about the raccoons.  So I'm back to the old way of putting a head of cabbage in a pot of water and drowning dozens.  I do a final bath to make sure they're all gone and use the half of a head that they didn't eat.

I planted some sunflower seeds months ago.  I wanted those saucy blooms that look so pretty in a bouquet, but what we got our these monsters that we have staked up with a tomato cage.  The finches have loved these, eating the leaves, and when the seeds mature, the jays will eat them.  We want to feed the birds so next year I'll plant these again and also plant the saucy ones for cut flowers.

The only thing I have to weave on right now is the Prayer Shawl from Sarah Jackson's weave-along.  This has stretched me the most of anything yet even though it's only four shafts, but I know now that I like Shadow Weave and will weave it again.  Between the heat upstairs and the hours babysitting, I am weaving very slowly on this.

I finally finished something - ten more towels for inventory.  I have always had Christmas sales opportunities but in lockdown I don't know how that will go.  Often I'm contact directly and am able to sell towels that way.  I don't want to be caught unprepared.

The weather is hot all this week and I know how much Delaney loves to be outside so that's how we started today, on the patio, knowing that we would be in the house for the rest of the day.  It's scorching and yet our maple tree has already started to turn red for autumn.  Mixed message!

 

Tartan Workshop

I just bought another Blogger app for my iPad so I’m flying blind on this post.  Anyway, twelve weavers from the Central Oregon Spinners and Weavers Guild dragged our equipment the Diocesan Retreat Center on Thursday morning for a three-day workshop taught by Linda Evans.  This facility is a former horse barn and more than roomy for classes.  We arrived with prewarped looms.

The morning was spent in lecture and we were rearing to go after a delicious soup and salad lunch provided by the Center.  Each of us had chosen a tartan from the Tartan Registry and worked with Linda in advance on warping instructions.

I chose Campbell of Breadalbane instead of Campbell of Argyl because it only uses four colors.  I figured four colors and bobbins was plenty of challenge for my first experience with plaid.  This is my sample and I was getting ready to start the scarf.  I’m using 8/2 tencel set at 24 epi.

Dean chose the McKay tartan since it’s a family name and he liked the colors.  I do too!

Believe it or not, this is a registered tartan.  It’s called Rainbow and is a recently registered.  There are two kinds of tartans, symmetrical and asymmetrical, and this is the latter.  Linda finished it while we were there.

I liked Patty’s Forbes tartan and was also surprised to learn that Forbes in a Scottish name, also Gaelic Irish.  Linda mailed us all the information yesterday for all of our tartans and I printed out about a half dozen this morning until the printer ran out of ink.  I made an account with the Registray and have gotten three threading counts so far and am looking forward to weaving other tartans, but for now I’ll be content to read and understand tartans with the thread order already printed out for me.  

I like this tartan too and think it would be a terrific Christmas scarf.  I plan to weave scarves as working samples.  One thing became clear to me - the more tiny stripes, the more fiddly it is and more time it takes to weave.  Regardless, I’m hooked!

Both Friday and Saturday mornings presented treacherous driving conditions,  How treacherous?  I drove the 18 miles at 40 mph and slowed to 20 to make the turn off the highway onto the access road and even in my Forester, the back end swung wide.  I was wide awake when I  arrived, and thankfully Marci, the Retreat cook who lives on a ranch just across the road, had strong hot coffee and warm nut bread waiting for us.

I emptied the car yesterday after I got home, reorganized my work area so I could keep my loom up until I finish the Campbell tartan, and reorganized myself to head off for the St Pat’s party at the Bend Art Center - so many fun people I’ve met since I moved to Bend!!

Alexis stopped us on our way out for our official picture with St Pat’s portrait, that’s Pat Clark, our mentor and founder of the amazing art center.  There would be no art center without her, her art knowledge, sense of humor and teaching skills.  More Bend magic :-)

I almost forgot!  I learned two weaving hacks from other weavers.  I have always used film canisters but stuffed the excess yarn inside.  Linda wraps her around the outside and then snaps the lid on to secure it.  Donna uses these kumihimo bobbins with s-hooks but since I took these shower curtain hooks and washers, I weighted with them.  When it’s time to advance the warp, you just pull the bobbin down and the yarn unspools - that’s all there is to it.  So that’s now my new way to weight warp yarns separately.

Winter has arrived!

Winter has been slow in arriving but it’s finally here, dropping a couple inches of snow a day.  It’s not much but it adds up and the quail are most appreciative of Ian’s dedication to keeping the bird feeders full.

This is what a snow angel looks like made by an 80-pound black Lab.

This is said black Lab.

I finally finished this cowl.  I like it being wider on the ends, hoping it will keep more of my neck warm.  The idea is that you fold it in half but I think I’ll just scrunch it.  The pattern is from Ravelry but too problematic to share or to even repeat.

And in the vein of keeping busy in the house, I moved my loom and cleaned up the lint from dish towel cotton.  I brushed it up and vacuumed it up and there’s still some left.  I need a better brush because there’s a lot still there and more under the other loom.

My job today was to get my workshop loom dressed for the tartan workshop next month.  I have chosen Campbell of Breadalbane.  I like Campbell of Argyl better but it has one more color and for a learning experience, I think a tartan with four cones of yarn is plenty.  It’s going to be a very wide scarf.  Ian wants one so if I can get the hang of this and master a steady beat, I’ll order wool and do it again, but in Argyl since that’s his family name.

We went furniture hunting on President’s Day weekend.  Our 7-year-old set is shot with springs coming out of the cushions in three places. There’s nothing to be done but to replace it.  We had gone the weekend before and anything we liked started at $3,000 like this Mission-style sofa build in an Amish workshop. This is baseline wood and fabric.

We had four businesses on our list for this trip but two people had told us they were pleased with Ashley so we went there next.  Both of us went nuts over this set in three colors.  It was comfortable and the price was right, plus they were having a 25% off sale for Presidents Day.  I wish I could say that we knew about the sale but it was just dumb luck. When I was saw the sale signs I remembered that this is the big weekend for furniture sales.  Ian was ready to take this set and leave, but I started to worry about it fitting in with the rest of our house.

In the end this is what we bought, including the accent chair in the foreground which is from another set.  We have two more weeks before delivery and already I’m starting to worry about keeping an off-white couch off-white.  I need to read up on Scotchguard or else have someone come in and do it for us.

Here Comes the Sun

We paid a visit to First Street Rapids Park last week on one of two sunny days.  Bend has 72 parks and we're going to try see as many of them as possible this year.  One down.

 The river has signage long before rafters get this far.  They have to get out and portage along the trail that we were on, nicely paved and wide.

It's just a placid river until it isn't!

We treated ourselves to lunch afterwards at Spork, a family-friendly hipster restaurant serving Mexican/Asian/fusion cuisine.  Their original place was a food truck, hence the name.

The supplementary warp workshop last weekend was taught by Linda Gettman as part of our weave/study group.  We came with our looms already warped with the ground warp and the pattern warp in a baggie.  We all had the same yardage of  5/2 mercerized cotton so only our colors were different.  It was a (very patiently) led group exercise.

Actually the other thing that varied was how many times we treadled the two sequences of the Monks Belt draft.  

This is a really fiddly process so we had to have extra bits like the dowel across the back and above the ground warp.  It's bungied onto the back beam with the bag clips inserted between them to keep the two different warps from intermarrying.  My supplementary warp was weighted with 18 ounces of fishing weights, 9 ounces on each bundle and it absolutely needed that much weight.  Obviously I hadn't intended to ignore it this long.

Linda took a workshop last year on this subject and what we did was based on her experience.  She has since then branched out.  These scarves are inspiring.

This is mine after being sent through the washer and dryer.  The entire thing was a sample.  This is my go-round with Monks Belt and while I like the appearance of the blocks, they've got long floats that could easily snag.  I don't expect to try this draft again but I absolutely will try supplementary warp again.  There are a lot of options!