Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone had a wonderful gobble gobble. I sure gobbled...up everything in sight! My little stomach organ itself felt like it was going to burst. It was pretty disgusting, really.

This is that little rug I was working on at the rigid heddle. It came out pretty good. I used a bulky wool that I dyed this yummy red and threw some little color stripes in here and there. The color stripes are left over Lion Brand Landscapes. Then I tried to felt it a bit and puff the wool up to make it thicker and that was it.

I was thinking about putting it in front of the bathroom sink but I liked the way it looked on this stool better.


Check this out....this is so cool! I tried the whole tying the warp to a belt around your waist, etc. and my back just wanted none of it. So I started looking at websites looking for a card weaving loom and found this really helpful video about using your rigid heddle loom. I set mine up like this,... not exactly like the video but I have a different loom. It works great! No more back aches.

As the belt weaves, I wrap it over the breast beam and clamp it with these little clamps that I got from Home Depot. You just keep advancing as you go along. It's the bomb!

The rug on the 8 shaft is going very slow, but going. I screwed up on the sleying. Don't ask. However, it just means that the rug will take a while to finish and eat up a huge amount of costly 3 ply wool ... no big deal. No, not at all.

Was a happy camper

...when we were up at the Pioneer Day Festival in Barberville, FL. That was a lot of fun. Good music and lots of crafts. I got to meet the resident weaver, Steve. He was really nice. And above is Barbara the spinner, who was totally cool. I want to be her when I grow up. She had some good stories.

These are manatees that live in the spring at Blue Springs S.P. where we camped. See the ity wity babykins poopy doopy doops! Isn't he cute! He was so tiny (compared to all the others). It was chilly at night up there, but this time I did not freeze to death. Gerry took me to the HD and we got a lovely little space heater for the camper. That made all the difference.


This is the stash rug I was working on a while back. I'm not loving this at all. I was hoping for a more sporadic color combination and more knobby-ness, if that's even a word. Che liked it a lot, however, so I gave it to her. I'm going to weave a mat (smallish rug) next on the rigid heddle. I've got this white, bulky 3 ply wool that I have a ton of. It's like on an industrial size cone or something. I inherited it along with Kessy. I got some wine and tangerine Rit dye so I'll see what kind of damage I can do with this wool and dye.

This I am happy with! The colors came out just great. I love card weaving. This is from a pattern, but you can really go coo-coo with card weaving and come up with your own ideas. It's just a matter of how you turn the cards. Oooo that sounds very metaphorical, doesn't it?

Slower than slow cloth

...that should be a separate category for me. I weave like I went to college...changing majors every semester and now with weaving, changing designs every rug.


You probably can't see this very well, but this is my pattern so far. Not crazy about it. Not at all. Believe it or not, it's supposed to be a straight 2/2 twill, 12 pick color sequence. It looks like pancakes!

So I'm thinking of switching to this Krokbragd pattern from the book I just ordered, The Handweaver's Pattern Directory. Even though I've never done Krokbragd. How hard can it be? HA HA HA HA HA!!!! Well, we'll see. I'll do a little test run. I am sure that I want to add this yarn color...

My friend and I had a little dye fest up at her place. She made a big batch of this lusious Rit dye that we made by combining Wine and Tangerine. I dyed this yarn, originally natural color, and she dyed some baskets. They came out real pretty. I didn't even know you could dye baskets! Check out the Rit website. They give you formulas for different color combinations.

On the animal front....I don't know if I mentioned this, but I found this little turtle on the side of the road, after I watched a car hit him and send him flying. He's the little guy at the bottom of the pool. He is a red ear slider and not indigenous to Florida. So I brought him home and put him in the pond with big turtle. That was about a week ago. Now, he's not in the pond anymore. I hope Sammy didn't tell him to "get in ma belly!"

And here's a parting shot of Littleman's left buttock hanging off the chair.

My dyeing day

I measured out some of the natural color 3 ply yarn I bought at the Mannings. I am planning on using this in the next rug. Well, my original plan was to make it black. Black and white, or technically natural. And as you can see...

...it is gray. A sort of greenish gray. This is because I am a dummkopf. I had a little jar of Procion out and was reading the directions from that. But instead of using the Procion powder, which would make complete sense, I accidentally put the Dylon powder in the mix using the Procion directions. Yeah, we're talking Mensa material here. However, I really sort of liked the funky greeny gray and have decided to call this one of Marcel Duchamp's "happy accidents".

I love dyeing and now that the cooler weather, (i.e. the air is air once again instead of humidified liquid air), I can start dyeing in the garage. The problem is I must get my DH to get his crap out of the garage!!! There is a busted up awning, courtesy of Hurricane Wilma, that is still moldering in the garage. It's like he's attached in some strange way to this thing. And that's just the tip of the junk iceberg.

In this picture it looks more bluey/gray. Anyway this color has inspired a totally different design in my head. I'm thinking more of a quarter of the rug in gray 2/2 twill, morphing into a 12 pick color sequence and then into white. I'm loving the idea already and can't wait to get started. Unfortunately, I have to thread the heddles first. Poo.

Also, wanted to share this little book discovery. Got a copy of The Handweaver's Pattern Directory from the library. What a cool little book! It has all the basic 4 shaft weaving patterns with drafts and color suggestions. It is so clear and concise.

Mannings

I almost forgot...the class I took at the Mannings was wonderful! It was, "How to Use Your 8 Shaft Loom", taught by Thomas Knisely. He was totally cool and a good teacher.

Above is a view of the twill gamp we worked on. This is the first time I've done an 8 shaft pattern and it was so awesome to watch the pattern take shape. I ordered a copy of Strickler's book from the library. I'd like to try to do a table runner when I finish the rug I'm starting.

The whole experience was neat. There were 7 other weavers there. The first part of the class was drafting. Then after lunch we hit the looms ... table looms. I've never used a table loom before and it was nice. Of course the idea of purchasing one flitted briefly through my mind, but no. Must be good. I did go shopping after the class though. Bought a big cone of 3 ply yarn, new spindle, and 8/4 rug warp. I love the Mannings.

Let the food fest begin!

Yep, we're in PA. I've only been here 2 days and have already eaten pig in two or three culinary incarnations. Night one, BBQ pork sandwiches. Night two, ham and cabbage. And then something else yesterday but I can't remember. It wasn't ham balls though. I'll have to try ham balls before this vacation is over. We did split a pumpkin whoopie pie yesterday. That was pretty stinkin' good!

I love eating my way through the state of Pennsylvania. These people know how to eat! None of that sissy S. FL exotic fish or tropical dishes here...healthy garbage. Hell no! You're going to eat ham dammit! And beef. Good beef too. These people don't play.

Here are some Canadian geese. I love these guys. They're so pretty. We didn't eat them though.

Now, this was cool and no I didn't make this...ha! obviously. I couldn't quilt if my life depended on it. We went to the Long Park Arts and Crafts show yesterday in Lancaster. It was a lot of stuff I've seen before, but there were some artists that stood out. This lady was one of them. Ann Brauer was an incredible colorist. Her work was just beautiful! And she was super nice too.

I noticed at this festival that many of the artists and craftsmen seemed to hide a bit behind their booths. Ann wasn't like that at all. She was up front and friendly, which was smart. She was making sales. She had her bread and butter items out (like above) as well as her more expensive works.

Sorry, I just figured it had been a while since I mentioned ham. Anyway, I spoke to the only weaver there. His work was really pretty cool and he did rugs and tapestry...the same as I like to do. So I was truely interested and wanted to know about his work. His pieces were all warp face. He warps the loom in the colors/patterns he wants and then uses fiber (yarn or bamboo) bundles as the weft. So you know, the weft really doesn't matter...sort of like card weaving. Anyway, he's all chatty at first and I ask him what kind of loom he has and he says a Cranbrook. I say cool, I have an 8 shaft Kessenich and I weave rugs too....well that's where the conversation ended. Like abruptly. Ha ha! He just said "Thank you" curtly and walked away. I couldn't figure it out. What did I say? I just laughed. I don't know but I think, and I don't want to get flamed for this, but I know that many "arteests" have big egos. Add testosterone to that and it's all over baby. Plus when he realized I weave rugs, I probably wouldn't be buying anything from him, so he wasn't going to waste his time on me. I get the feeling that the artists / craftsmen had paid a lot for the booths at this show, and seemed to be just a hair bitter about it. I can't blame them really.

Well, more adventures today. Perhaps ham will be involved.

Loose ends

I'm trying to get my looms in order and ready to weave when I get back in two weeks. Haven't been doing much because thanks to hurricane Danielle and now Earl, there have been waves. We've surfed all weekend, and after the crummy flat summer and having to drive 2 hours up coast, it's been real nice to get some local action, so to speak.


I fixed the broken apron string. I hope this string holds, as it was a bit thinner than the string that was already on there.

Then a little Olde English lemon oil to spruce her up a bit. Changed the heddle to the 5 dent. So I'm ready to start that next rug when I get back.

Then onto the rigid heddle. I was starting to weave a sampler/wall hanging and I just wasn't feeling the love. So I cut it off. This is what's left. I started measuring out the warp for something I'd like to try when I get back. I want to play around with an idea for a rug using lots of stash yarn that I haven't used and can't see any use for in the immediate future. It's part of my clean up, break down, simplify, use it up "thing" that I'm going through. Or menopause...whatever you want to call it. Anyway, it should be neat. We'll see.


One of my art buddies, Larry, gave me this nifty little folding album. So I decided to make it a Sumi album. These things are cool but a little nerve racking because if you screw up a painting, it's stuck there in your album. You can't rip the page out because you're album will fall apart, which would be a bummer.

Van Gogh and the weavers

I was reading about Van Gogh last night from the DK Eyewitness Book series. It's a kid's book series. I love the Eyewitness books. Anyway, the book talked about Van Gogh in Nuenen and his interest in the weavers there. The town of Nuenen is in an area of the Netherlands called Brabant, ... "an area in which weaving had always been important, and Vincent felt compelled to illustrate these 'Brabant artisans' ". He painted many pictures of the weavers of Nuenen and sent them to his brother Theo to be sold. He told Theo to keep the drawings and paintings if they did not sell; writing, "It would rather disappoint me if you sent these little weavers back to me."

I had never heard of these drawings and paintings before. I love Van Gogh even more now!

This one is my favorite. See the baby in the high chair to the right?

And speaking of weaving...this is the finished band from my first card weaving endeavor. I really like the way the pattern came out. I just kind of flowed with it and let it go whatever way it was going to go.

I've been a bad bad weaver

Bad because I haven't been weaving. That's because the waves have been good. It has been so flat here for weeks. Lake Atlantic. But this past week finally a little push. So I've been neglecting my looms. But I've been exercising at least. Yeah, that's it... exercise. We all need that, right? There, now I don't feel so guilty. (Can't help it...Irish Catholic...."Guilt" is my confirmation name).

I have been getting some card weaving in though. I've been watching the Candace Crockett video and bought the book. The video is really helpful. She's an art professor at that commie school out in San Francisco....I'm just kidding. No but she really is a prof and she explains things very well. I chose some of the yarns I've had sitting around for a while for my first band; white, gray and brown. I know...there's some bright sunny colors for ya! I just have to start using some of this stash I've got, so I have a good excuse to buy more.

So I've threaded 20 cards and will follow the pattern in the video. I'm not sure how it's going to come out yet. But that's sort of half the fun. I'm looking forward to being able to design my own patterns with this method. You can do some really cool designs, that according to the book, you can only achieve with card weaving.

Get outta town!

Gerry and I decided to take a little trip for our anniversary. We went up to Deland and stayed at a Bed and Breakfast. That was interesting. It almost always is.

We tooled around Deland. We're always in search of the perfect retirement location. While there, we went to Blue Springs and saw these lovely manatees...

We also went to the Museum of Florida Art. That was very impressive. We saw some really incredible pieces there.

This piece, by Ummarid “Tony” Eitharong, was called, Winds of Change: Totem for Sadako which features a suspended mushroom cloud made from 1000 white peace cranes in honor of the Hiroshima survivors that initiated the “peace crane” project worldwide. This was really cool to see in person. It moved with every little draft and was just so fluid.

This exhibit was neat too. It was a collection of woodcut prints by Mollie Doctrow.

I think my favorite part of the trip though was the Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts in Barberville. They're a non-profit organization for the preservation of history and crafts such as blacksmithing, pottery, weaving and spinning.

This is the loom room. Most of the looms were 2 shaft with one 4 shaft. 

Here's me trying to figure out how I can shove this loom into my purse.

And here we are at the old train station. That's a paper conductor hat on my head. I gave myself a paper cut trying to fit it on my fat head.

Here's Gerry at a Mensa mtg. Actually it's the old school house. Yeah, we have a thing for putting hats on and acting like jerks. It's just what we do.

Anyway, it was a blast. Ger bought me a really pretty clay bowl from the Pioneer Settlement for our anniversary. The restaurants were good in Deland, so we ate a lot! And they had a Sonic Burger so I was good to go. It's also the home of Stetson University, which is a really pretty, old Florida liberal arts college. We really liked it there and the surrounding area.

Here's some more pictures. I hope this works....

Sampler

Ok, so I put the rug aside for now. I decided to get back to my goal of learning from the Collingwood book so I'm going to do a sampler. The book is pretty good, except sometimes you have to do a little translation from the British, but not too bad. So far I've practiced the cross stripes and pick and pick. I love the way the pick and pick looks! I'm also throwing some twill in between the sample sections for good measure. Here's another view...

This afternoon I'll work on doing spots.

Isn't this a cool ficus? I took the picture at the park this morning at our outdoor painters group get together. We usually paint or draw every Sunday morning. I have a ficus fetish lately. Thought maybe I'd try to do this one as another charcoal.

Finger knitting

February Little Van Goghs meeting. This month we did finger knitting. The kids loved it! We tried single strand and double strand. The older kids helped the younger. One of the moms joined it. It was fun! Check out this video to learn how to finger knit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3LKAlDz9ig

I finally finished my Mother Bear Project bear. He is my very first bear, so be kind. I've never made a stuffed animal before. I love doing this and feel so stoked that a child in Africa will get my little bear and love him. He is very flamboyant, isn't he?

Haven't been doing much weaving. Been really busy. But I did finish the color variation project and I hope to make that into a bag. I've been toying with the idea of adding freeform knit scrumbles as decoration to the outside of the bag but I'm not loving it right now.

This little dude was hanging out in our yard the other day. I love cardinals! They are so RED! We put some seeds out for him and his wife.

Trip to St. Augustine

The trip was fun. But it was way too cold. I've come to the conclusion that I really hate the cold. The camper has no heat, so 39 degrees really sucked. We had the sleeping bag that goes down to 25 degrees and that helped. It does sort of feel like a large dead animal is laying on top of you, but I was really glad to have it. We would have froze. Hell, we would have gone to a B&B.

I took a bunch of pictures...mostly of rocks. I just got attached to these rocks. They were by the St. Augustine pier.

I know...you're saying, "please for the love of God, enough with the rocks!" They were very cool though.

Oh yeah...brains the size of my pinky toe. For those of you who don't surf, I'll explain. "Locals only" is a term used by really stupid, small minded people who think they own a certain 50 feet or so of ocean. They only allow, (or imagine they have that power), those of their mental gene pool to surf in their little 50 feet of the world. People like this are sad. They are the reason surfers have a reputation for being total dim bulbs.

I was real into patterns this day.

Here's Gerry sort of cold. He is able to take it better than me.

Here's me totally freezing my butt off. Did I mention how much I hate the cold?

A courtyard in St. Augustine.

Here's Gerry all frisky in the cold.

And here's me totally done with it. All I wanted at this point was a warm restaurant and a bowl of soup. Which we did find. An Irish place with the most incredible clam chowder I've ever had. New England clam. It had fresh rosemary in it along with a bayleaf and butter. It was incredible.

We also went to an arts and crafts show. Have to support my fellow handmade folks. Bought a really cool little purse made from recycled fabric for Che and a really neat hummingbird wall hanging for Bridget. The artist who made the hummingbird's name is Bruce Cook. We talked for a while with him and his wife. Real nice people. That's one of my favorite things about camping. We always meet interesting people.