Summer reflections, and the one-stripe bag lives!

It's almost the end of the summer. How was yours? Mine was full of far more trial and tribulation than I'd hoped for (of course, who hopes for trouble? ;)), with golden moments fewer than I'd wish (but that's frequently true, too, isn't it?) ... and yet I still haven't fallen off the Craft or Bust wagon, which is a pretty darn notable achievement. Crafting despite crazy times and negative experiences isn't something I've been able to accomplish in recent years — until this year. So yay. That's my big positive accomplishment for the summer.

There's a smaller positive thing happening here at the end of the season, too. Summer's end is apparently inspiring me to dig out old UFOs (Unfinished Objects, in case anybody's going "What?") and work on them. One of them is the "one-stripe bag" I started last November — and hey, picking it up again before its anniversary is an accomplishment, too! ;)

Here it is on the loom, with various blue stripes of warp and sparkly silver and white crochet cotton as weft:


One of the things that took me forever was weaving the warp ends back into the fabric, which I did because I didn't want fringe, and at the time when I started this, I was still afraid of zigzag-stitching my handwovens.


Weaving in all those ends by hand got pretty tedious, but it does make a nice, clean, sturdy finished edge.
Even after I finished weaving in the ends, I was vaguely afraid to trim them off — as if the handwoven fabric would suddenly unravel if I did. (I know, it won't ... but the first time doing a thing is often a time of uncertainty. ;)) I wasn't entirely sure how I wanted to to sew the stripe together to magically turn it into a bag shape, either; the proportion between the handle and the bag depends on how you arrange the strip. (It sort of "spirals," with the two ends of the strip becoming the sides of the bag, and the center of the strip becoming the front and back of the bag and the shoulder strap.)

But with the Florida Fiber-In looming on the horizon, I kept thinking thoughts of bringing a handmade bag to show off. And so I got off my butt and just loosely whipstitched the thing together, telling myself, "I can always take out the stitching if I don't like the way it turns out!" So here's the result.


It looks a bit better on a person than on a door handle, but you get the idea. It's a little smaller than I wanted it to be, in my head, but that's okay, too. It's a good size for a casual walk — it'd fit a book, a small notebook, and maybe a small knitting project, which ain't bad.

More UFOs coming to a blog near you soon, maybe. And then maybe, in the newness of the new season, I'll feel inspired to start some new projects. :D

The final stage of the loom invasion: the backstrap loom

It's storming as I write this (just in case I'd forgotten in the past 24 hours that it's now hurricane season), but imagine with me, if you will, a balmy Florida afternoon: warm but not hot, a light breeze that keeps you from feeling the humidity, and clear blue skies above. That's what it was like outside when I remembered a couple of days ago that I hadn't checked the mail. Duh. But I wasn't expecting anything special — just the usual spam. Advertisements, local flyers, bills, that sort of thing. Instead, at the end of the mini walk to the mailbox on that lovely afternoon, I found this:


...which is the laser-cut backstrap loom that I "earned" by donating to the Open Source Loom project. Technically I knew it was coming, but I wasn't in a big rush to get it, since I wasn't sure what timeline the project was working on, and they have a ton of stuff to get off the ground, as they're still in the early development stage.

And this is what was inside:


Oooh, and there are even some wrapped-up bits. It's like Christmas!


Wrapped bits now unwrapped to reveal shuttles and the heddle.
Nom nom nom. It's so much prettier than I thought it would be! One of the coolest things about it is that while it was made with new-school technology (laser-cutting, woooo!), it's made of wood, and it smells like someone wood-burned it, which I associate with old-school technology.

The loom zipped from the project organizer, Margarita, to me so fast that she didn't even have time to put the assembly directions up on the Web site. Anyone have a clue what those bracket-shaped thingies do and where they go? ;)

And in a nice little coincidence (or synchronicity, if you prefer), I found out that there's a Mayan backstrap loom class — taught by someone of Mayan descent, no less — at the Dunedin Fine Arts Center, which is less than half an hour away. I see much backstrap weaving in my future...

The loom invasion continues: inkle arrival and first piece off the triloom

It took me three tries, but I finally got the hang of weaving on the new triangle loom. Here's a photo of Triloom Weaving Take Two in progress. If you look closely, you can see that I failed to alternate over-under, over-under in some of the vertically-oriented lines:


Since I'm doing the continuous weave method, is the screwed up bit warp or weft? Neither? Both? I'll go with weft, since the vertical yarn weaves around the existing horizontal yarn...
Even three sets of written directions couldn't quite make it clear to me what I should be doing — some directions told me that I needed to alternate this or that, or that the yarn needed to wrap around this but not the other ... It was a little like reading sewing pattern directions, but without diagrams to study.

Then I remembered YouTube. And voila! A triangle-weaving video from Hazel of Hazel Rose Looms saved the day.


Third time's the charm! Finally finished a whole triangle without ripping it out.
And here's the finished triangle off the loom:


I did the crochet-chain finish across the top (of which you can see a tiny bit in this photo), and left the short sides unfinished. The finished fabric has lovely drape, doesn't it? Cheers for recycled linen yarn and an open weave. On the other hand, it came out a little small — 28" across the top and 26" on the sides — possibly from a combination of the open weave, the fabric's bias shrinkage off the loom, and the tightness of the weaving. (I tried not too weave it too tightly, but maybe I did, anyway.)

But it was just big enough to wear as a head scarf.


I'm not entirely sure I like how head scarves look on me. My round half-Asian face plus round forehead is not particularly flattered by this look, I think.
Now I'm not sure whether to make another piece or few and attach them to make this into a larger item, or just keep it as a head scarf that will probably sit in the head scarf basket with all my other abandoned head scarves. Thoughts?

Oh, and I almost forgot! Photos of the newest loomy arrival, my inkle loom:




Lynne, the previous owner, kindly did some example warps on the loom for me.
It was the previous owner's first inkle loom, and now it's my first. Welcome, new inkle thing. I'll tackle you next.

New crafty denizen: the 30" triloom!

I present to you (drumroll!) my newest loomy acquirement, the 30" fine-sett triloom! (Possible duh: That's short for "triangle loom.")



(And here's a less angle-y photo. ;))



You may be aware that First Mate Brian attempted to make a triloom for me a while back, but neglected to commit to all the finicky details like doing math and counting nail marks ;), and consequently abandoned the project, convinced that he was incapable. The wonked-up product of said attempt is still hanging neglected in the laundry room, but I'll save the poor mutant triloom embarrassment by not showing photos of it until I've rescued it (and I WILL, oh, I will...).

Anyway, some time ago I discovered the TriLoom list on Yahoogroups — which led to Brian building me a square loom (and here it is with yarn on it) from frame parts we picked up at Jo-Ann. The dear TriLoomers have been feeding my triangle loom craving ever since. (And also my craving for a rectangle loom like the one in this Youtube video. The loom stash is taking over ... but I'll never have more looms than pairs of shoes.) And finally, FINALLY, I have a working triloom, care of Hideaway Homestead, which has nice, inexpensive plywood triloom kits. I wanted the 3-foot loom, and this one is 30", but oh, well. I'll just have to get another one! ;D

Now the question is, what the heck do I make with it? Last night as I was lying in bed, I remembered the equation for finding the hypotenuse of a triangle ... but I failed to remember how to solve it. Sigh. Once I give in and look it up (I feel like a loser, not being able to remember something I could do in five seconds ten years ago ;)) I'll know whether two triloom triangles will cover one side of the big square pillow forms that currently sit naked on the futon. But I'm thinking a triangle with a 30" hypotenuse should do fine for making myself a head scarf. That means I'll have to start wearing them again this summer, but I can manage that, right?

Off to explore, anyway. Wish me luck with the new loom — and wish my new inkle loom a swift and safe passage as it makes its way to my front porch. :D The loom invasion continues...

Pink and white and everything light

Still shaking off the effects of last week's craft malaise, at least as far as mood goes. All hail Silver Grumpyhead. ;) Grumpy or no, I made myself craft yesterday. There's another art yarn off the wheel and waiting to be photographed; I started spinning a new yarn with the last of a batt from Spazzy Yarns; I knit a couple of rows on the Wandering Woman/TwitKAL shawl; and I wove a square on the long-abandoned SharpTooth frame loom. (We really need to file down the nails on that thing. The Brian snipped the heads off them thinking that would make it easier for me to slip the yarn off the loom ... but it also makes it easier for me to scratch the crap out of my hands. Yayyy.)





For some reason, I have a pastel thing going on right now, hence the title of this post. I'm not really a pastel person, which is probably why that stuff accumulates in my stash — what pastels do enter my crafty sphere of existence stay there because I don't really want to use them. DOH. Then when I'm experimenting or practicing, I DO use them, since I don't care about it if I mess them up a bit ... so my practice stuff all looks insipid. I need to not do that. ;) Note to self: Put pastels with brights, not with other pastels.

At least it's spring, so my pastels are in season.

By the way, for those who do like pastels, rock on and power to you. I'm not saying they're Morally Degraded or Soulless. They're just not very me. Maybe I should donate my pastels to people who like them?

Crafters rising: chain mail and handwoven scarves

Brian and I have been busy and not-busy, in a way. Brian has been developing new chain mail products without actually making many new pieces to actually sell. We do have these new glow-in-the-dark chain mail bracelets in the Etsy shop, which would make great Halloween jewelry and are pretty even when the glow stick stops glowing:




But he's also been working on other chain mail accessories, like this cool wrapped bottle (which someone at Dragon*Con called a "poison bottle"):


We don't have any of those in the shop yet, but soon ... soon.

For my part, I've been weaving stash scarves (meaning, I've been trying to use up the random bits and pieces of stuff in my yarn stash). I finished this scarf at the Florida Fiber-In:







The warp is Bernat Handicrafter Cotton Stripes, and the weft is the same plus some Lion Brand Homespun.

Then I started this scarf at the Fiber-In, and finished it today:





The warp is Lion Brand Microspun, and the weft is some worsted-weight cotton/rayon blend that was separated from its ball band, plus shots of two types of eyelash yarns and some more Microspun.

Both scarves were made on my Cricket loom. Weaving is awesome because it's fast and easy to make attractive fabric, but it's actually kinda inefficient for destashing: I still have leftovers of every single one of those yarns. Oh, well. I'll just have to weave some more scarves. ;)

I also have a Cunning Plan in the works. If all goes according to it, I should be crafting a lot more in the coming months, and doing a few craft shows. I'm finally tired of waiting. It's for-real crafter time.

Scarves and Yarn

Just some photos of things I've been doing. More later.

Low-twist singles spun from custom Flying Ewe batts


Better photo of the first scarf I wove on the Cricket loom


Second scarf woven on my Cricket loom

Tour de Fleece, Day 6; and my new Cricket loom!

My Cricket is finally HERE!

Warping it was way, way easier than warping the cheap but bigger rigid heddle I bought a while ago. Meridith of SweetKnits even sent me some nicely-matching yarn to replace the handspun she was going to send along originally (it was an angora blend, so I had to turn it down), and it's on the loom right now. I thought it would take me at least an hour to warp this thing, since it took an appallingly long time (four or more hours?) to warp the monster rigid heddle even with Brian's help ... but I think this took me way less than an hour. Yay, Schacht, for sending good warping directions!

I am, alas, too lazy to take a good photo of the loom itself right now, but here's what's on it at the moment:



And — all right — if I must share my crappy first photo of the Cricket, here it is:



The Cricket and I were bonding, and I didn't want to leave it to spin for Tour de Fleece, but Le Tour is Le Tour. Somehow, using my drop spindle seemed like it would be less intensive than sitting at the wheel, so my poor, abandoned possibly-Greensleeves spins again:



If I remember correctly, that's some Colonial wool I got from Uncommon Threads.

And in case anyone was wondering, last night's test knitting was cursed. First, I couldn't find the pattern, even though I thought I had specifically put it into the bag with the knitting so I wouldn't lose it — it turned out that I had put a different piece of paper in there, that I just thought was the pattern. Sigh. Then when I tried to print a new copy of the pattern, the printer jammed about four times. There must be a tiny piece of paper stuck in there that I won't be able to get out without taking the thing apart. Sigh, I say, again. Then I had to go to bed, since there's still that pesky office job thing going on. The test knitting was just not fated for success yesterday.

Still, that and today's unhinged day at work set me up to receive the Cricket loom tonight, and my first Super-Awesome Bag of Crap swap from the Ravelry Spin or Dye Swapping group:



Those little balls of pencil roving are so very soft, and the chocolates are so very good (and I'm pretty picky about chocolate) ... This is a most awesome bag of crap. It was almost worth having a crappy day to get that and the loom and my new Harmony needles and blocking boards from Knit Picks all on the same day.

Oh. And. I gave in and bought some books from Interweave's Hurt Book Sale. I should really stop buying random things ... but ... but...

But they're useful...?

Tour de Fleece, Day 5

Not much visible progress in today's Tour de Fleece spinning: I got to the other end of the bobbin! Yay! But I only spun for half an hour, as I want to play with the Weave-It and work on the Phoenix Bess test some more.



But I did make a sparkly green square on the Weave-It last night. It took me about half an hour to do this one, but it was my first time using a small loom in a while.



My second square, made of white bamboo yarn, took a little more than 20 minutes. If practice makes faster, maybe someday I'll be able to do four in an hour. Ha!

Note to self: blocking is good

There are a couple of steps along the way to a finished product that I always dislike. For sewing, I dislike having to pin seams before I sew them -- but sometimes it reeeaaally helps. In knitting, I dislike blocking. Annoyingly, it looks a lot like pinning pattern pieces for a sewn object, which I kind of enjoy ... but pinning pieces to block takes me like four times longer than pinning pattern pieces. Oysh!

I can hear Brian outside, sawing wood for my tri-loom. I hope it doesn't frustrate him too much. ;) If I'm super lucky, maybe I'll have a tri-loom by the end of the weekend. If I'm super realistic, I should have a tri-loom shortly after the end of the Florida Renaissance Festival ... which ends in March. Yeah.

Well, at least I'll have one...? ;)

Next up: sewing seams. Which I really enjoy in sewing, and rather dislike in knitting. But not as much as I dislike blocking. ;)

Deal Day

Sometimes, there are days that demand to be money-out days. ;) Sales are flighty things; I have an inconsistent history of attendance at the really great ones, mostly due to scheduling conflicts. Today I walked right into Jo-Ann's Firefly Frenzy, just looking for a couple of skeins of embroidery floss, a touch of ribbon, and a memo pad; and I walked out with several pounds of fabric remnants. Oops. ;) But they were 75% off and were thus flagging down my eye kept out for potential summer clothes fabrics...

I'm apparently also about to buy a rigid heddle loom. Eep! That was next on the list of crafty things to buy when funds cooperate, and I think $30, including shipping, for a vintage but unused 20" rigid heddle is quite cooperative, really. ::crosses fingers that it cooperates when it gets here, too::

I made a belt!

I finally dug out the straw weaver I picked up out of curiosity, and made myself a belt! Woo! Now I can give Brian's back to him and still have something handwoven to keep my slippery silk robe shut. :D The belt is worsted weight cotton for the wrapping yarn, and doubled strands of the same cotton (in a different color) for the filler cord. I ought to have made the thing a teense longer -- I knew I was going to do that ;) -- but it functions, or at least ties around my waist. I have yet to test it on the actual robe it was meant for.

The entire thing took me about two hours. Whew. The next one will be quicker (assuming I manage to convince myself to make a next one; my track record of repeating fairly easy tasks isn't good ;)), probably; and I can think of a lot of neat things I could do to make future belts fancier...

Woven eye candy

My first tote bag off the square loom:



I like it. :D I'm thinking of having Brian make me a larger square loom so I can make bigger tote bags without seaming smaller squares, but we'll see.

There's a brightsummery tote bag picture coming along sometime soon, too.

Weaving three-stranded

It's a little more strenuous than weaving single-stranded, at least on the square loom, but still nowhere near tedious. It looks quite nice, too. :D



I'm using three strands of worsted-weight cotton. The front is cream, pink, and orange, and the back will be pink, variegated pink and white, and orange, because I don't have enough cream to finish another square. The effect is much the same, anyway. :D

The squares won't be big enough on their own to meet the tote bag size requirement for this swap, so I think I'm going to end up doing some picking up and knitting, and I may use this opportunity to try the "belt weaver" thingie I picked up from Jo-Ann on a whim, to see if it will make a decent strap, too. This swap probably won't go out this week, but hey, at least it will contain an awesome bag. ;D

(Unrelated, but just in case my swap partner is watching, I haven't forgotten my Spin to Knit Orphan Handspun downstream partner, either! That package will probably go out next week, too. ;D)

Riddikulus!

...Okay, it didn't turn my giant stash or pile of projects into something sillier (though one could argue the giganto-ness of both is pretty silly to begin with; maybe that's why it didn't work ;)), but it was worth a shot. Many times many updates today.

First, weaving: I tried out the 12-inch square loom last night. It's super-easy and fast, and now after looking at all the idiotically pretty pictures in the TriLoom gallery, I want a triangle loom. I really really want a triangle loom. I want to make crazy woven pretties with the pre-warp and cut length stuffs.



That's the first square I made, still on the loom. I made three last night, in Wool-Ease (worsted weight, which I never noticed was so uneven in weight till I saw it in the open weave), and so far one today. Still no real idea what I'm going to do with them. A wrap? A pillow? They're pretty lacy, and I'm not entirely sure whether washing them will take care of that, or what will. More research to be done.

I think I'll try to make a tote bag on the square loom today, since I'm supposed to make a bag for the mildly late Earth Mother's Day swap.

You can also see in the above picture that the table is still swamped by my piles of wool to be processed, but I did make it through the short-staple hand-carded bits last night, and it worked much better than before. Whew. Plus it got out a huge amount of VM, which is a wonderful fringe benefit. I only have one little bag of that left to card ... and I should be done with it just in time for the next two destash boxes to arrive. Eep. ;) I'm upgrading with these next two boxes, and I got them for less than the first box, entertainingly enough: one box is silk/Merino laps, and the other is pre-dyed fiber that needs carding. I also need another processed batts box, as I seem to have reached capacity on the other one without squishings going on.

In more wool (or at least fiber) processing news, I love the Spindlers list. I asked how to dehair llama by hand, and behold! An answer is given. So probably as soon as I know whether to wash it before I try to dehair it, I'll embark on that project, so I can card (or comb) the nice llama.

Finally, there was a contest being held at UFO Knit Club, and apparently ... I won. As you can see from my comment there, this baffles me somewhat. ;) I can't decide now whether to ask for spinning fiber or knitting stuff, since I do both. I'm marginally leaning toward spinning fiber, but it does kind of depend on what spinning stuff it is vs. what knitting stuff it is...

New loom incoming! ;D

Or at least Brian is finally making me my 12-inch square loom. He started on it yesterday before he went to Quinn's bachelor party, and stained it today. On the way to pick up nails for it, he went, "I don't know why I didn't just knock this out before. That was like, nothing." And I said his punishment may be to make me a bunch more, like maybe a three-foot tri-loom, or something. (I still wish I could find something that would easily turn into a four-inch square loom, too.)

Brian also has some ideas for cool incense burners which, if I can convince him to actually follow through, I'll probably sell for him online. :D

Anyway, I'll have a new loom soon! Huzzah!