New Toy

I'm finally finding some time to weave but since I wove so little the last quarter of the past year, I'm having to redevelop those muscles.  Sitting low on the piano stool was creating an uncomfortable strain on my back and shoulders, so I'm letting the Geology of the Northern California raise me up.  I'm turning into my mother!  She always drove sitting on something to boost her up so she could see over the steering wheel.

My first order from the Yarn Barn yarn sample club came last week.  I have no idea what I was thinking because now I have more yarn I don't know what to do with.  I thought the unmercerized 3/3 cotton looked really pretty on the sample card, but in reality it's really fat.  I really thought I could weave dish towels with is - wrong.  I have a 2 1/2 pound cone of 3/2 mercerized cotton which was only $8 a pound and I'm pleased with that.

And then there is the cone of variegated silk.  I don't know how I missed that bit of information.  The thought I was going to get a cone of Army green which is what I thought the sample represented.  I'm going to have to read the descriptions much more carefully.  I have these other two plain silks so as soon as I clear a loom, while see if I can produce a reasonably attractive scarf.  I swore I'd never order variegated yarn again and I just did.

I'm weaving log cabin dish towels on Arthur using 3/2 unmercerized cotton that I bought from my friend Lorene.  The cones were huge but not any more.  I knew I was going to run out but thought I'd be able to use the 3/3 cotton that I just bought.  I'm on towel six and scrambling.

Meanwhile I have been practicing how to wind pirns under tension.  Rae off-handedly mentioned that pirns require this treatment in one of the times I visited her studio.  I've learned a lot from her but never implemented this practice with my Schacht pirns.  I learned the hard way that Bluster Bay pirns absolutely have to be wound on under tension or you can just plan to throw all the yarn away that you wound on one without tension.  I'm using a piece of leather to protect my fingers.

My AVL electric bobbin winder was delivered yesterday, right before I had to leave for book group so all I could do was open it up and look at it.

I had an acupuncture appointment today so was strapped for time again but I did manage to move things around in my studio and make a space for the very large winder.  I had to turn the table so the winder can fit across it, and I pulled the table out so the umbrella swift won't hit the walls when I'm using it.  I'm always amazed that I seem to always squeeze out just a little more space in there.  I have two tapestry looms that still don't have a spot.  I have major dental work tomorrow morning so won't get a chance to finish this job until Friday.

And I'm still struggling with Maddie's love of my packing paper.  You can see the gash in the paper above her head which is from her game of tearing the paper with her claws and fishing through warp threads.  I have a broken warp right now that I'll reattach at the end of my current towel.  I'm going to have to buy a new roll of contractors paper very soon.

For fans of Downtown Abbey and BBC programming, this is the best spoof ever made.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

It's a New Day, a New Year.

The celebration on New Years Day centers around sushi and tempura, since after all, we're in a Japanese home.  This party started about 1960 and Ian was there for the first one and I've attended since 1995.  Many of the originals still show up, though some have passed away.  The children are now parents, the college kids show up and there's a new crop of grandchildren.

The sake toast is part of the tradition and this year Mineko and Angie passed it around.  There are three sakes, three cups and three participants in the toast to "past, present and future."  The "future" toast this year was coconut flavor, and as we put our cups back on the tray, Diana quipped, "Oh, the future tastes very good!"

Thursday was the only day that wasn't fully planned so we took the girls to see Into the Woods, which we all loved.  Alexia is a voracious reader and when her parents dropped her off, they realized that we hadn't packed any books.  Ian and I remedied that with a trip to the indie bookstore, Frugal Frigate, and let her pick out three books.  Sis declined, saying that she wasn't really interested in books.

We decided to drive home in two days instead of driving straight through, so Ian made reservations in Modesto but we got there right at 4:00.  Alexia had polished off two of her three books, so after unloading our luggage, we made another bookstore stop, this time to Barnes and Noble, where Alexia got the third in her trilogy and helped Sis pick out a couple of books that she was surprised to find herself enjoying. They were sandwiched into the back seat which only got worse after we made our usual stop at the Ideda's, a Japanese fruit stand in Auburn. No room for feet!!

 This was the sunset that welcomed up home Sunday night.

I haven't been knitting in the past couple of months.  I had two projects on needles and I'm discouraged by the moth damage to the sweaters I knit from handspun yarn.  The truth is that I rarely wear them anyway.  The hotel bed hurt my lower back and it hasn't gotten any better since Sunday so today I took some Aleve and just sat.  This shell was almost done so I finished assembling it, all but the neck.  I bound off too tight so hope that it will stretch in the blocking.  Otherwise, I will have to perform surgery.

 And then I realized that I really don't like the other sweater in progress.  Time for it to go.

There are several steps before this yarn will be ready to knit again.  But it feels good to start over.

 And in the pile of mail waiting for me was the first installment of my Yarn Sample Club from Yarn Barn.  I was too tired to order and when I did call on Tuesday, I got the last cone of silk.  My order is supposed to arrive this afternoon.  I keep looking up at the gate to see if UPS has dropped it off yet.  Somehow I think it's like the "watched pot that never boils."  And now I've got another pot to watch.  I just hung up the phone with Ryan from AVL Looms.  He called to let me know that my electric bobbin winder shipped today and could he please get the credit card information again.  You bet!!

Happy New Year!

We started our New Years celebration on the Sunday after Christmas when Ian's daughter Margi drove down from Susanville with Sis and my daughter and family drove up from Cold Springs with Alexia - both trips about 35 minutes but in opposite directions.  Because Alexia is ten and Sis is 15 they have never really done anything together - until this trip.  We left the house at 6:00 sharp Monday morning and stopped in Gardnerville for breakfast.  It's a ten-hour trip with stops and the girls couldn't have been more delightful.

I was too tired to go in the hot tub the night we got to Redlands and Margi forgot to pack Sissy's suit so it was a small group, and my one and only chance.

Rochelle's daughter Ali and her family flew out from North Carolina for the week and her brother, sister-in-law and nephew drove down from Utah.  This New Years Eve celebration is probably 40 years old or older.  I've come for the past twenty, anticipating the chance to see family and visit.

Gus's favorite pastime was a Legos catalog, which he poured over for endless hours.  I had forgotten how much my kids loved the Sears toy catalog and would do the same thing with it every fall.  It's all about the anticipation.  He's showing his daddy his favorites and wanted to know what Jason's second favorite was.

Ali is learning the mandolin and Jason has decided to learn the banjo.  He asked Petey is he'd give him a lesson so Petey showed up with two banjos.  They shame me.  I think it's time to dust off my guitar.

The kids always are enthralled by Petey's music and I suspect they'll be learning instruments soon themselves.  Petey and Ian were on the same gymnastics team at Long Beach State, lo those many years ago.  These are long lived traditions and friendships.

Another tradition is to crowd around the table for a rousing game of Left-Right-Center, a mindless game of dice and dollar bills.  Years ago the rousing game was poker, but sadly a lot of the poker players have passed away.  This was followed by the domino game of Mexican Trains at the kitchen table, which all the kids can play.  We appointed Melissa the game meister and tasked her with keeping us awake.  No one made it to midnight last year.  We even play Heads-Up, a charades game using a cell phone app, but we made it to midnight.

We drove down in fierce wind, like nothing either Ian or I have ever experienced.  At Conway Summit, the highest pass at nearly 8,200 feet, and the descent into Lee Vining and Mono Lake, we had to gear down and slow down to stay on the road.  That crazy wind was pushing a fast-moving storm that deposited snow in Temecula and Hemet - unheard of!  It was pouring rain in Redlands for the first day. However, New Years Day dawned crisp and bright.  Rochelle gave Ian and me a book for Christmas, Carlos Santana's autobiography, so I put on a vest and started the new year by reading in her backyard, or at least until it was time to leave for Gardena to celebrate the first day of the new year - more long lived friendships and traditions.

The End of a Month and Year

I was my own Santa and ordered this Logitech bluetooth keypad for my three-year-old iPad.  I've used one made by Zagg since I  bought this and would be lost without an external keyboard, however, that one was heavy and the iPad was only propped up in a channel which means it would fall over every so often as I typed.  This one is magnetic, half the weight of my Zagg, and the magnet keeps it steady as I type.  I gave my old one to Margi, my oldest stepdaughter so don't feel too bad about my extravagance.

I also ordered at 13" end-feed shuttle by Bluster Bay so  now I have two; the other is made by Schacht.  It seems that all Bluster Bay owners are crazy about their shuttles and while I love having an EFS, I don't have that same feeling for my Schacht.  And now I know why they rave, through I do love the tensioner on the Schacht.  Even though it's obnoxious to thread around the hooks, I quickly came to prefer the feel of my newest shuttle.

This is a picture of the two from the side and as you can see, the Bluster Bay is bigger which means it's also heavier.  I've had problems with that chisel nose on the Schacht, slidingunder or over warp threads.  I had two pirns filled with the weft I'm currently using and must have uneven tension on some of my warp threads as I had to unweave a couple of sections because of that problem.  I decided to give my new shuttle a try on that warp and have had no trouble at all.  I'm really pleased.  This has been such a busy month that I have hardly had time to weave at all, so I'm really looking forward to some weaving time in January.

I walked the dogs Tuesday morning.  It's been cold here and what little snow we've had is in the mountains.  The ski resorts have had to make snow and we're really worried that this winter will be another dry one.

The next morning we had this spectacular sunrise which quickly faded to yet another gray day.  It was Wednesday, Christmas Eve day, and by noon a fast-moving storm from Northern California pushed through here with heavy rains for about four hours.  As soon as the temps dropped, it turned to snow and the roads froze.  Most of the people who spend Christmas Eve with us didn't venture outside of their front doors.  My son Matt and his girlfriend Julia were driving down from Bend Oregon and I was a nervious wreck.  They were exchausted by the time they got here.  Seven of our neighbors came anyway so it was an intimate group this year.  We ended up in the living room, just chatting and laughing until about 11:00 which is waaaaaaay past my bedtime.

The anxiety wore me out through and I woke up the next morning about half dead.  We had planned to see a movie and then go out for Chinese food but it just didn't happen.  We exchanged our gifts and then settled into a quiet day.  I surprised Ian with a Kindle Paperwhite and I'm shocked that I was able to pull it off.  He's impossible to surprise.  He's made it a tradition to give me two books, a fiction and a nonfiction.  He spends quite a bit of time reading reviews and trying to figure out what I'd enjoy reading.

One day about a week ago I started reading one of the prepublication books that I got from Random House called The Book of Unknown Americans by Christina Henriquez.  I was utterly sucked in and couldn't put it down - not a good thing just days before Christmas.  It turns out that it was my fiction book.  Ian pulled his copy out of the closet and handed it to me when I was about halfway done.  He wanted me to have two books Christmas morning so quickly ordered the Anita Diamant as a replacement.

Margi, Ian's oldest daughter, got a promotional job opportunity and is in the process of moving to Susanville, a mere 40 minutes from us.  When she learned that we were going to be home, she drove down to spend the afternoon with us.  We ate leftover ham and sat around, laughing and talking for about four hours.  It's the quietest, most intimate Christmas I can remember and it was lovely.  We sent her home with my old Zaggfolio for her iPad, Ian's old Kindle and a copy of the Book of Unknown Americans - oh, and a bottle of desert wine someone had given us.

I woke up this morning and relaized that I really needed to take down the Christmas tree.  Our granddaughters will be here tomorrow to spend the night and then the four of us hit the road early MOnday morning for SoCal to celebrate New Years with family and friends down there.  I always hate to put the ornaments away for another year because they hold so many memories for us, but I know I am really going to hate it when we get home next week with suitcases full of dirty laundry.  Now that the tree is down, it's official.  I've closed the 2014 chapter and I'm very much looking forward to opening the 2015 one.  Happy New Year to everyone.

Blogsy is Back and I'm So Glad!

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You would think that this box came expressly for Maddie. She claimed it as her own and it's still here, mainly because when she plays with her box, she doesn't bat ornaments from the tree.

This is what was in the box, an adjustable Yamaha piano stool. Even at it's highest, it's 2" shorter than my weaving bench so I decided to sley a warp to see if reaching up the 2" additional inches would be acceptable and it was. The thing is, the piano stool costs $30 with free shipping whereas a weaving bench runs around $400, plus shipping. Note the kitty under my rolling work table.

Both my looms have been nekkid and I'm trying to get them warped. I was threading Arthur when I noticed some link squeezing up between the harnesses from underneath. I started pulling and it kept coming. I know I have dust bunnies all over the floor but I never dreamed I'd have one this size *in* my loom. Somehow it was hovering between the top of the jacks and the bottom of the harnesses. Someone asked me if it has a name :)

I wanted to share this very clever idea that one of the ladies from my Tuesday Book Group brought last week. It's simply a brown bag and a page torn from a book with an interesting font. She tore the deckled edges, then glued on the leaf, button and rafia bow. She made the matching ornament by putting the paints inside and tying with another rafia bow. The colored tissue paper completes it. I see inspiring ideas on Pinterest but don't know how they're accomplished. Darlene explained this to me. I get it!

I've been on a buying spree lately and just got this magnetic bulletin board on the recommendation of a friend. I told him I don't have any way to display my photos. He's a photographer and said this is his solution, then sent me the link. He keeps his photos in a portfolio, then the first of each month he refreshes them so he gets to enjoy different ones from month to month.
Playing with my photos also has inspired me to finally get all my electronic photos sorted out and into folders. Over the years I've just let the photos download to a folder labeled by the date of the download, back to 2010. Every so often I'd be spurred to clean up this mess and then get overwhelmed. I've taken an hour a morning lately to get this under control. As of yesterday I've deleted 3 gb of photos and gotten the ones I've kept organized into named folders. I'm finally working on 2013. When all photos are in folders, then I'll go back and review each folder. And because I don't feel rushed, I'm able to enjoy the memories these photos represent.

And finally, both looms are dressed and in business. I'm weaving towels, twenty of them between Maudie Mae and Arthur. I've woven on the piano stool for several hours and while it still feels awkward, it's not an ergonomic problem. I really do like having two benches. This is the first equipment I've purchased since I bought my Schacht end-feed shuttle two years ago. Like I said, I'm on a buying spree. I've also ordered an Bluster Bay end-feed shuttle that's supposed to arrive Friday. We leave for SoCal a week from this Saturday so I hope I'll have a chance to use it in this next week.

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Books, Books, Books

It's again been a while since I've posted about books and since I'm reading quite a bit these days, I'm just going to post the ones I really liked, starting with

Hello from the Gillespies by Monica McInerney.  This is the first American release from this seasoned Australian author and I hope it's the first of many.  The setting is a sheep ranch in the outback where a family struggles to hang onto their operation even after they've been forced to sell off the sheep, by turning it into a tourist destination.  The strain of constantly fighting to keep their heads above water hurts every one in the family, each in their own way.  But when something even more threatening than financial strain hits the family, they learn who and what matters.  The title comes from their annual Christmas letter.

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes.  Simply put, if you loved this movie, you will love this book.

The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud.  The biggest criticism I saw in Amazon was that the characters were unlikeable, so let me get that right out there.  However, if you liked Seinfeld, these are the same kind of people and they're as real as New York City, which the setting for this book.  I was reminded of the The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer.  The reviews are mixed but mine is one of the 5-star ones.

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin.  This is Toibin's seventh novel but my first time to read him, which means I have six more books to look forward to.  Nora is widowed and heartbroken at the age of 40 with four children, two of them young boys,  She  is also broke, forcing her to return to work at her former place of employment.  The time is just as the IRA is rising in Northern Ireland and Nora lives in a small community where everyone knows everything about everyone.  She feels alone and utterly friendless unable to help her sons in their own grief,  Sleep walking through her life, she begins to find her way back through the power of music.

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty.  This is another Australian author and the third book I've read of hers this year.  She has a way of taking flawed people in compromising circumstances, inserting a little humor and keeps you flipping the pages.  In the beginning I almost put this down because I thought - who wants to read about rich petty kindergarten moms.  Were it any other author, I really would have stopped reading, but  I suspected she would deliver and she certainly did. And again, she inserts a moral quandary into the story. The quotes from the police reports at the end of each chapter are an interesting touch.

I would recommend any of those five books.  Make yourself a cup of tea and go sit by the fire.

Getting my groove on

Blogsy, the third party app I've been using on my iPad to blog, is no longer talking to Blogger so I've had to go back to using my camera and posting from my laptop.  I downloaded the pictures for this post and found this one lurking, something I obviously took last summer since nothing is green now.

These are the colors of my next set of towels. I wove over a hundred last year and only have eight left and they're pinks/purples.  I need fill my towel inventory so am starting with some Harvest towels.

I've been wanting a way to listen to music in the studio, apart from my iPod and ear buds.  I love the music but the cord gets caught in my shuttle and when I stand up, I forget about the iPod and it drops to the floor.   Ian found this little jewel for me at Costco for $40 bucks.  That black box is the blue-tooth speaker.

This is the dock, plugged in and not in my way.  When I'm done weaving I just put the speaker right back here and let it recharge.

Like this.

I was listening to music via bluetooth from my iPhone but I haven't bought much music from the iTunes store and it was getting repetitive.  Then I realized that I could cable in my iPod which has my whole music library.  Oh my.  So I wound two towels this morning listening to Verdi's Rigoletto.  My mother bought me a WebCor high fidelity record player at FedCo in San Diego when I was in grade school, and then bought me a series of records in green cases of classical musical - kind of the best hits.  I listened to Rimsky-Korsikov long before I heard of Glenn Miller, whom I also love. This little device is perfect for my needs.  Ian scores a ten!

An update on my first attempt at lace.  I thought ice lilac and lace would be a sweet combination.  It's less than boring, and since I sell more towels five to one than scarves, I don't think I will revisit this draft.

It was an exciting weekend.  My daughter graduated.  She says she was on the 26 1/2 year plan.  She accomplished this while working full time and never missing her kids's activities. We think she's a super hero.

 We now get to wear these :)

December? Already?!!!

I was assigned this space for the craft fair that benefits the Silver Lake VFD.  I guess you can tell we're in a firehouse.  It's not very aesthetic and I was completely upstaged by the fire hoses.  I sold enough here so that I can order a AVL electric bobbin winder which I'd like to do this week.  I'm still recovering from all the fun, family and food at Thanksgiving!

Don't you think this would be a great calendar page?

It's not unusual for us to get a snow storm right after Thanksgiving and when we used to cut Christmas trees the day after, there was snow on the ground and sometimes falling on us.  Instead this year we're getting soaking rain.  Not the typical gully washer that leaves channels in our driveway but more like the rain in Oregon.  

In spite of the mucky muddy conditions Ian decided to drive up into the Sierras yesterday and cut a tree before today's story arrived.  There's no snow up there and he had to drive through a number of puddles.

This is our tree for 2014.  It's a little wonky but all natural trees are.  The only perfect ones are plastic.  We brought it into the house just as the latest storm hit so we got a little wet.  It's rained since this morning and is supposed to rain clear through tomorrow.  It's also raining in the mountains so again, no snow.

I've been in a weaving funk lately.  I think part of the problem is that I got focused on weaving stuff to sell for Christmas.  Sales are always best this time of year and my inventory is low, so instead of weaving for me, I was weaving for a purpose.  I wasn't happy with the last iridescent scarf I wove but I did like the teal, so put that on for warp.  I studied my sample gamp and also Deb Menz's color book and chose the color on the left.  To make a long story short, I ended up making it a sampler and have come to the conclusion that I'm not wild about iridescent cloth.

Now I decided to just weave for me and pulled out a skein of yarn I had spun up last spring.  I enjoyed weaving this scarf and I'm happy with it.  I've decided against listing scarves on Etsy as they have to be felt to be appreciated.  While it doesn't look it, this scarf is soft and drapey.  This is my first item for next years Christmas market.

I also have started my first lace, a six-shaft huck scarf.  It's a draft I got from someone on the 4-Shaft group but I hadn't seen it as cloth.  I'm disappointed as I expected a more traditional appearing huck. At the same time, I'm glad I didn't do anything more complex for my first lace.  It's a different kind of weaving and it was hard to think in terms of six harnesses instead of four.  I had a half dozen threading errors which weren't easy to fix on this pale lavender Tencel on a gray day, in spite of being in front of a big window.  It's not what I wanted it to look like but at the same time I'm very pleased.  

Being at my wits end, I decided to give acupuncture a try and started on November 4th, going once a week with the blessings of my GP and also my GYN oddly enough, whom I routinely see in November.  My insurance pays for the sessions the same rate as for physical therapy.  I'm seeing Raina Ferran, who is the only acupuncturist on my insurance company's preferred provider list and I have had four sessions to date.  I still have a stiff neck but more mobility than I've had since my accident.  The down side is that for two or three days afterward, I am exhausted.  There's no information on acupuncture other than that it has not been researched or medically proven, so I don't know anything more than what I'm experiencing.  My reasoning is that if after each session I experience less swelling in my neck and a loosening of the muscles, there must be materials that are flushing out that my body has to deal with.  Who knows?  No one apparently.