Almost on one track....

 I have been mostly just working on the Queen blanket.  That is surprising for me because I am generally all over the place, working on a very large variety of projects.  The blanket has really grabbed my attention and the interest in it doesn't seem to be waning.  I am a little over half done with it, starting to repeat the color bands in reverse.

This is not to say that I have not been playing with other things, I am just not a monogamous crafter😀 LoveCrafts had the small 25gr skeins of Sheepjes Catona on sale last week, so I ordered a nice selection of colors to play with.

I have been wanting to try making a mandala, and many of the patterns on Ravelry call for this yarn.  I had thought of using Maysville 8/4 carpet warp, but I really wanted a mercerized yarn.  The carpet warp would have been very matte looking even though I have a lot in my stash.

I started a mandala the day the yarn came, actually set the blanket aside😀 I told myself that I was only going to do a couple of rows a day and set it aside.  The next day I picked it up and essentially finished it!  So much for a couple of rows a day.  I  ran over to Joann Fabrics, so nice that it is close by, and picked up a couple of brass hoops.  I wasn't sure which size I would need so I grabbed a 10" & 12" hoop.

I had read to clip the mandala to the hoop with stitch markers to hold it in place while attaching it to the hoop.  That worked like a charm!

Once the 12" hoop was clipped on, I just crocheted the last row and attaching it to the hoop as I went.  Instead of doing a ch2 I sc around the hoop.  Then I pulled out my lucet, used 2 of the colors to make a hanging cord and the finished mandala is now hanging on my front door.  My camera behaved bizarrely, the colors look really faded and different hanging on the door then laying on the table.  I don't know if this is because I have a yellow wall in my hall, or because of the lighting by my doorway.  Regardless, it is done and hanging and I am overall pleased with it.  

Another little quick project was making another crochet hook roll.  A friend ordered a set of the Clover Amour hooks and I think she will need a case for it.  I put a 39-end band on the Good Wood mini inkle, and popped the band out in a couple of hours.  

The colors are quiet outside my regular color wheel, but they ended up working well with the fabric that I chose.  The 2 darker colors are Lunatic Fringe 10/2, and the hot pink was in my stash.  I have no idea where that came from, but it worked well for this band.

I did monogram the hook sized on the pockets like I did for my roll.  The monogrammer behaved much nicer this time around, none of the cams gave me grief.  The roll itself gave me loads of trouble.  Silly me did not write down how I made the first roll, so I was just kind of working through it all.  I sewed it together, discovered that I sewed the band on in the wrong direction, sewed the cover flap on wrong too.  I had to take it all apart, trim the edges, and reassemble.  I did get it to come together but it was a bigger PITA than I had planned.

I also created a Bingo card of crafting for this year.  It has on it some projects that I am working on, projects that have stalled on me, and projects that I would like to make in the future.  I want to use it as a guild line for my crafting this year.  It will be interesting to see if I get any Bingos!

Stay tuned to see how this goes!  LOL

Handwovens for decorating

I have been weaving for years and have made oodles of household textiles such as towels, placemats, and coasters.  They have always added little pops of handwoven texture and color to my home, but I have not concidered them to be a way to decorated my home.  They are all useful items that I have enjoyed making and using.

I ventured into a bit more of the decorating aspect when I wove the curtains for my 2 bedrooms.  It was fun to be able to get just the colors and effect that I was looking for.  Both sets of curtains are woven in a lace weave, so they are able to let light in but still provide privacy.

In 2018 I made a shaft-switching device for one of my looms.  I based on the information from Peter Collingwood's book Beyond the Basics.  The device gave me the ability to place pattern where ever I wanted it in the piece.  It is basicly a way to do loom-controlled pick-up patterns.  The device I made worked and I wove a couple of rugs using and then took it off the loom and went on to other things.  The rugs have been just been rolled up in a corner.

I took a piece of 1x1 board, some velcro, and some broadcloth and hung the rugs.  I made a sleeve from the broadcloth the width of the rug and an inch wider than the velcro.  I hand stitched the sleeve to the rug, and the soft side of the velcro to the sleeve.  I then stapled the hook side of the velcro to the boards, found the studs in the walls, and hung the rugs.

My home has wood laminate floors and cathedral ceilings going up to the loft, so it can echo in here.  Having textiles on the walls will dampen that effect and plus  I think it looks good.  Both of these rugs are wool, and my design.

I hung one over the fireplace.   This spot has needed something there since I moved in.  I had been looking for a print but never found what I wanted.

The second rug, which is really the first shaft-switching rug that I wove, is now hanging in the loft behind the countermarche looms.

I have a chair with a back from an old Singer sewing machine.  I like the chair for sitting at the Lendrum spinning wheel but the original fabric was this hideous, scratchy,  never to disintegrate brown fabric.  I wove upholstery fabric for it.

I based the design of the fabric from Kelly Marshall's book, Custom Woven Interiors.  I used 5/2 perle cotton for the warp, and 16/2 linen for the thin pick, and a plied linen that I made on one of my spinning wheels for the thick.  I had enough fabric to recover the chair and to make a lumbar pillow.  The seat is just a tad deep when spinning, so the pillow is just enough to make it just right.  I ended up cutting some of the colors off to fit the chair, so when I made the pillow, I turned the fabric so that all of the color changes can be seen.  The pillow is reversible, each side is a bit different.  I am pleased with the outcome of this project.  It actually came out as I saw it in my mind's eye.

I also finished crocheting and lining another cross-body bag for myself.  This one is in dark cinnamon,  a pretty color to get me through autumn.  I had a horrible time with the lining.  I put the zipper in wrong, it was inside out and backwards and all kinds of wrong.  I just set it aside for a coup,e of weeks to think about.  When I sat down finally to deal with it, it all went pretty well.

I am still working of some bands and the circle fabric and have a number of knitting projects going.  Everything in its own time:-)

Fun times at WI Sheep & Wool

Yesterday I went to the WI Sheep and Wool festival.  It is held the weekend after Labor Day at Jefferson County Fairgrounds.  I met up with a friend and her husband, also a couple of girls from our monthly weaving group, and this year we managed a Ravelry meet-up.  It was a very good time.

I enjoy the selection of vendors, there are enough weaving vendors to keep it interesting.  Now that I am a little more serious about spinning, knitting, and crocheting there are a lot more vendor stalls that I have to wander through.

I went this year with the intent purpose of getting some cotton sliver.  I had contacted Mielke's Fiber Arts last week to make sure they would have cotton with them.  It felt a little silly to be inquiring about cotton at a wool festival, but that is how it goes.  They had a bag with an assortment of cotton top.  It has natural colored green, cinnamon, and brown top along with white Pima easy to spin cotton.  I am planning to spin this on the Lendrum once I am done with the Haunui NZ Halfbred wool that I am currently spinning.  I could just take the wool off the wheel as I have enough bobbins, but I do not want to start accumulating a bunch of half done spinning projects along with all of the half done weaving projects that I have.

I had also contacted Barb at Weavers Loft and asked her to bring me a roll of texsolv cord.  When I went to dress the 120cm Glimakra Standard I realized I never put all of the treadles on the loom.  I did not have enough texsolv cord on hand, so I had to swipe a bunch of treadle cords from the 110cm Glimakra Standard in order to dress it.  Now I will be able to replace all of those cords and have plenty left for using the various dräll pulleys that I have and want to try.

As we walk out of Barb's booth, she had a yarn tree full of cones of yarn and there were cones of Lunatic Fringe's  new Tints and Tones yarns.  The Burnt Umbar and the Copper are just gorgeous!  All that was on the yarn tree were cones of 5/2, but I wanted the 10/2.  So back into the booth I went and found a kit that had the colors I wanted plus some of the greys as well in the size and quantity that I wanted.  I had not planned on buying yarn, but those colors just grabbed me and would not let go!

Here is this year's haul, not extensive but very satisfying.

The meet-up was great as well.  There were 9 of us and it is always fun to meet people you chat with on-line face to face.  I met a couple of new people, so that was fun.  We were all sitting around a picnic table talking fiber while the husbands that were there chatted under a tree.

I had sleyed the 1,632 ends on the upholstery warp and ended up finding 2 big sleying errors, one on each end.  Last weekend I was so disgusted with myself over it, I just walked way from the loom before I did something stupid.  I had  yarn left from the cross-body bag that I had crocheted, so I made a sling for my Contigo water bottle.   I liked how it came out, so when I went grocery shopping last Sunday, I stopped at Joann Fabrics and bought a skein of Lion Brand 24/7 cotton and made another sling.  The purple goes better with my handwoven backpack.

I have the upholstery fabric weaving but I was getting some very bad sheds on a few of the treadles and there were a lot of skipped threads.  There was much to much unweaving going on so I bit the bullet and climbed back into the loom and redid all of the tie ups.  Yep, all 100 cords were taken off.  I leveled the lamms, and just carefully tied everything back up.  All of that work was so worth it.  I have beautiful, clear sheds with a flat floor to them.  Weaving is a dream now, it is going so much smoother.

I tried a number of different yarns for the weft and I settled on using a couple of cones of linen that I bought way back when I went to Midwest Weaver's in 2005.  I should get the yarn balance out and check the weight of the yarn because the cones are not marked.  I plied them on the Ashford E3 and am using the plied yarn as the thick pick and a natural 16/2 linen as the thin pick.  I really like how this is weaving.  When I am sitting at the loom it is hard to see the block changes, but when I step away, the changes can be seen.  I believe that it will be a pretty slick looking fabric when it is finished.

So far I have been able to stick with trying to get some projects done.  The upholstery fabric is weaving, the first half of the Haunui braid is almost spun, and the multi-directional scarf is close to being finished.  It feels good seeing progress on these projects.

...and on to September

I am amazed that the end of August is here already.  This summer just flew by for me.  Looking back on this month, I really did not finish too many projects.  It seems I did more sewing than anything.  Those sewing projects were not even things that I had intended to do or had previously started and did not finish.

I am hoping that September will be more productive.  I would like to finish up a lot of projects that have been lingering around for too long and to learn some new spinning techniques.

I am going to be participating in the Fall Weave-along on Ravelry's Warped Weaver's.   I have 4 projects that have been started but not finished for too long.

Clockwise starting in the top left is a pick-up band on the mini Wave,  a warp-faced band on the GBL, a leash on the core-braiding stand,  and an oblique braid on the takadai.  It is time to give them all some attention.

I am also participating in a month-long spin-along on Allons-Y-Fiber Art also on Ravelry.  Its a spin-along for New Zealand half-bred Haunui fiber.  This is an absolute gorgeous fiber to spin.  I am spinning it on the Lendrum and am planning to do a 4-ply cable.  This is not something that I have done before - new stuff, should be fun:-)

It is a beautiful, autumn colored braid.  Bethanne's colors are always so gorgeous.

Still on spinning, I am going to pick up some cotton sliver at WI Sheep and Wool festival next weekend.  I am enjoying spinning a lot, but I just do not care to weave with wool,  so I am going to give cotton a try.  I received Joan Ruane's Beginning Cotton Spinning on a Wheel and it looks doable.  I am also receiving a quill head for the Lendrum.  I am thinking that will work well with cotton.  The shorter fiber length needs the fast, high twist that I should get from the quill head.  More fun times:-)

I also want to weave off the pieces that are on the Glimåkra Standards.

The top piece will be upholstery fabric to recover my spinning chair and the bottom piece is just really fun polka-dots.   I have not quite decided what I am going to do with that fabric.  It makes me smile everytime I see it, so I would like to do something cool with it.

There are also what seems like a zillion crochet and knitting pieces started.  The nice thing about those is they are portable,  so they come to work with me and I work on them over my lunch period.

So, it should be interesting to see what actually gets done in September.