Aran washcloths

I thought a good way to learn Aran knitting would be to knit swatches... right all you knitting mavens out there? Swatches. Swatch is the word, is the word that you heard, it's got groove, it's got meaning! Anyway, I"m making a cable washcloth. Learning and getting something useful out of it. I am using the Vogue book of cable stitches. This one is called Zig Zag. I chose this one because it reminded me of  a bag pattern I saw on Interweave that I'd like to buy, but I'm sort of waiting for it go on sale
<"  cheap, cheap! I copied the pattern on an index card, because I hate trying to balance a big book while knitting.

This pattern is originally worked in multiples of 14. After studying the chart I realized that I didn't want all those purl stitches to the left, so I re-wrote it starting with 2 purl stitches, pattern stitches, 4 purl stitches, pattern stitches, and 2 purl stitches. Cast on 28 stitches. So it should look like the photo sample in the book, minus the four purl stitches on the left. Using Lily Sugar n Cream.

Now moving onto the extremely ambitious project. I want to make this for my DH. I found the pattern in Alice Starmore's book and thought it would be one of the easier sweaters to knit. I already know how to knit the middle cables and the smaller ones on either side. I'll have to learn the honeycomb and whatever else. I let him pick his own pattern, like in other words, I held up the book turned to this page and said, "you like this one, right?" I'm going to knit this with my friend Kathleen, who is a very good knitter, so I will have guidance. She is knitting a cable vest.

Things are moving slowly on the weaving front. The rug I'm working on is pretty wide and I found I was not happy with the tension, even after using the click trick. So I decided to untie each bundle and tie them on with house hold twine. I don't know what I'd do with out house hold twine... that and roach clips have gotten me through in life. Ok, I haven't gotten very far in life, but whatever. Then of course I hurt my shoulder somehow or my spine has just deteriorated some more, who knows. So I'm having to wait till it feels a bit better. I did get the heading started at least.

This Christmas cactus was almost dead, and I mean shriveled and gross looking. I found this big new pot at Home Goods. Made in Mexico and just gorgeous. I put the shriveled up little thing in the new pot with some lovely dark soil and here she is, happy and growing! She even has one flower and one little bud.

In the garden, our bromeliads are putting out these weird yet beautiful flowers.

Honeysuckle

Aran knitting and dino spines

I got the gist of the Baltic weave so now am going to put the inkle away until the rug is finished. I've decided that trying to run more than one loom at a time is too much for me now-a-days.

And as for rug status... I am almost done with the threading. Just a couple more bundles to thread and I'll be ready to wind the warp on. I can usually go faster with the warping process but I've been figuring stuff out on the Harrisville model that I didn't have on the Kessy. Like the nifty little heddles and bars that are pretty easy to change and other little things. I'll have to get some paper for the wind on as I'm used to a sectional beam. I'm guessing brown wrapping paper will do fine.

And looky who I found! It's Miss Ivy. Her baby girl has gone off to the Twitter Art Exhibit in Orlando. I thought I'd lost Miss Ivy but found her while rearranging the studio. I'll start to paint her tomorrow.

The continuing saga of the chunky teal yarn... I've decided to do a small lap blanket. I cast on 120 and will do a combination of Trinity stitch and chunky double cable. I know you're supposed to put the cable in a field of purl stitches, but I want to try to put it in a field of the Trinity, think maybe it might look cooler somehow. I tried to draw what it might look like but I think my drawing looks like a dinosaur's spinal column. Oh well, you get the idea.

I have been checking out the YouTube for Aran knitting and sweaters. I came across this video and was really intrigued. I'd like to make a sweater for my husband since he doesn't have one, but will start with the small blanket first.

Looms Ahoy!

The new loom is home. Thank you Cindy of Delighted Hands ... I love the loom! And the tour of your super awesome home :)

And I was right... this loom is so much easier to work with than the big mama, Kessy. Very good loom for a poor little cripple like me... I feel like the China Girl of Oz ...

...except no where near as cute ;-(  ... just delicate and breakable.

Anywho, I realized that this loom also takes up practically no space at all, and further realized I have a big bare space on my studio floor which needs, you guessed it, a hand woven rug!

So I got out the design book and started planning. I'm partial to krokbragd so thought I'd go with that. I also thought I'd use up some of my stash wool, so am using black and hand dyed blue I already had with some red that I bought just for this project. Have already started measuring the warp. Can't wait to be weaving again.

Last post I had mentioned that I was planning to use this yarn for a rigid heddle piece. But something kept bothering me about it. I kept going back and looking at the design in my book, and just wasn't liking it. Something was wrong. Then while in St. Augustine week before last, I woke early in our warm hotel room and started thinking how much I liked that Paton's chunky Shetland (I know,... I have a serious fiber problem) and envisioned the yarn as a cable knit throw or pillows or something cable knit. So scratch the weaving plan... I'm knitting that stuff up!

In inkle land... not much happening due to being away and then getting the Harrisville set up, but I have started this Baltic band.

New projects and panties

My dear friend and fellow weaver, Kathleen, advised me to get a proper design book for up coming COE projects. I had previously been using any old lined notebook, but she was right. Large and unlined is visually clearer. Luckily Michael's is having a 2 for 1 sale right now. So I'm breaking in the new book with this design for a rigid heddle piece I'd like to start, (not for COE... but for me) using some gorgeous chunky teal/dark green yarn I've had around for a while. I'd like to make a shawl.

And even as I write this I've figured out what has been bothering me about this sample. The reason I want to use this yarn is because it is gorgeous... to me. And here I've been trying to force this bulky gray and silver yarn into the pattern because at first I thought it looked good. Then for some coo-coo reason, I tried to add a warm color that just isn't doing it for me. Sigh. So I'm going to try another little swatch using the teal chunk and a little of the sparkly Moonlight Mohair (love that stuff) along with a silver Paton's Grace cotton, which is a really nice mercerized cotton. I'll post a pic in the next installment.

My youngest, who is a crocheter, came by the other night to take that next step forward into the land of knitting. She brought with her this little hat that she crocheted for me in a mere couple of hours.

This child literally got the knit and purl stitch figured out in 5 minutes... ok, maybe 7 minutes. Reminded me of when I potty trained her. I showed her a pair of Little Mermaid panties and said, "You want these? You go in there." And that was it. Kid potty trained. Fast learner.

Not to rub it in or anything but...

... this is what winter in Florida is all about. Land of Flowers. We had the day off this past week, so decided to do some shopping for the pollinator garden. Flamingo Gardens Nursery is one of my favorite places. It's huge and they have a really nice fruit/veg stand with smoothies and candy shop. I just love going there. See the humongous wind chime behind me? Awesome! I would love to have that in our backyard! Of course our neighbors would probably kill us.

It was actually a gorgeous day in the low 70's with a wonderful breeze. It's going down into the 40's tonight, so that's sort of cold for us. Hope all the little flowers will be ok.

The New Year approacheth

The new year is here and of course I'm sitting here thinking of what I want to do differently this year. Everything! Well, not exactly everything but one thing I want to do differently is have a bit more control over how I spend my time and what I let into my life.

I've been re-evaluating social media. I found that FB and Twitter were eating up way too much of my time. Also, you may be friends with someone on either one, who is perfectly lovely, but they may be friends with total wacko's. This started me thinking... what am I exposing myself to? Who am I exposing myself to? And more importantly, why?

So now I do a quick scan of both, keeping it down to no more than 20 min. and that's it, once per day. I can't tell you how much time I've bought back for myself just doing this. And frankly, I have to say, I feel a lot calmer. I think social media feeds into the culture of fear and angst that we've created for ourselves, and too much time spent there is not good.

Another thing that feeds the fear is TV which seems to promote, and even revere, a very stupid and violent popular culture. So I'm watching less and getting more reading and knitting done as a result. ... and again, feeling calmer. There is too much noise and always from the wrong people.

All that being said and done, I have started work on the Handweaver's Guild of America's certificate of excellence, or the COE. I've pretty much put everything else aside for this. So far, I have gotten my binder in order and started collecting the articles and books I'll have to read. There is a whole lot of reading involved.

I started warping the inkle loom for a Finnish band, following directions from Mary Meigs Atwater's book, Byways in Handweaving. I began to feel like the pattern seemed like it was going to be way too wide for my Schacht loom and then I just wasn't "feeling it" at all. I've decided on a narrower Baltic style band, and so have taken on the tedious task of un-winding the warp. Luckily, you warp the same for Baltic pieces so this warp won't be wasted, just narrowed.  

Not quite the hot mess it looks like. It will be fine... keep repeating... fine, just fine. 

After I started this band, I saw an article on the Sami people's band weaving and would like to learn more about Scandinavian weaving (being as I'm of Laplander descent) and the article is from Handwoven, March/April 2013. 

Look at the reindeer's lovely handwoven bands. She is quite the classy lady. Coco Chanel would be proud of her accessorizing savvy. 

I got this nifty little beginner loom for Christmas and am hoping I can use it for card weaving. It's really a child's beginner rigid heddle loom, but I think it will work for cards. Beka makes this model.

The warp is measured out and I am going to see if this draft will work. It is a modified draft from one I found in Candace Crockett's card weaving book.  



Happy holidays and rigid heddles

Visited my friend this past Sunday. We get together once a month to drink coffee, eat banana bread and knit. She wanted to learn rigid heddle weaving, so I let her borrow my RH loom last month and said if she needed any help, I'd work with her. Well, she did need help. When I got there, she had put the warp on the loom backwards (front of work tied to back apron  and vice versa). She was sort of almost in tears. I said no worries, we'd fix it. We took the warp off the loom and turned the loom around. So... in answer to a question on Facebook, on the rigid heddle page, this is how I tie little bundles to the back beam bar. We took small bundles of the warp, being careful to keep them the same length, tied them together, then lashed them to the back beam. These are thicker bundles than I would do, but that was her preference. Now, you can also tie them directly to the bars themselves, but I don't like the Ashford bars. They are rectangular, flat pieces of wood instead of dowel shape. I don't like this design at all, thus the bundles. Then of course she will sley the warp, and tie the ends to the front apron bar directly. 

This is an odd sort of way to warp I suppose, but I am used to warping an 8 shaft, 10 treadle monster of a Kessenich, so warping a RH is no where near as time consuming and tedious. Therefore, I don't mind taking extra time doing it. 

Another odd thing she did was this... instead of using brown wrapping paper or butcher paper, she used a bunch of cut up little cardboards. See how uneven this can be? You can use flat, narrow, even sticks, but these are totally uneven and cardboard has too much give. So we got rid of that hot mess too and luckily she had some brown paper on hand so we rolled the warp onto the back beam, tucking the brown paper in and around as we went. Hopefully, she will call me if she gets in a bind next time. 

And now... Happy Holidays from the kids of Messy Art! 

My apologies

I'm really sorry folks, but either I'm a dope (and how could that possibly be) or blogger messed up, but I see I've gotten many comments and didn't even know they were there.

So if I didn't respond, I'm sorry... I just didn't know it was there. DUH!! I'm working to see how this can be fixed in future.