Oh, Okra!

Dear Okra,
  You have been my constant companion these last six weeks at least!  You fill my car, my thumb nail, my dreams.  I see you when I close my eyes at night.  I spy you in the preservation kitchen in jars each morning.  I greet you at Horn of Plenty every Wednesday through Saturday.  You make rashes on my arms.  You make my employees cry and give notice and leave.
  I only need to spend a few more weeks with you, dear Okra!  I only lack 2,000 jars, a formidable number, no doubt, but paltry in comparison to the 6,604 original goal.  My employees, including the new one, will be happy to see you go!  They, too, count the jars and count the days, until your season is over and you take your prickly little self away.
  Your beautiful blooms, your bizarre upright habit, your hairy seed pod, and let's not forget your mucilaginous innards:  these I will not miss.  Take care, Okra!  Have a good winter!
Love/hate,
Maggie

What does this mean?

Here is one more picture of my new studio. Is this just another boring picture? NO! This picture says.......I can start moving in!! Finally! We bought this house in November of last year and we have been slowly renovating it. If you look closely you can see the molding is all back in. You can't see it very well but in the window is a row of tiny sheep.

There are still things left to do so we aren't finished. Right now DH is working on the light switch in the bathroom and I will be painting the bottom of the last wall in the dining room, later. I couldn't get to it for a while because that is where the flooring was stacked. Tomorrow I will get our son to help me get some things moved in. Hurray!!! This is a great day!

Linda

PRIORITIES

You may set your priority for the day or even for the week. Then things change.  Thursday I was designing my next project or actually the next two. I had decided what I was making and what yarn to use. Late in the day, I got the dogs a hard chew treat. About 2 inched long. Well, my Maggie couldn't chew hers. I got it and unwound the hard end for her. She  could put it in the back and chew or gnaw on it. I heard a crunch and looked down and there was a little blood on the chew. . I don't know why but I got her head and raised her lips and looked at her teeth. Yikes! She had broken her "eye" tooth half off. You know the long pointed one. Well it borke off and cracked in half up to the gum, the cracked part was still attached. That was around 5. Too late for the vet. So on Friday first thing, I called the vet and made and appointment. A trip to the vet and $244 later her tooth was removed. She was kind of sleepy all night until around midnight. I had to give her a pain pill. While I was waiting to go back to pick her up at the vet, I started winding my warp. That is as far as I got.
This morning, I got back to my priorities.  The weathermen had said cooler weather for Sat. morning. All week I have been planning to get some yard work done on Sat. I did get up and out around 8:30. I cut bushes and trimmed them. Pulled weeds. Took the cuttings to the street for pickup. That took till about 11.  Came in and drank some water, rested and the to the shower and lunch. I am whipped for the rest of the day. Getting older and can't do as much as I use to. Man, getting old stinks.
Maggie is doing fine today. Hard to tell if she is in any pain.
Maybe back to weaving some tomorrow.
Sorry  no pictures,
I will be back on Thursday next week. (I think).
Until next week.
Bonnie

Get er done!

I don't know why we all have so many things on the go. I guess we just keep getting excited about new things and sometimes it just takes a long time to get them finished. When DD was originally recuperating from her torn ACL, etc knee, I brought up my rag cutter and some fabric I'd used to make a "muslim" of a pattern I was thinking about using in production. I'm so glad that I didn't get rid of that fabric. This is going to be awesome in placemats. The other day I had a few minutes so pulled the basket out and started sewing strips together.

I have a table for my sewing machine that actually has storage in it. It looks a bit weird but that's plexiglass on top of the sections that hold thread. I really like that table. It keeps my thread nearby and I know what I have. Whenever I had a few minutes free and was in the studio, I sewed a few more strips together.
The basket is now empty and all those strips are in balls. So, yesterday I was in my studio and saw that some of the fabric had gotten into another basket. The rag cutter is back in the living room and I'll be cutting more while watching tv up there!!! Can't seem to get that fabric finished into strips!

I had a deadline for getting my piece in to the Folk Art Center in Asheville for the new members exhibit that goes up Sept 11, I think. Deadline was Wednesday to get it to them. The warp's still on the loom (although I worked on it yesterday and have about 20 inches left to weave)

The warp wove nicely and I cut off enough for the jacket and then finished it up quickly. The little handbag has less embellishments than I'd originally thought I'd use. I had bought some wonderful ribbon in Atlanta that would have added a nice touch. However, as I put this one together it didn't need that ribbon. I have more fabric and will try to incorporate the ribbon into the next bag.

I decided to call this outfit Seablue Night. I'd covered the mannequin with black knit fabric to fake like a skirt and to hide the silver part of the post. I know that Nikki, who's curator, will do a much better job of displaying the jacket on the mannequin. I was in a hurry to leave on Monday after I finished it to get over the mountain to Asheville and just threw it on the mannequin.
Driving over to Asheville is always a joy. Construction didn't hold me up this time. The trouble with driving alone is that you don't have a chance to take pictures. Forgot about it at the center.
Another thing I did in Asheville was to go Stephens Upholstery. The Guild Fair in July was full of controversy. Two years ago the Fire Marshall had a fit about electricity and we all had to change our lights and extension cords to make them happy. Now they were at us about our curtains around our booths. They have to be flame retardant and we have to have a letter stating that as well. We got several emails from the Guild about how to solve this problem. They suggested a place in Asheville for fabric. Since I was there anyway I dropped in. They were incredibly helpful. Because our booth comes with white panels all around the back of the booth, all I needed was enough for my dressing booth. She had some that was thick enough to not be see through and in a natural at 60" wide. That meant I only needed 6 yards!!! I was in there Monday about 1pm. I paid for the fabric, got my letter of "authenticity" and left. She called the company to have them ship it to me. You won't believe this but it came Tuesday afternoon already. Now I just have to cut and sew the panels with flaps to go over my 2 x 6 foot panels that I use in my booth.
I love it when  a plan comes together!!
Tina blogged on Wednesday when I normally do and I"m blogging today since she's out of the country for about 10 days. I'll be back to Wednesday next week and I think that Linda will write next Friday instead of Tina. The following week we're going to be back to normal.
Carol

Reflection

Back in my "other life" I taught public school.  The state introduced "Reflection" into the evaluation module the last few years that I taught.  In fact, I was selected to pilot the "new module" along with  a few other hundred people in the state.  I just had to giggle to myself during the LONG meeting when this was introduced to the other participants....most of them newbies to the profession.  This would be their first time through the evaluation process.  They acted like this was a brand new concept.  How could this be?  Don't you always "reflect" after you finish a lesson or a project????  "What worked?  What will I do different next time?"  Reflection should be just a natural part of the process.

 I put a bamboo warp threaded for huck lace on Mz. Emily (my 8 shaft Schacht.)  It was 21 inches in the reed.  I wound enough warp for 2 wraps.  After playing with the treadling for the lace and allowing 8 inches for the fringe, I started weaving the first wrap.  It took me 3 days to weave the first one! I just love hearing the sticks hit the floor....don't you?  Thread rolls off the back beam, and cloth forms on the front beam.  Then the light bulb went on, and in less than 24 hours, the second wrap was finished....hem stitching, too!!!

 The cloth at the top of the picture is the first wrap.  I can assure you that there are PLENTY of threadling errors!  It has not been wet finished.  The bottom piece is the finished wrap. 

I followed the directions in Handwoven for wet finishing the bamboo, and dried it on low with a towel until it was almost dry, then I hung it up to finish drying.  I can tell you that I was very concerned with how it felt.  It wasn't soft....the lace pattern was barely visible.  This morning I hard pressed it with a damp cloth, and now it's hanging to finish drying again.  Now it is soft and drapes very nicely.

The unfinished wrap is 19 1/4 inches wide....the finished wrap is 16 inches wide.  That was a surprise....I didn't think it would shrink that much.  If I make another wrap, I think I'll add a few inches to the width.

Since I have a LOT of this natural bamboo, I might dye some in October when we have our dye day here and make another wrap....or two or three.  I do so love huck lace.

Upon reflection.......I really love huck lace!!!!!

Have a safe & happy Labor Day Weekend!
LouAnn

 p.s.  I just got my new copy of Peggy Osterkamp's Weaving for Beginners--An Illustrated Guide.  I have so much to learn!!!!

Threading errors!

For the next week or two we have had to switch out our posting  days because of travel plans.  We will get back to the regular schedule when we all settle down again.

Now you might think that I have Miss Lillian all threaded and sleyed, but you would be wrong!  I found several threading errors. ( I wonder what was I thinking about, maybe I was distracted by my audio book.)  The threading for Cat Paws and Snail Trails is not difficult at all, and the simplest section is the 3 twill runs that make up the trail.  Wouldn't you know it, that is where I had made all my errors.  A couple of times I had done 4 repeats and a couple of times just 2 repeats!  If you look closely you can see I am at the midway point of the rethreading, and there it will stay for awhile. 

DH and I are heading out for a mission trip.  This is the first time in 14 years that I am taking a trip that needs my passport!   I will be sure to update if I am able to, while we are away.  If not I will do a travel post when I get back.

Until then, Happy Weaving, Tina
Logged 5 miles in 3 days, then took a day off cause I had babysitting duties!

"CUT IT OFF" Tuesday!

It was like an epidemic....and it all started with Ann.  She was ready to cut off her warp of placemats this morning, and we all gathered around to applaud the ceremony.  There were 10 placemats woven on the mixed color warp with rag weft...and they're beautiful!

But....that wasn't it for the day....oh no!

Sharen, who is working on the Harrisville, had a full cloth beam, and this started causing problems with her warp. 

Tina showed us the "stick trick" so that Sharen could continue weaving the rest of her warp, and they cut off the 13 placemats and 1 table runner from the loom.
  Bonnie was the next one:  her rugs were hitting the beater!  Her cloth beam was full, too!   She cut off 3 looper rugs from her loom.

When a warp comes off...another will go on a loom.  Since Lanny cut his warp off the rocker loom last week, he and Ann worked together to put one of the warps that Tina wound back on it.  Ann is going to try her hand at rug weaving for a bit, and Lanny can work at one of the other looms.  As Ann said,  she's moving from her "big girl pants to overalls." 

Allan was back in full "swing" at his rug loom.  The shelf behind Allan is looking so much better since Pat worked on the fabric collection last week.  Bonnie spent time earlier this morning surging the edges of her Afghan project panels.  Karen, our new weaver is working on her warp at the table loom. 

 Can you see the DROOL on the table????  Lanny is putting together a  JagerSpun order, and he had the swatch pages for people to peruse.  Such beautiful colors!!!!


It was a productive day at the Center! 
Happy Weaving!
LouAnn