All of my boys and I stayed home New Year’s Eve ‘cus both kids had fevers and Yannick’s been on NeoCitran for a week. We all had a nice dinner together then the boys (Yannick included) invented a game with a blanket spread over the floor as “water”, and pillows to be “islands” to jump across. If kids missed a pillow and fell in the water, the Tickle Monster (that would be Yannick) GOT them.
And this ensued:
I think they’re all feeling better, what about you? 🙂
Yesterday was a good day (except for the fact that my kids and hubby are all sick, and my strep throat, which should be gone ‘cus I’m on my last day of meds, started hurting again).
First I took the boys for haircuts- no pic ‘cus I forgot.
Then I got a hair cut:
You like?
Then, in the evening, in a shock to even me, I finished my mom’s scarf! I still need to twist the fringe and wash it, but SERIOUSLY? After only about 6 hours, the scarf is off the loom!
I still can’t show it to you though, but pics will come once I give it to her.
My aunt was in town yesterday and was admiring one of the yarns I had out, and mentioned that she likes those twisted cowl scarves that you can loop around your neck a few times. She also mentioned that her coats are black and brown, and that people are always telling her to add color. So I decided I’m going to make her a woven cowl scarf. I’m not quite sure yet how I’ll join the two ends later, but I’ll figure it out at the end. (I hope, heh).
I chose the hank of Sweet Surrender Spark Sock Yarn from my stash. I think I’d got it during one of the Robyn’s Nest sock clubs. The colorway is “Flower Power”, which is a variegated yarn, with repeating 6-7″ lengths of orange, blue, green, yellow and magenta.
Kinda like this. They don’t repeat around, but they repeat in the way the skein was dyed. So I decided to try and keep this pattern in both the warp and the weave. I tried to make the warp around about 70″ long which went right from the middle of the blue, down 2 repeats or so, and ended at the middle of the pink. So the blue and pink would overlay in the same spots, but the orange, yellow and green would make solid areas.
Kinda like this.
It was awkward to find a place to warp, because the boys were downstairs so I was trying to do it upstairs where they wouldn’t get all tangled up in it, and I forgot to anchor the loom with a book or something heavy so it kept inching backwards. Most of it is properly wound, but occasionally I hit a tighter or looser strand where my colors wouldn’t line up. The tension evened out when I wound it, but my color blocking isn’t as perfect as I’d like. Oh well.
The yarn surprised me by being divided into 2 hanks. I wound them each into their individual cakes, and used about 6/8ths of one half for the warping. The amount of yarn left over feels like at least enough to knit a short row heel or toe, so the leftovers will probably wind up as socks for me.
Once enough warp threads had been placed with 2 threads in every slot I wound it up and sat down to place all the hole strands. Here it is, ready for weaving (after I throw a bit of waste yarn in there to even out the spacing).
And finally, this shows how I plan to weave it. I picked the width of the scarf hoping to match up the length of each color, and my goal is to get each row to be its own color, by starting at the proper spot and making sure to keep it going every time finish a shuttle.
Unfortunately that’s all the crafting, weaving or otherwise, I can get done for now. On New Year’s Day Yannick and I will be swapping houses with my inlaws as per the usual ‘weekend-before-exam” custom, and I need to get 36 Word pages of questions and answers from our school stuff organized and arranged into manageable bits to print out and tape onto index cards so we have flash cards to run through together. The previous 2 years’ exams were easier, in a sense, because they were mostly math-based. So while it was frustrating to learn all the formulas, once you knew how they worked, the exam was only as hard as the time spent working them out. This year we’re learning all the biology and anatomy and physiology of the eye, and our exam will test us on the muscles, nerves, bones, parts of the eye, which nerve brings blood to which muscles, which muscles control which movements, which diseases cause which ocular symptoms…blargh.
Yesterday Maaike picked me up and we drove down to meet Yannick at Colette’s studio. I was giddy and excited and Maaike poked me in the arm and said “You feel like someone who’s getting a loom today!”
But then there was a bit of a mixup with schedules and for a short period of time it looked like I might not be getting a loom.
(This is the face of someone who doesn’t think she’s getting a loom)Luckily things worked out, and after a quick lunch at apparently the ONLY restaurant/cafe/place that sells food you can eat in the entire area, we met back up at Colette’s and…
…well…
…what does this face tell you?
This is half of the face of someone who got a loom!Yay!
I got an Ashford Knitter’s Loom and it’s awesome! Set-up was non-existent, it was 99% ready right out of the box. I asked Yannick to help me set it up since it was a gift from him (the accessories were a gift from me) and I wanted to remember that he had set it up for me. Well “set-up” meant putting the 3 plastic ties through each of the 2 flat boards for either side, and then attaching them to the loom. About 45 seconds, and done!
I then went to Maaike’s house so she could show me how to warp it. I’d taken an “Intro to Weaving” class with Maaike and Deb at Colette’s last winter (by the way, when did seasons no longer require capitals?) and so I remembered how to do the basic plain weave, move the heddle, knew a bit of terms like “shed” and “shuttle”, “warp” and “weft”. But the looms that we’d used were already warped when we got there.
Oh- and those looms were Crickets. And I was so, so tempted to get a Cricket. They’re tiny and cute and a bit cheaper and while you can’t upgrade to a double heddle later, you can still do umpteen types of weaves with it. Yes, I said umpteen. The only thing, literally the ONLY thing that ruled out the Cricket for me was the width. You can’t weave wider than 10″ on it, and while I expect to seam larger projects like blankets, I wanted to at least be able to make placemats or kitchen towels without having to seam. I don’t need 8 million scarves.
Once the Cricket was out, and I knew I wanted a smaller, more portable loom that I could use sitting on the couch, that left me looking at the AKL and the Glimakra Emilia. I was really taken by the ratcheting system of the Emilia, as well as the extra width (13″ vs 12″ of the AKL). But in the end the AKL itself, and its accessories were more affordable, it had better finishing (the Emilia isn’t varnished or even fully sanded), and Yannick can always change the plastic ratcheting system of the AKL to metal one day, if I really want it.
So Maaike taught me how to warp, and it was much faster, easier, and more zen-like than I’d expected. It really wasn’t bad at all, and before long (maybe 1 hour, with chatting, to warp for an 8″ wide, 5.5′ long scarf plus 5″ fringe per end) I was weaving!
I’ve got the scarf-in-progress hidden in these pics ‘cus I told my mom my first project would be for her as she babysits so very often so I can attend guild, workshops, and this particular loom-purchasing trip, and while she knows she’s getting the scarf, I want the finished project to be somewhat of a surprise.
I’m using the size 12 heddle (12 dent? 12 DPI? Still learning the lingo) which means there are 12 strands to the inch, and it is warped (the strands that run the length of the scarf) with 100% wool, black fingering weight that I bought on a cone (along with another one in white) from Colette. I figure I have tons of fingering sock yarn in assorted colors, but while I have some black that is marked for projects, I don’t have white and these 1 lb cones will last a long time.
This pic is from overhead and shows the loom on my couch with a white sheet of paper covering the scarf, and a tissue box resting in front of the heddle for scale. This loom is small! Maybe 14-16″ wide total, and about 2′ long or so. Plus it folds even with the weaving project on it, and fits easily into one of my tote bags. It’s awesome!
Side view. (The loom is in weaving position, and lies completely flat for warping).
Back view.
Front view.
And this is my mom’s jacket, that I’m making the scarf to match. (The green one on the right).
In about 2 hours at Maaike’s last night I managed to warp the loom and weave 5″ before coming home. This morning I sat on the couch while the boys played and in about an hour got up to 20″ out of the total 66″. I’d have more to show tonight but I need to get some work done for my actual day job that has a deadline so I can’t put it off. That said, I plan on weaving more tomorrow…
Knitting away on Henri’s Spidey Blanket (yes, the one I started July 23rd 2009, shaddup) by the Christmas tree like a good little Jewish girl while I wait for my mom to come babysit and Maaike to pick me up so we can meet Yannick at Colette’s studio so I can get a LOOM!
Ahhh!
It’s 3:30pm. I’ve completed 5 bath puffs and washcloths, and have to crochet 5 soap saver sachets and a baby blanket by tomorrow morning. None of which are started yet. And I’m maybekindasorta high on pain killers (I’ve got strep AGAIN) and I’m also mildly allergic to them so I have to keep stopping to scratch. Woooooo…….
A- his wife gets fed up while knitting him socks!
I’m going to have a lot of knitting time on Sunday and need to finish the first sock of Yannick’s latest pair, or at least get past the heel, so I can have him try it on and make sure the length is good before I make the second one.
I had his basic sock recipe all figured out but I recently switched toe methods and don’t know if the new method has the same number of rows as the previous (figure-8 cast-on and increases for toe-up VS standard short-row toe-up toe with waste yarn. I like both methods but didn’t have waste yarn with me when I cast these on).
I think I’m at the heel point now…finally!
Ps: the yarn is regular sock yarn, Drops Fabel Superwash knit on 2.5mm Lace Addis magic-loop style. I bought this yarn deliberately for socks for Yannick on one of my first trips to the sadly-gone Ariadne yarn shop.
Here’s a quick preview of a little something my sister and I whipped up this week. I’ll post more pics, along with details, later this week.
(This is getting posted after midnight but its for Wed).
I didn’t go to work today. Yesterday I visited my surgeon, and for the 4th time since April we played a little game I like to call “find the hernia(s)”. It involves him poking and prodding all parts of my belly while I either stand or lie down, neither position seeming to help in either finding the hernia, or hurting me less. I leave these visits feeling battered and bruised, and rather dejected.
I wasn’t able to sleep last night, so, tired, and still sore, I stayed home. (I picked a good day for that, cus Yannick only installed my winter tires tonight!)
I know I have projects on the go: my Linden only needs 1.25 sleeves and a border, the HABS cloth only needs a test knit of the medium size, etc…
But I wanted something else to work on. The crafty equivalent of comfort food. And I found it.
Meet Epic Granny 01.
I finally figured out what to do with my yarn ball!
The yarn ball is a big (6″ diameter) ball of yarn to which I tie on a new strand every time I finish a project, assuming there is yarn left over. I’ve been trying to think of a project for it, but nothing appealed to me. This is it!
I rewound the ball so the outer strand was the oldest yarn. I started knitting/crocheting again back in 2000, but the oldest yarn in the ball was a green placket neck sweater I’d knit for Jakob and finished just before he was born. I finished the project in May 2007, and my project list tells me that no other project was finished earlier in that May. Perfect!
I took a 4mm crochet hook, cus I know that I tend to work most often with fingering through worsted yarns, and cast on for a granny square.
I’m going to make squares about 12″ square. (This one is about that). When I have enough squares to make a blanket-sized rectangle I’m going to sew them together and to a sheet backing. After Yannick’s suggestion I’m going to embroider the backing with the dates of the projects contained within. So this blanket will say “May 2007-” whenever I finish it. Then I’ll start another one, and keep going.
The blankets will be a reminder of all the projects I’ve done. I’ve already had fun reminiscing about the different projects as their yarns come up.
I was worried about what the effect would be of all the different yarns together, but I really like it so far. It’s scrappy and colorful and reminds me of the scrap quilts Yannick’s grandmother had made.
So one day I will leave behind these scrappy blankets…my “epic” grannies. I call them epic because as long as I keep crafting, there will always be more scraps to attach, and this project will go on forever.
jeloca.com 