Ordinary Time

I'm now to the most time consuming part of weaving: the threading. Every piece of yarn on a floor loom needs to be threaded through an individual heddle. (Heddles are on the shafts and they determine when a piece of yarn is raised or lowered.) The blanket I'm weaving for B. and HC's wedding gift has something like 960 ends (or individual pieces of yarn) and is forty inches wide. This is not something I'll be able to finish in a couple of afternoons. It's actually already been a couple of afternoons and I'm four inches shy of the halfway mark.  Here is what the 16 inches that are threaded look like.  And here is what is left to do.  You can see all the yarn that is tied off behind the heddles. Pretty much all that empty space will be filled by the time I'm finished with the threading. It's always a relief to be able to start actually weaving, but because this piece is so wide, I'm anticipating the weaving portion having it's own challenges. This w...

I need to go back to some semblance of a schedule because it's the only way to stay sane while the world turns upside down. It's Monday, so we're going to talk to fiber.  I mentioned last week that I found myself compulsively combing wool and listening to books because I couldn't seem to do anything else. I feel as though I can begin to venture slowly into other things, but having started this project, I want to keep working on it. In just a few days, I have managed to comb 100 grams of fiber.  I'm looking forward to spinning this, not only because it will be fun, but because I can't really figure out where to store all of this, so it's currently on my studio table. I love spinning combed wool. The trouble with combing wool is that it creates a bit of waste as the combs pull out the too short pieces. This is what I'm left with after making a few little nests.  It's not necessarily bad (because I try to get out as much vegetable matter before I start)...

I've decided that one reason I have so many projects going at a time is that I still have something to work on if I finish a project and can't quite decide what to start next. There are so many ideas in my head that it can stop me in my tracks a bit while I decide which to choose.  When I finished spinning the yarn for The Dress, I didn't have a new project in the works. I had plenty of fiber and possibilities, but no clear direction. When I finally settled on something yesterday, I realized two things. One, that I hadn't really spun anything since last April or so. That felt like a really long hiatus. And two, spinning is good for my mental health. I'm at a point where I have to expend very little effort and it is a very soothing activity.  Here is what I decided to work on.  This is a silk/merino blend that came with my most recent wheel. I have over half a pound of it, so will make a pretty decent amount of yarn. I'd been putting off spinning it because I was...

How about something other than sewing?  Yesterday was a fiber workshop day and the participants and I did a little natural dyeing. I still had a bunch of goldenrod in the yard, so that is what we used. Here's how it turned out.  This is some Club Forest fleece that the same group and I washed a while back. It came out a really interesting yellowy-green color. There still seemed to be quite a bit of color in the pot, so I have another batch cooling. Since it is an exhaust batch, I anticipate it being a little lighter. It could make a nice gradient all spun up.  I also finished threading the loom and am on the last step before beginning to weave. I'm very excited to see what this looks like woven. And those socks I mentioned I was going to knit? Well, they're not socks anymore. When I bought the yarn, I guess I didn't look at the label carefully because it's a super wash wool. I don't know what I was thinking because I don't really care for super wash wool. Th...

It was kind of a busy afternoon, so I didn't get a chance to really work on a project, but I did a few things. I climbed a little hand dyed (it's light blue, but you can't tell) Shetland wool. (And just remember, you don't come here for the photography.) I finished the searches for my Polworth breed study sample and got it put in my binder. And decided on a new knitting project... using some yarn I bought a couple of years ago to knit a pair of socks.  What I'm really looking forward to is getting my hand painted warp on my loom and finally getting that woven. And because I like to have a vague sense of what I'm doing in each of my areas of interest, for spinning, I think I'm going to buckle down and finally get the rest of my breed samples spun. I'm kind of tired of having that hanging around. I've mentioned weaving and knitting, which leaves sewing when I'm ready to look at my machine again. When I made the muslin for the jacket, I only basted ...

I actually have some things to share with you. The first is that I (finally) have a functioning 12-shaft loom! After a year and a half, waiting three months for the parts I needed, this past weekend I spend quite a bit of time threading heddles on to the shafts. That would be 1500 heddles. I got pretty fast by the time I was done. J. helped hang the shafts back in the loom last night.  Those silver things are the heddles. It is what each end of the warp is threaded through. I'm very excited to start trying it out. But first I'm on sampling attempt number two of this potential fabric I'm supposedly making.  I also finished the winter hat I have been working on for months. (I'm the world's slowest knitter because I don't knit for very long at any one time.) Here's one side, but it is reversible, so here is the other side. It's made out of all handspun from batts I made myself. It fits and I like the way it looks, but... what I was hoping for was a hat that...

So it seems yesterday was Monday and when I didn't think I had anything to write, I could have shown the one and only thing I have worked on. Because I still don't have anything to write about, I'll show it to you even if it is Tuesday.  I have been knitting a hat for myself out of that yarn I spun from the batt I had made.  I really like how the increases look. Clearly, I have zero bandwidth for anything non-pony related, so this has been perfect. I had only a few increase rows left and am now on the part where I just knit 18 inches, going around and around and around. There is absolutely nothing that I need to count or think about. It's the perfect project for my current mental state.  If you're curious, this is the Musselburgh pattern by Ysolda Teague. There are a couple of things I really like about it. First, it's written for a lot of different gauges. You knit the first bit with the yarn and needles you want to use and then find your gauge. It makes the wh...

(Warning, this is long, even for me.) For several months, my yarn storage consisted of a pile on the floor of my studio closet. I had been looking for something specific, but because my yarn far exceeded the storage available, the only way to find what I was looking for was to dump it all on the ground. And there it sat. And sat and sat and sat. And I ignored it because I didn't want to just shove it all back in the cubbies without sorting it a bit first.  We'll, there's nothing like a new year to prod one into doing a little organizing, us there? So yesterday I took a deep breath and tacked the yarn problem. I got rid of nearly a full kitchen garbage bag's worth of yarn. There was just so much I was never going to use for one reason or another, that it made no sense to keep it.  And by getting rid of it, I mean I handed it to Y. saying she could have any of it she wanted. She was thrilled and happily carted it all up to her room. Everyone was happy.  This also meant it...