Dag Nab It!!!

  I can't believe it!!!  I came up short AGAIN!

I had some time to fit in a run up to the Museum to finish up the last placemat.  I was so sure that I had cut enough weft.....wrong!!!  You can see the ribbon on the left side of the mat....that's how much I still have to go.  These are the last six mats to go on the set of a dozen.....it looks like I'll run up there on Saturday!

  Frost warnings went out last night...our first one!  We didn't get any frost up here on the Ridge, but I didn't want to take any chances. 
  That also means that the house is just a little cooler....follow the cats for the warm spots!!!

  Sweetie loves the sunbeams coming through the French doors in the bedroom.










Biscuit can usually be found on a window sill, or a sunny spot in the bedroom.







  Neither one of them understand the mad dash to bring the plants inside!!!










  I'm thinking that the spider plants might be in a little danger from those two. 

  I still have one more plant to dig up and bring inside....it will get covered tonight....digging tomorrow.

Happy Weaving!
LouAnn

And, Another One

 
  Molly helped Jocelyn this morning, and her warp is ready to start winding on!  So, Molly was back to work on her own colorful threading. 
 
  Tina had her head down just weaving away on the towels.  You can see the green colorway coming up now.




With our Foothills show looming (haha) Tina decided to go ahead and cut off the towels that were finished on her loom. 

  You can see the ten towels all rolled out....sadly, what you can't see very well is the bands of monk's cloth on each towel!









  Yes....Carl needed to cut more blue jean strips for weft.  Pat helped to keep the joined panels moving under the table.
  Betsy was back to her loom today weaving those lovely wool rugs!

  Christy's inkle woven bracelets will be ready for the Foothills show, as well as her beautiful book marks.  They are always a big hit!














     Carol helped Liz get her warp secured to the front beam, and she's ready to weave!

  And, the Ladies were "busy" on the back row!

Marie checked off the inventory that sold in October....we had three of the Steeplechase Challenge scarves that sold!!!

  Sharon is looking in to doing a Tuesday Weaver cookbook!  We sure do have a lot of great cooks in our little group!







  And, before we know it, it's time to fold up the looms and move them out of the way.  Harriet 's scarf is looking GOOD!  And, Frieda is ready to start threading her scarf...just as soon as she picks out a pattern that catches her eye!!!!

Next week will be busy getting everything ready to go to the show!  That means lots of weaving and finishing at home this week!

Happy Weaving!
LouAnn

Getting Closer

It's just a week and a half til my last show of the season. So, I am weaving a couple more warps to fill in a gap. These are vests. I'm using bits and pieces of leftover balls of painted bamboo for the warp. It's cheerful and happy. Well, I was happy when I wove this warp! Using a skein of turquoise and hot pink/red for the weft, it has a nice plaid look.

The other vest I used shades of red. It does have a look of solid red but not exactly, there are several reds in that weft. The piece has a more striped look about it.  When I had washed and sewn the vests, in looking for buttons, I used red for this vest but the plaid one got buttons that have a definite pink look to them. It's fun to pick out which button looks good with which piece.

I was weaving in a nice rhythm the other day when I got a visitor. It's Belle. She liked getting right in my way when I stopped for a moment to say hi. The cats don't usually come down when I weave but when they do, I'm always glad to stop for awhile.

She got a bit relaxed there, too. When she jumped off and I started to weave again, she took off. The noise of the beater seems to scare them. They've pretty much left me alone when I wind warps, too although I did have to get the spray bottle a week ago when Meg decided that the yarn was too tempting as I wound. She decided just watching was good enough and I liked that.

Meg doesn't generally get on my loom but she does like to be nearby. I don't always have my iPad handy to take a picture but I noticed both cats on DH's sheepskin yesterday on our sofa. They love that sheepskin and often are sleeping on it. Yes, both cats are there. They do blend in!

That's Meg. Again, not a great picture but it's harder to pin her down than Belle! Both cats are very sweet and just happy to be. I've noticed that they like to come see me during the day for a few hours. That's kind of new. They used to just sleep all day. 

I've got one more warp on the loom that I want to finish for the show. Then I'll start to look toward next year and weave a warp or two for then. Maybe I'll be ahead of the game! For now, I've got plenty of handwork to finish and a warp to weave off.

Until next week, keep weaving!

Carol

Treadling

I have been spinning  yarn just a bit this week but not much, that is not my focus since I can't sell yarn at the Foothills Craft Guild show.   Last week,  while I was making my bags with handwoven fabric, I had a little trouble getting through all the layers of heavy fabric on my little sewing machine, I knew I needed  to pull out the work horse,  so my feet have been treadling on the Singer treadle sewing machine!  It really works well and I have managed to get through another bag, and I have 2 more cut out, serged and almost ready for the next time I can get sewing.  Life is busy around here and when I have small grandchildren around everything has to be put up out of harms way so I can keep my "no's" to a minimum.

I wanted to have Carol do a quality control on Tuesday before I proceeded with this project.  She approved and gave me an idea what to price the bags.

This second bag is a fraternal twin to the first, same size, same shape and slightly different handwoven fabric.

I had already done the red and cream prototype and the first bag, so I was feeling pretty good about putting this zipper in.  I pinned and pinned and then I stitched in it.

When I turned the fabric to top stitch I found that I had put the zipper in perfectly, except that it was facing the inside of the bag!  Rats!!!!  A patient 15 minutes with my seam ripper and I was pinning again and I did it right the second time.

I like these bags and I am rethreading the Burchard loom to continue with this pattern though It won't be in the hand dyed perle cotton.  Never fear, I have quite the stash upstairs.

Today I cut and serged the pieces for 2 more bags.  I had cut the lining ahead of time and I am beginning to see how I can streamline things a bit so that when I get a chance to weave or sew, I will be ready for it.  My goal is to get at least one of the next 2 bags ready for the  upcoming show.

Today between sessions at the ironing board and the serger, I washed a small black shetland fleece, it is going to be a lovely fleece to work with.  It was given to me, and at first I thought it was ruined, but upon looking closer I realized that it was a 2 year fleece and the part that was felted was the outer layer.

I separated the two at the natural rooing line (yearly break in   the growth) and was left with a very black very soft fleece.  It washed without a hitch and it is drying upstairs in the studio.  Once I finished with that I washed a bunch of my hand knit socks that I had been wearing these last few weeks.  I couldn't believe how nicely they washed up.  They will be dry by tomorrow and back in my drawer.

That is it for this week, Until next time, Happy Crafting, Tina

A Drive-by

  Sometimes I think I have too many irons in the fire!

  As Tina wrote last week, we took a little drive to Asheville to visit all the lovely vendors at SAFF.  It is the candy store for fiber folks!!!  One of the things I kept seeing in the booths were dryer balls....I use them here at home, too.  They really do reduce drying time!
  I also saw a piece about dryer balls on one of the morning shows last week....you would think this is a brand new invention!  I made mine a few years ago with some wool yarn I had here at the house. 
  So, with the Foothills show creeping up on us, I got out some wool yarn (part of the stinky yarn that came in a few years back....it just needed a lot of fresh air!)  And, I finally got to play with Kool-Aid dyeing in the microwave oven!!!
  Just so you know, one package dyes one ounce of yarn.  
And, since I had the heating element replaced on the water heater, I have HOT water, which really makes a difference. 
  It's not a biggie...but it is a little something to add to our booth. 
  I still have a lot of sewing to get finished on my other items.

Back to work....
LouAnn

Seven

You see it all the time here in the studio....cut off one warp, then get going with a new one!  Since we're two weeks away from our Foothills show, Karin cut off the five towels that she had finished weaving.  She'll get those hemmed and washed just in time for the show!  After she tied the warp back on her loom, she changed the treadle tie-up for a more Spring-like motif.  We'll have to wait and see what she decided on for the new towels!

  
Then, it was Bonnie's turn to cut off the warp with three scarves!  Just in time for the show!!!!






  Before you could say "Jack Robinson" she had picked out another warp for her loom!!!  Shirley jumped in to help her get it wound on the back beam....WOW!

  We've been following Molly's progress on her warp (she's almost finished, by the way.)  But, today, she jumped in to help Jocelyn get her shawl warp on the Leclerc.


***Are you keeping count?  That's three!

  Irene finished threading, and got the reed sleyed this afternoon.  This is another scarf warp.














  Frieda is working to get this warp on her loom, too.

***We're up to five!

  Carol helped Ruth Anne spread her new warp.  After getting it wound on, she'll be ready to start threading.

  Liz's warp is wound on and she has started threading.




WOW!!!!  That's SEVEN warps going on looms today!!!!!

  This is my money shot for today:  Carl and his warp of finished rugs--working on #12 right now!  He's planning on on one more long rug after this one.  That  means we'll be putting on a new warp after the Foothills show!
















  Pat will be winding Carl's new warp at home this week.  With all we have going on in the Studio, there's not a lot of room to bring out the warping mill! 
  (Hey, Maggie.....Pat just finished hemstitching this placemat....I got this shot just for you!!!!)

 In the meantime, the rest of us just keep on keeping on!!!

  We've got two weeks to get it done!

Happy Weaving!
LouAnn

Back At It

I want to keep weaving all year so I don't get in a panic before a show. So I wound on a short 2 vest warp using scrap balls of hand painted bamboo. This time I used 2 different color combinations for the weft.

The first vest is more purple. It makes the yellow in the warp just pop.

The second best is green, shades of green. It you look closely you can see that some of it is quite light. It makes an interesting pattern on the fabric, kind of circles. It's quite different from the other vest.

Both vests are colorful but in a subdued way..

DH and I went on a bit of a road trip to Asheville Friday afternoon, spending time downtown, popping into shops and walking. It was fun. I go to Asheville twice a year to do a show downtown. It's the same area but I never get a chance to walk downtown and enjoy it. So it was nice. Then Saturday morning we went to SAFF. Since I don't spin or knot, a lot of the booths were just fun to look at. My big temptation was the booth with buttons.

I love buttons, especially older ones. I use a lot of them in my work so I'm always looking for sets of 5 buttons at least 5/8, but better 3/4 - 1 inch size, in lots of colors.

It was almost like Christmas. 

This morning I'm back at work. I'll wind another warp using bamboo balls left over from other projects and see what I get. There might also be some sewing on a quilt project done in the afternoons....

Until next week, keep weaving!

Carol