weaving – Page 15

>H1N1

November 5, 2009 | 9 Comments

In the last 10 days of October I was on quite a roll, getting a lot of things done…weaving off a 16S network twill scarf, making progress on my current tapestry, knitting various things, and even spinning. I felt unstoppable!….

“Shadow Baby” by Joan Somerville, using 2 shades of Tofutsies yarn. Check out the cute Gita Maria buttons! This sweater is for my new niece who will arrive in Dec!

My biggest accomplishment this month was tackling the details on Rob’s face! I’m at the halfway point of the cartoon, but have completed more than 50% of the difficult areas now. (Lots of ‘hand-holding’ from Soyoo Park to choose skin colors and to work three interlocking sections on five warps for Rob’s mouth!)

A few other things with no photos: a pair of jaywalker socks where I tried to get the pattern part out of one ball of Regia Color Effekt, by using a solid color yarn for the cuff, heel, and toe. Didn’t work! I ran out of the Regia before I got to the toe, so part of the foot is done in solid color. Bummer. At least that won’t show when I have shoes on!

I’m also brewing another avocado pit dye. This time I’m attempting patience, how novel! Each time we eat an avocado I finely chop the pit and add it to the brew. Every second or third day I heat the dyepot to a simmer for 30 minutes as per Carol Lee’s instructions. She says this goes on for months before actually dyeing. It’s a luscious red!

Then, on the penultimate day of the month I began to malfunction…and by the end of the day I was in bed with the flu! Seven days later I can barely get out of my own way. I’ve lost momentum…. and I”m in a funk….

The last time I had the flu (12 years ago), I ran to my LYS and bought some lace weight merino (Grignasco?) and got in bed with a Eugene Buehler pattern from Knitter’s Magazine. This time I’d been eyeing the recently arrived box of Icelandic unspun yarn in six colors from Schoolhouse Press. So I went to bed with my little laptop tuned in on Schoolhouse Press’s current shawl KAL by Maria Von Keppel.

Sleep, knit, drink tea…..sleep, knit, drink tea…. 4 days later:

I was able to get out of bed on the day I did the crochet loops. I graduated to sitting in a chair!

>Bit by Bit

April 16, 2009 | 5 Comments

Cochineal Dyeing… I think if you click on the first photo you can just barely see the color of the dye with the little bugs in the pan. I used distilled water to simmer the bugs for releasing the dye, and according to Michelle Wipplinger’s recipe (which I got through Deb Bramford), after extracting the dye with distilled water I could use tap/well water for topping off the liquid. This did not work for me as I believe my well water is the source of what turned my bright red dye into plum/purple yarn. It’s a lovely color, but I wanted red!

Three dyebaths…not much change between #2 and #3.

My progress on Hudson River from last week to this week. I’m done with the boat (yea!) and can now focus on the trees/cliffs/water/sky. The trees are a bit fiddly but once I work out a system I hope I will at least be able to make steady progress.

Now I’m finally going to take a photo of the ‘Arwen Cardigan.’ I don’t know when I’ll get to frogging and fixing.

Some big collar, right? Anyway, the rest of the sweater fits well (better on me than my svelte dress form on which it hangs badly!), and I like the zipper! Of course, I have to take out the zipper and completely frog the collar since it was knitted sideways onto the neck opening. I picked up a stitch from the neck edge every other row, but when I re-do I will either:

A. Pick up a stitch from the neck edge every 4th row

OR

B. Knit the collar separately to a length I like and sew it to the neck edge, easing it in to make it fit.

I’m leaning toward “B.”

>April Showers

April 6, 2009 | 2 Comments

We are having more than showers today, and it seemed a good day to stay in, do some baking for the upcoming holiday weekend, and spin during the waiting times of rising and baking.

A good friend of mine gave me this wonderful roving over the weekend. I don’t know why I’m getting such lovely surprise presents this spring, but I’m enjoying all of them.

This roving is from Linda Lee, known as exclusivelylindalee on etsy. It’s cotton, and I have not spun cotton since a very futile attempt once as a new spinner! Since I could only spin worsted back in those early days I could not spin the cotton I’d bought. I think I got rid of it in a guild raffle. Fast forward about a decade, and I am having a wonderful time with this beautifully painted roving, which is called “Phoenix Garden” colorway.

My, that decade sure flew by quickly! I have visions of a woven project with this yarn….just have to find appropriate warp, as I’d like to leave this yarn a singles so I don’t have to plan the color sequence in plying.

>Sap is Rising…

April 1, 2009 | 3 Comments

…and I feel my creativity rising with it!

The rise in creative juices has led me to go exploring other people’s blogs, looking for what inspires them, how they communicate it, how they cope with the ebb and flow of creativity.

Thank you to Bonnie and Jennifer for the creative blogger award! I’m thrilled that they noticed my blog! Both of them do work that affects my internal spaces, and also makes me stop and analyze myself. I look at Bonnie’s use of color with the eyes of a newborn, trying to soak up all her amazing knowledge of color and pattern.

The very first photo I saw on Jennifer’s blog made me realize I don’t actually have to hear music to have my internal spaces rearranged. Just the photo of her harp in front of an empty chair, with all that potential for music set my emotions in motion! Her writings are sensitive, like harp music, and her wedge weave is wonderful….and rhythmic…

I’ve spent a couple of days nurturing my creativity by looking at other blogs: those recommended by others giving that award and those I’ve found while ‘googling.’ I am overcome! Visiting these blogs has been an ‘artist date’ for me!

Weaving the Dream is a blog I stumbled on when googling. There is a banner on her site that says, “Take a gentle step forward in your spiritual and creative journey.” That’s just what I felt as I read through some of her posts.

Magic Warp, by Steve Bremner. The first post I read is about feeling that there is never enough time to weave. That’s the very feeling that keeps me away from it. That feeling is a real creativity killer, and is probably the biggest hurdle to any artisitic output. It’s the devil.

(If you put your cursor over any of the names or blog names above you will see that they are live links. I don’t know why they are not showing up as links without having the cursor on them. Most of this technology is a complete mystery to me!)

It’s amaryllis season at my house!

One more wonderful March surprise! A gift from my son’s friend, who thought I might enjoy tea from India. He visited the estates where these teas were grown.

I wore these colorful socks yesterday, with an orange turtleneck, my denim shirt with the embroidered palm tree from last summer’s Convergence, and what else? Orange crocs! It’s spring!

>Nuppdom

February 23, 2009 | 5 Comments

>I spent the weekend deep in nupps on my current Swallowtail shawl. This is my third Swallowtail, and I was certain I had mastered nupps. On every right side row I diligently slowed down just enough to ensure that my ‘K1, YO, K1, YO, K1 in the next stitch’ was decidedly loose, so that on the next row I could more easily insert my needle for a P5 tog. Well, it’s still not a walk in the park for me to do that P5 tog… There are only 10 rows of it, but they are slow going, and I must be nearing 300 stitches on the needle where every 10th stitch is a nasty nupp!

Actually, I’ve finally graduated beyond ‘nasty nupps.’ They are just annoying nupps now! Oh, but I do love the little drooping lily of the valley blossoms they create! I hope to be blocking this shawl by tomorrow or Wed!

Look what came in the mail! Oh my! I’ve promised myself that I will divest myself of a great deal of Paternayan in order to add this treasure to my stash….

I am completely flumoxed about creating a design for some aspect of the Hudson River (to celebrate the quadricentennial). Although I do not like to be tied down to a subject, there is so much leeway here I can hardly say I’m being ‘forced’ into a particular design. I’m so frustrated I’m seriously considering just warping up and weaving with no cartoon. ….just to see what might happen. Obviously I want water and sky. This is not about not liking or caring about the Hudson River…I actually think it might be just the opposite. I’ve lived near the Hudson for most of my life now. I love the view of the Palisades that I see almost every week in my local travels.

Well, I can’t weave if I’m not warped, so I will at least get that done…..