Taueret

Book report: Weaving Un-loomed

It's been a long time since I did a book report here!  Since I have a HUGE backlog of crafty books that I would like to write a little something about, eventually, I had better make a start.  Let's try for one a week (ha, remember last time I said that?).  Remember that I deliberately do not refer to these little articles as "reviews"- mainly because I will only talk about a book or other resource if I like it.  Too many good things out there to waste time talking about the so-so.  I have no desire to offer critiques (generally), but to let you know of some cool resources that I have enjoyed.

Because I have been obsessed with metalwork recently, it only seems natural that the first book I should tell you about is on weaving (! ok, ok.  I still love weaving- I just haven't been doing any lately.).

Weaving Un-Loomed (subtitled "simple ways to weave cool things") by Diane Gilleland aka Sister Diane of Craftypod (@SisterDiane on Twitter) is an ebook (pdf format) for those of us who love to weave but have something on all our looms, yet also have the burning desire to start (and complete) a fun, small project.  It is for those of us with kids, bored in a house full of craft supplies, yet with "nothing to do".  For those with yarn (or paper, or ribbon, or...) and the itch to make something unconventional with it.  For those with gift lists to fill.  With clothing (or linen, or...) to embellish- you get the picture. There is something for everyone here.

_{magazine page jewelry...}

 If you already weave, this ebook will delight you with its fresh, original approach to your craft.  If you like the look of handwoven fabric but are intimidated by the unfamiliarity and seeming complexity of  looms, Sister Diane will introduce you painlessly to the terminology of weaving, and by the time you have completed a project or two from the options in this book, you will be thoroughly inducted into the deceptively simple magic of warp and weft, ready to go in any direction your heart desires with it.

_{clear introduction to the arcana of weaving terminology}

Readers who are familiar with Sister Diane's blog and podcast already know that she always presents projects that are simple enough for anyone to accomplish- but at the same time her own meticulous attention to finishing and detail show how spectacular these "simple" projects can be in their finished form, when executed with a good eye and care.

Projects in the ebook include placemats, jewelry, a cushion, and a fabulous tote.  The jewelry and the tote are my favourites, closely followed by the ADORABLE applique weaving (why did I not think of that??) which my girls clamour for every time they see it on my computer screen.

_{applique hearts... woven right onto the garment.}

In addition to clear, step-by-step instructions for each project, with many beautiful and well-chosen photographs and diagrams, each project has a single-page, printer-friendly summary sheet (a "recipe", if you like) to print out and carry in around with you while working on your weaving. Genius!

If you would like to check out Sister Diane's style of writing and presentation and try a free sample project, head over here.  The ebook itself is in pdf format, and is 60 pages long.  It contains 5 projects (not including the free sample project- so 6 in all).  The editorial and production standards of this ebook are as high as or higher than those of conventionally-published craft books, it is a pleasure to read, look at and take inspiration from.

Icarus is kicking my butt.

Dear Typepad.  If you are going to have an iPhone app, could you please make sure that it works and I don't waste an hour composing a blog post on the phone, only to have it fail to upload for no apparent reason?  That kind of thing makes me cranky.  Thanks so much.

What I said, the wit and beauty of my language... is lost forever.  heh heh.  I will try to recreate the gist of it ;-).

Knitting hats til I ran out of puff gave me the opportunity to try a few more challenging stitch patterns.  My past experiences with lace have all been tragic, I am usually hopelessly lost by row 2, no matter how I try, how hard I count, how many stitch markers I employ.  The last couple of hats had lace and came out okay, so I decided to do something I've longed to do for years, and cast on a worsted weight version of Icarus.  Why worsted weight?  I just love the way lace looks in heavier yarns. Why Icarus?  It's pretty, I have the pattern already, and it's purported to be a good first lace project (ha, I have heard that one before ;-)) Somebunnyslove has knit several lace shawls in heavier yarns than the original design used and I love the results.  So, I cast on. 

After ripping out the entire first 30 or so rows several times, I learned how to use a lifeline.  It's like clicking "save".  Hooray.  Then, I totally did that thing where you drop down several rows and reknit correctly from the laddered stitches for the first time.  It worked!  Then, I had to rip all that fixing out when I realised that my columns of yarnovers were branching off in THE WRONG PLACE.  Doh.  That means I learned why there is a stitch marker placed on either side of the centre stitch.  In spite of all this (and I am only on the "easy" part- not even the lacy border yet) I am persevering.  Here's evidence:

I've had time to knit the last couple of days because my 15 year old has two teenaged houseguests (he's spent many many nights at their place so it really is my turn), and the younger one likes to spend 6 hours or more a day in the pool.  Which means my girls want to as well.  Which means I am on lifeguard duty all that time.  Which means I get to knit.  I'm not getting anything else done, but I do get to knit.

I also have done a little weaving.  I've been trying to bring a freeform feel to a fairly twee colour and yarn combination by adding strips of torn silk fabric and varying the treadling in what I think is a point twill threading.  Darn, that photo is still "out there" from my attempt to blog from my phone last night.  I'll upload it later.

Look at me being festive.

I got a full-width warp onto the floor loom, with the idea that I'd have fun doing some Saori-inspired freeform stuff.  But I didn't, and I don't much care for what I did instead:

So I guess I cut it off and call it a sample.  Somehow the freeform mixed weft etc only looks right to me in plain weave.  This is threaded 1234321 so I don't know what to do next! (Someone said they wanted to hear about my failures? well... ).

Anyway.  I also had a delusion that I'd make each of the girls and my nephew a quick quilt for Xmas.  None of the little ones have quilts, I kind of stopped making them when middle girl was born.  I cut out the 95 million squares (they're going to be more or less i-spy quilts) and now I have to sit down and piece them.  Maybe tomorrow.

 Lately I have been thinking that I want to make THE HOLIDAY SEASON fun for my kids- rather than just have a stressful countdown to one morning of greed followed by anticlimax.  Lo and behold, this blog is all about that very idea.  We're going to do Sister Diane's salt dough ornaments one day soon.  Today we baked Pfefferneusen and made the dough for ...I forget --ukrainain honey cookies (see photo below for reactions to the baking experience)? 

Christmas in Australia is weird (seems weird to me, having spent my childhood in the snowy northern hemisphere).  It's hot.  All the foods I associate with holidays are inappropriate here, in December.  We still eat them, as do many birthright Aussies, but it always seems crazy to be roasting beef (in our case) when it's 40 degrees C out.  Here in exile, especially with my mum gone, and my dad and his wife mostly having chosen to spend Xmas as far away from the kids and grandkids as they could get, it's become a time of year that just isn't that joyous for me. 

But since I have these kids, I am TRYING to make my own way now, make some traditions that they may one day find they have fond memories of, although they are in no way derived from any holiday traditions in my family, which were mostly based around extended family.  It's hard work but I'm hoping that some of these practices may gain momentum and start to take on a life of their own.  Already my 5 year old is saying that she wants things to be "the same as last Christmas" which I guess is nice.  So, we are having the same things, but adding a few new ones too to see if any stick.

FO: Handspun, handwoven mobius wrap

The fabric I was weaving in my last post waffled up nicely when I washed it and dried it, so that was a good idea.

 It also came out several inches shorter than I really expected it to- a tad short for a 'throw around the shoulders' wrap, but I thought the perfect length for a mobius wrap! Terri suggested a flat felled seam to join the strip into a mobius, and so it was done!  I managed to stab myself in the lip with a needle whilst sewing up (!  embarrassing!) but nonetheless survived. (but showing my son's face while reluctantly modelling would prove fatal!)

I really like the way this came out.

Of course baby L said "Do it to me too!" as soon as R stalked back inside:

10,000 hours

I've been listening to an unabridged audiobook version of Malcolm Gladwell's most recent book "Outliers".  Super, super interesting, and he has a way of explaining things that even I can follow.  If you have Audible credits to spend, I highly recommend it.  One major point he makes early in the book (in a nutshell) is that to become good at something- really good, virtuoso good, you "only" have to spend 10,000 hours practicing it.  Talent or IQ matters little, above a certain modest threshold.  What counts is the amount of time spent in pursuit.  Whether it's music (he uses the Beatles and Mozart as examples and explains each), sport, technology- whatever- it's that 10,000 hours that matters.  That boils down to 3-4 hours a day for about 10 years.  So you know- as that applies to weaving... huh!  Interesting eh.  What do you virtuoso weavers think of the 10,000 hour thing?  Does your experience bear it out?  I feel a bit better since I imagine I am still at the 50-100 hour mark, so shouldn't expect too much.  There is loads of other fascinating, eye opening stuff in this book and I really recommend it, the 10,000 hour thing is just one nugget.

(You may be aware that some ISPs in the USA are talking about introducing bandwidth caps for your home broadband.  You’d be cut off or “shaped” (slowed down) after you hit the cap.  The caps I have heard bandied about are like 250 G.  Here, in Australia, we are all capped.  We pay for “unlimited bandwidth” but guess how much that means?  A Massive 25 G.  Yes 25.   This month we have exceeded our cap and we are choked currently down to slower-than-dialup speed.  3G on my iphone is faster!  So the photo content in this post may be small).

Anywhoo, I did get a warp onto my floor loom that didn't go *horribly* awry.  It's not super fine weaving yarn and it's only as long as my project but hey.

 

I spun this yarn last year (?) and really love it.  I started to knit with it and was unsure if I’d have enough for a wrap, which is what I want, so I decided to weave instead using it as weft.  I am loving this- I know it wouldn't be to everyone’s taste but it is to mine and it makes me happy.  I’m using a simple 4 shaft waffle weave (same as for the towels I made a while back on the table loom).  I think the texture will barely show in the highly textured yarn but I thought it might give the wrap a kind of cushyness.  We’ll see! 

 

I am looking forward to receiving the present that I suspect may be coming my way- look what was in the post the other day! 

So my back to front warping woes may soon be at an end.  After I spend that crucial 10,000 hours practicing of course.

exhale.

Well, I'm going through one of my 'why blog' phases. Seems like everything I touch creatively turns to poo- and finding time to perform even that  noxious alchemy is nigh impossible.  My warps- my fine warps anyway, have just been horrible.  I need to go back to basics.  I need a video that shows warping back to front (suggestions?).  I need to just put a fat warp on SOME loom, even my rigid heddle and just weave something that I think is beautiful.

Instead, I've been lurching through the end-of the-school-year shuffle.  My 5 year old, my baby was the main character in her school play.  A cast of nearly 600 kids and they had to pick my tiny little kid to be up there, talking and singing and being cute.  It sounds nice but it wasn't, it was horrible.  She was awesome- but I swear it took 10 years off my life.  Rehersals for this "spectacular" (and it really was) have taken up so much of her year- and I have worried about it every minute.  It just seems like a LOT of responsibility for someone who can't tie her shoes to have on her shoulders.  That all sounds so negative.  Sorry.  She was awesome and the play (all 4 showings to over 1000 people, apparently) was a huge success- but man!  Stressful.  When we get the dvd (the school is having a dvd produced, we weren't allowed to video) I might put  some clips on youtube for your amusement.

Her teacher is leaving the school to ascend to a deputy principal post in Sydney.  Great for her career, and she deserves it, but sad for our school.  A mum in T's class asked me, when we were lining up for the play, actually, if I had any ideas for a goodbye present.  I foolishly said "how about a quilt".  Lickety split, can you guess what I've been working on since?  

Pretty funny- I haven't made a quilt in about 6 or 7 years but I am really enjoying the process.  We sneakily got the handprints of all 20 kids in the class (in green silkscreen paint) on squares of muslin/calico/homespun (depsnding on what you call it).  I'm embroidering the kids' first names across the palms of each hand, and then assembling it all into a lap quilt with some strip-pieced sashing in stacks of greens, oranges and yellows.  I guess I'll get everyone to hand stitch some of the quilting (or maybe sew on buttons as an embellishment?).  So many willing helpers, none of whom can sew!  It's all good, it's keeping me busy and maybe I'll be ready to try another linen warp when I'm done.

them that can't, organise.

Since I can't get time or space to 'do', I've been trying to get my workspace organised a bit better. 

This is all alien to me on a DNA level- my parents were/are really creative, intelligent people, and their studio, when they were stained glass artists was always an unspeakable mess.  I'm sure it was organised somehow, but it sure wasn't pretty.  Or clean.  My dad's workshop in later years was always literally piled from floor to ceiling with tools and bits, with only narrow walkways inbetween the piles of stuff.  I always thought it was lack of space, but these days he has a HUGE shed- several huge sheds, and it's the same.  Piles of crap everywhere.  He knows where everything is... but ugh.  I was always pretty much the same (how could I not be?) until relatively recent years - it still is a struggle.  I like a well organised space, but creating one isn't that intuitive for me.

Anyway.  Recent stash acquisition has left me needing to reevaluate my organisation.  I've gone from having more spinning stash and a few spare balls of yarn to having LOTS OF YARN and a couple giant bins...well and some bags and boxes...of spinning fibre.

After yesterday, here's where I'm "At" as they say:

I have been buying these large plastic bins with lids whenever I can afford a couple.  (Why is a plastic box with $0.02 worth of plastic in it around $20.00?  I don't get it!)  I finally settled on sorting my 'knitting' yarn (as opposed to weaving yarn, on cones) by fibre and then by colour. 

So there's a box with silk, a box with cotton/linen/bamboo/hemp, and the rest being animal fibre is sorted into red-orange-yellow in one box, green-blue in another, purple and pink in a third (for some reason I have a whole bin's worth or purples and pinks), and neutral shades in a last one.  Most of my yarn is smallish quantities of a ot of variety, because that's what I like to weave with.  I don't have much "sweater's worths" of yarns stashed.  I tended to just keep those out of the bins, since there are only maybe 3 lots.  Here's the corner with 'last' re-organisation's system more or less still intact. 

The floor loom takes a lot of space, but really- you don't tend to use the middle of the floor for storage anyway, so it's  good use of space.  Also, it's a workshop, not a store room, right? (my dad's never made space in his workshop to actually work, he always has to take whatever he's doing outside).  So, most of my yarn is out of shopping bags, and hopefully sorted usefully.  Somewhere in one of these pics is a basket of sock yarn (I didn't sort that into the 'general collection'), a big bin of Noro (it's speshul) and a huge bin of huge cones of weaving yarns.  If I had some shelves mounted on the wall I could have the cones of yarns on the shelves...would that be good or are bins better?  I do worry about pests and in a bin the moth flakes I toss in dont lose their mojo for a long time.

In the process of cleaning up, I found that I had *almost* a Liesl's worth of Paton's Jet in a really gorgeous tweed.  I decided to try knitting it in alternate rows with another variegated yarn in my stash and it looks *beautiful*.  I am amazed and so happy with it- I had started Liesl in a solid merino/angora blend that I picked up on sale at Bendigo Woolen Mills but it was just too foofy for me.  This is perfect:

 

aloo aloo?

I should apprentice myself out to some real weaver.  I just love the sleying of the reed and the heddle threadin'.  I'm sorry when it's over.

I sill do not know what this yarn is- I burned a bit and as far as I can make out, I was right that it is cellulose of some kind.  That's it.  It's kind of hairy, kind of slubby, and has little bits of vm caught up in it.  The thing it most resembles, to me, is aloo, but I am double-diddly sure it's *not* aloo, because it comes on gigantic cones, and the aloo yarn that I have seen is handspun only.  Maybe it's linen...or flax?  I do not know!

Anyway, the pleasure of sleying and heddle threadin; soon gave way to the heartbreak of trying to wind my beautiful warp onto the back beam:

from the back- lovely, right?

from the front- not so much:

That photo does not do the horror of tangled, wasted warp justice.  the left hand side had completely engulfed itself somehow- not to mention that the slight friction of the reed had surrounded some of the warp ends in a 'collar' of fluff that effectively matted several warp ends inextricably together.

I am so dejected.  Trying patiently to untangle and beam just an inch or two at a time, I finally had to give up on the leftmost few inches of warp- it had just gone crazy in some bizarre self-consuming way that defied untangling, even one thread at  a time.  Maybe warping back to front is better for finer warps?  I really don't know.

This is what I ended up with:

as you can see, even within that there are warp ends that broke and disappeared during the winding on.

I'm really starting to wonder how I am going to figure all this out!

look at me warping.

Years ago my identical twin nephews called out to me to come and see what they were doing.  When I got there, they stared hard at me and said "look at us winking, Auntie Hope".  Of course they weren't winking- not even blinking or squinting.  So it was, and remains, these 12 or so years later, quite funny.  Ok, funny to *me*.  These days, whenever anyone at our place says "look at me ---ing, Auntie Hope", it makes me laugh.  This would have to take the prize for the most pointless anecdote ever- but, well, look at you looking at me blogging.  I had to say something.

Anyway.  Look at me warping.  This is the finest yarn I have ever used to weave with (to do anything with, really).  I don't know what it is.  I keep meaning to burn a bit but then I forget.  It feels cellulosic,

and it's slightly uneven and slubby in what I consider a completely charming way.  It feels quite harsh and almost like grass to the touch.  I have a complete soft spot for the imperfect.  I did all the sett calculations ever so carefully (yarn is 42 wpi, so I will sett it at approx 20 epi in my 12 dpi reed- which should work sleyed as 2,1,2 all the way across.  I wanted a 15" weaving width, at 20 epi that's 300 warp ends.  I carefully wound my warp and after sleying, discovered that I only have 150.  HUH?  Who knows.  Tomorrow I'll do the other half.  One day I will make a warp that desn't go cockeyed (out of yarn I like- the variegated cotton warp of that waffle weave cloth went on perfectly, of course).

I feel guilty because I have a mighty 4 *FOUR* countem 4 shafts to play with now, but I crave seeing this woven up in  plain, plain beautiful tabby.  We'll see.

Today I also picked up the Xrays of my hand- breaching the seal on the envelope that forbids it, I opened the report and read that my bones and joint are in great shape "for my age".  So, my continuing pain must be in the soft tissue.  Hopefully now I can get the cortisone shot I went in asking for back in April (admittedly not the doctor's fault that it took me 6 months to get the Xrays done).  I really hope so anyway. 

more fundraising goodness.

The Ravelry group Knitters For Barack Obama (that is a link to Ravelry) is having another fundraising raffle soon.  The one that just closed went really well, with over 1700 tickets sold (not sure what that translates to in $$ raised, but it's a lot- and the timing couldn't be better. )  This time I've donated a larger wrap.   Here are a few pics.  The way the raffle works, you buy a ticket(s) for the prize(s) you wish to win.  So you are only competing with relatively few others.  If your'e not on Ravelry, you can still buy a ticket.  Just let me know and I'll let you know how- not only my prize but the many many other wonderful prizes will be well worth a look.