Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Houndstooth and more....

I got to weave most of Saturday and Sunday afternoon last weekend. In between while resting my shoulders and neck I worked on kumihimo. Choosing different fibers and colors to put together is fun and it's restful and soothing to work on. You don't have to think, your fingers just move and a beautiful braid is finished before you know it. I taught my 8 year old granddaughter when she spent the night Friday and she's doing an "Auburn" braid. I finished three Houndstooth scarves and a 104" yellow table runner and am working on a varigated tablerunner in fall colors. I'm trying to get that warp off so I can put tencel shawls on. October will be here before I know it. I'll put pictures of the blue shawls, houndstooth and runners soon.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Blue is through!

I breezed through the blue scarves , listening to books on tape, weaving each one with a different weft. Monday I wound spools for a black and white alpaca warp, put it on the loom and threaded it Tuesday and Wednesday. I have been listening to a book on tape called "The Friday Night Knitting Club" which was a fun read. Last year after weaving two Houndstooth scarves of alpaca and the rest in stripes, I found out that Bear Bryant wore Houndstooth and everyone at the University of Alabama loves it! Why didn't someone tell me that years ago??? It also happened to be back in style again last fall. I started weaving houndstooth scarves this evening. They require 20 ends per inch which is 40 spools to be wound. The other scarves I have been doing have had around 10 ends per inch with larger threads and are done in plain weave. Houndstooth is a twill pattern, changing from black to white every four throws of the shuttles, using two shuttles instead of one, so it is a more complicated pattern. Alpaca is a wonderful yarn, soft, warm, waterproof and what I use is from Peru.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Goings On....




Wow, it's been over a month since I've posted anything. I have done "some" weaving and have managed to get the red scarf warp woven off. I took pictures last Saturday but someone cut our internet wires so I'm just now getting back to finishing this posting. I'm not too happy with the pictures but... I did every scarf a little bit different with a little bit of "bling" in the last one, a tiny thread of red lurex that gives a sparkle to the scarf. Blue is up next which was wound, warped and one scarf partially woven last weekend. That's as far as I've gotten. It's been so hot that it's been hard to weave so I've been working on some beading. I started a neckpiece probably three years ago that I hadn't worked on for at least two years but picked it up and started working on it yesterday. I also did a necklace with the St. Petersburg stitch which for some reason is my favorite beading stitch. Beading is really quite meditative and I can do it while listening to a book on tape while Bob is watching a ballgame or Nascar. I'm hoping Bob will work on the weave loom this Fourth of July weekend so we can get it up and running.

At the end of June we went to a Fiber Gathering in Cullman, AL. Weavers from all over Alabama were invited and I think we came from furthest away, three hours to get there, three hours there and three hours back. It was held in a farm museum with no airconditioning and was HOT, but a lot of fun. I think there were 30 of us plus quite a few husbands, from Cullman, B'ham, Huntsville, Boaz, Gadsden and Auburn. Three Guilds had different techniques for us to try, mud painting, needle felting and kumihimo. What fun we had, like kids painting with mud. It was too hot for me to needle felt so I brought that really neat kit home to do later. I almost didn't try the kumihimo and it turned out to be so addicting that I'm still doing it. Basically it's a Japanese braiding technique and all needed is a hexagon shaped piece of cardboard with a hole in the middle and cuts in each section with 7 pieces of yarn tied together and pulled up from underneath. One piece of yarn goes in each slot with one empty. The third thread from the right is put into the empty hole, you turn the hexagon to the right and take the third thread from the right down to the empty slot, and continue. It's so easy a child could do it, but so relaxing. Nanette came over last Sunday and learned in about 3 minutes. It will work nicely in her scrumbling. Since I have so many yarns I could try different combinations forever to get a totally different look. Want some handcrafted shoestrings anyone? They even had doorprizes and I won one and Bob did too. Now he has a tool holder for his knitting needles (not) and I got a bag to hold fleece. I'm collecting Samson's hair so Sarah Hall can spin it for me when she gets her spinning wheel. By the way, Samson got his summer hair cut and we don't recognize him. If we had gotten his hair we could have probably had enough to spin and weave a coat LOL! Well, back to my beading.....