We Found Her!

  There she was....under the loom again!!!!! 
  I'm sure OSHA would have something to say about this!!!

But, for now, she's back from her travels and ready to wind on this warp.  She and Lanny got that done right after lunch!

  But, before she did that, we got to see the two scarves she wove on the rigid heddle loom while she was on vacation.

  The natural one is bamboo, and after it's washed, she'll insert ribbons.  The green scarf is a very soft wool....I wish you could feel how soft it is!








And, since the rest of us are working on the same projects as before, here's a preview of those cute little tootsies that make the looms weave the way they are supposed to!!!!

Tina:  must be weaving tabby!

Bonnie gets her weaving done with sneakers!

Way to go, Christy!  Socks work well, too!

Ms. Ila's feet really fly on that scarf warp!

  Bonnie said I wouldn't show my feet....but here they are!  When I DO sit down to weave, the shoes come off!

  Ms. Pat is back in action again after her travels, too!  (By the way, she loved all the de-stashing that Tina has done!!!!)

No....Carl isn't a pirate.....he was standing back at the barn loom when I took the picture.  Next time, I'll get both of his feet!

  Last, but certainly not least, are Lanny's legs feet.  Whoooo-hoooo!!!!!!



  We sure are a happy bunch of weavers!!!

Happy Weaving to YOU, too!
LouAnn

Trolley Ride

Last Tuesday we went on an adventure! My nephew and his wife had come over to Moose Jaw the evening before and Tuesday is a day my Mom doesn't have dialysis so it's a real day for her! We all drove to the visitor center on the edge of town and got tickets for a trolley ride around town! The trolley actually goes right by my sister's home so we see and/or hear it go by several times a day. This time we were on it.

As we turned left to go out of the parking lot I thought that since I'd posted a picture last year of the Moose from the side, I'd show the end you see from the parking lot!

 Continuing just to the left of the moose was this. I know there's a story here. Too bad we won't know what it is but it was too funny to not post! The moose is just behind the man holding the bear.

 I just took a few pictures of what we drove by. Here's the library. Mom and my sister have gone here alot getting books for Mom. She reads alot! This is an old town and the buildings have a good bit of age to them. They've taken good care of them too.

 This church has a very nice profile. Often on the weekends when we drive by there will be wedding parties having their pictures taken here, whether or not they got married there.

 Down and left a few blocks is an old victorian home that I forgot to take a picture of. I just took pictures of the yard. The house is home to a jewelry company and makes jewelry that is sold in home parties, etc. I went there a few years ago and got a couple of pairs of earrings. It's not the Yvette Moore gallery where I get most of my "Moose Jaw" jewelry but the yard is so awesome it was well worth a couple of pictures.

 Just think, in a few short months it'll all be covered by snow. The growing season is pretty short here, but they put on a big show of color that my Mom really enjoys! I think she still misses her yard and gardens from when she lived in Manitoba.

 I took the picture above, then swiveled the camera to the right a notch and got this picture of a church downtown that has a huge dome. It's a pretty imposing structure.

 One of the most photographed houses in Moose Jaw is the wedding cake house. There used to be 2 of them, but one burned down. It's also one of the homes that is decked out nicely for Christmas!

 This home is just around the corner from my sister's home. I just love the glassed in porch.

These are just a few of the gorgeous homes. My Mom and sister live in the old area of Moose Jaw and I could have taken a ton more pictures of very nice homes.
We're having a good time here. I'll be leaving soon to take Mom to dialysis. Today's Monday, a nonday according to her. I know she hates having to go for the 3 hours she sits attached to the machine and having to go 3x a week isn't fun, but she's so much healthier because of it.  Once she comes home, she'll take a nap and then come out to join us for the evening.
It'll be an interesting week here and I'm hoping to get some of my projects done that I brought with me. We'll see how much I get done!  I'm thinking maybe next year I"ll be a loom along..........that should be interesting at the border!!
Carol

Back At It!

  After John's melt down last weekend, we spent some quality time repairing the tie on the pulley.  Texsolv to the rescue, once again!  There were a few tense moments when the harnesses did not want to balance, but we got it worked out.

  After I wove the remaining inch on the tote bag under construction, I wove in some strips of fabric to separate the totes.  I had discovered two broken threads (maybe they broke when the pulley cord popped?) and repaired those.  I also threaded the two threads I had been using as floating selvedges.  (I wove the cat mat in twill.)

  This tote is using Stewart plaid, and I've already gotten the handles thrown, and one side is braided.  John is living up to his reputation again as a true gentleman!  Gotta love him!

  I've finished basting the fabric strips that will be used for handles on this small tote.  These strips are 2.5 inches wide, and I just turn them to the middle so that there will be no raw edges.  It makes a nice, smooth handle for these bags.

  I washed up these mill-ends of light weight decorator fabric to use in the next large tote on John.  I really like the "rag bag" look of the large totes when I use different fabrics (although it's so much faster just to use the same fabric throughout the tote!)  Sometimes I forget that "prep time" can eat up MY time!


  But, it is so much fun to go on a scavenger hunt in my stash.  Some of the pieces bring back memories--something I made or something I was planning to make!  I'm glad these pieces of fabric are becoming something useful, yet beautiful.



Enjoy your weekend, and
Happy Weaving!
LouAnn

One of Those Days

Wednesday I posted on my own blog, FarmsteadStudio,  about a hike I took with my friend  to the  Walker Sister's Cabin.  I posted about how we spent the day, and what a great time it was.  I learned a lot about spinning cotton, and it sparked an interest to learn how to make one of those dense cotton "Punis" that is frequently used.  I went to Youtube, and sure enough there was a couple of videos that really explained it well.  You can see my Punis with my Spindolyn.

 I hadn't posted about my wheel coming apart on my back, just as we made it back to the car, because well it wasn't that big of a deal.  All the parts were there and we just stuck it back together and made our way home.  Or were they?  What I didn't realize is that I had lost the clear plastic drive band!  I didn't know that, until I pulled the wheel out to try out my new rolls of compressed cotton!  (Kathy and I even went back up there today to see if we could find it, that is why this post is so late.  I will have to see if I can find a new drive band)

 I ended up pulling out the Spindolyn, and I was amazed at what difference it made to use this compressed roll!   I had a much more consistant thread size, and I do mean thread size, than before.

On the weaving front I finally got the little Leclerc up and running.  Alan so kindly made a new beam for her.   I got started with the Mug Rugs using the pattern Old Rose.  But something was wrong,  I figured that I had just reveresed the treadling sequence, you know the whole rising shed versus falling shed.  After the first one was finished, I checked again, and the treadling wasn't exactly reversed, but it was sure different!  Ok, I thought that is fixed, but no the pattern is still not coming out right!  Now I have to go check the threading!

Isn't this beautiful!  One of our first watermelons from the garden.  The tomatoes and the potatoes and the corn have really been a treat, and we couldn't wait to sink our teeth into this baby!  That first bite.............




That first bite tasted like a cucumber!  Yesterday was one of those days!

Until next time, Happy Weaving, Tina

Meet Nancy

Nancy Stallings Lee

 Last spring, my sister got a call from a distant relative who asked her many questions about herself and all her siblings, hinting that another distant relative had died and we might be inheriting something from her.  We'd never heard of either the caller or the deceased, and didn't think much of it.  A couple of months later, we received a letter from the woman's lawyer, listing us as one of her beneficiaries.  Here she is, Nancy Stallings Lee, of Brownwood, Texas.
  My father was born in Brady, Texas, to William Robert Davidson and Rosemary Stallings Davidson.  Brady is 61.3 miles from Brownwood, but I don't remember anyone ever talking about Nancy, or Nancy's family when I was growing up.
  Nancy was a school teacher and rancher in Brownwood, and died in October of 2009.  She was a patron of the arts, and an animal lover.  She requested that any donations in lieu of flowers be made to an animal shelter.
  I'm glad she was my relative, because it enabled me to buy the newest loom in my studio, which I will name for Nancy.

Nancy Lee

If you're a regular reader of our blog, you know that most of us name our looms for the previous owners, but I think Nancy is a perfect name for this one.  It has been at the Center so long, even Carol doesn't remember who donated it.  It has its Center tattoo, 11, on its side.  Mom bought it from the Center last summer, and bought many replacement parts for it.  But she decided it took up too much space in her house and wanted to sell it.  I have the parts, an apron and some texsolve tie up cords, and will be putting her back in working order soon.
  It's an Artisat from 1978, a year older than my other Artisat, Jenny.  Jenny is a good, sturdy, dependable loom, and I'm hoping Nancy will give me the same good service.  She's a little rickety and dusty, but has beautiful wood.
  In the meantime, I've been on vacation for my birthday, and have been taking care of the stuff I dyed last Tuesday.

Before

After

The cloth strips that looked so vibrant at the Center have softened to just be pink with a little brown.  I'm not sure where the green went, but maybe it was just too weak, with all the urea water I put in it to make it pastel.  I'm not sure about it becoming place mats now, since it's so very pink.  It might end up as tote bags or rag rugs.

Before

After

 The bamboo warp for our shawl challenge came out just right.  It faded some, but still has some vibrancy.  As you can see, the green didn't hang around too much in it, either, but I can live with that.  I will weave it with white as the weft, anyway, to mute them both down.
  This warp will go on as soon as the white on white shawl is done.  That's about halfway through right now, and I'd show you, but it looks exactly the same as it did before!  And the same mistakes keep popping up about every second motif.  There's something not quite right about the tension in the middle of the warp, but I don't notice the skipped threads until I'm about 6 throws into it.  Ah, unweaving!  A lovely way to spend a hot summer afternoon!  I hope your weaving only goes forward!
Maggie

While The Cat's Away........

  You guessed it.....while Carol and Pat are out of town, we went TO TOWN on the stash in the aisles!  Or, rather Tina went to town on our vast collection of fabric and odd bits of thread. 

  Allan and his wife, Sharon, have been hard at work around the Annex getting it ready for the addition.  But, until the weather breaks, construction on that will have to wait.  They have volunteered to store some of the stash until the new space is ready.  (Just for the record, my car was showing 103 degrees as I drove home from the Center.)

  This is the mound of stash that Tina weeded out to go to Allan's house for temporary storage.

  After lunch, we loaded it up onto Allan's truck.

Many hands make short work!

  Bonnie is back to work on Tote #2.  She brought #1 to the Center for construction advice.  She was getting ready to throw the handles when I left (so that means I'll be braiding next Tuesday!!!!)

Carl is working back on the barn loom.  That's denim strips being used for the weft.  It is working so well on this warp.



(By the way, since I didn't see Ann, I DID check under her loom, just in case!  I guess she's still out of town!)

When Lanny isn't loading up a truck, he sure does weave a mean scarf!  He's really lucky that little stool didn't get put in the back of Allan's truck!  When Tina is purging the stash, anything is fair game!

Ms. Ila continues to weave those marvelous scarves.....the threadling sequence is unbelievable!

Ms. Trudy worked on her warp today, too.  We need to find the stool for her....I think that chair sits too low!

  Linda didn't need Chandler's book today.....she was just reviewing "hemstitching" last week.  She usually hems her placemats, and needed to brush up on how to hemstitch.  I think she's got the hang of it now.

  I really wanted a shot of Allan's legs....he had on shorts today.  But, I would have had to take a shot of everyone's legs to be fair.  I didn't really have time to do that!!!  But, Allan was threading the Herald loom for more placemats.

  So, as you can see, we did get a lot done today.  Next week will be just as busy, I'm sure.

In the meantime:
Happy Weaving,
LouAnn

Traveling North

Each summer I head north to Canada. I was born in St Boniface and grew up in Niverville, Manitoba. I taught first grade in Winkler and my parents spent over 25 years living in Altona before Dad died, Mom moved to be near my sister and ultimately they're in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. It's always weird saying I'm going "home" to Moose Jaw. However, wherever they are is always "home" in Canada!

The drive is just over 2000 miles one way. I burned several audio books on CD, actually downloading them from the Knoxville library website and burning them directly onto CDs. Once I've listened to them, I"ll put them back into the stack and copy new books onto them since they're rewriteable!

That was happening Tuesday and Wednesday before I left this past Thursday. Nothing like waiting til the last minute!

My drive goes west to Nashville, up through Paducah, St Louis and Kansas City and then straight north up I-29 to the border!

Somehow, in Paducah, my van automatically veers off the exit and pulls in at the Hancocks less than a mile from the interstate. This is such an unassuming building, metal, bland, you know, the kind we wouldn't take a second look at. Well, go inside and it's another world. The entire building, plus a bigger warehouse to the right that I didn't photograph, is all fabric! Aisle after aisle of wonderful quilting fabric. I have their catalogue, get their web updates, but there's nothing like actually seeing the fabric first hand, what all the fabrics in the series look like, how they work together. I don't really go to buy anything, just to take a nice break after driving about 5 hours to stretch my legs, walk up and down each aisle, smile at the fabrics that make me happy and just absorb color. Plus, they have a bathroom!!

Once I"ve walked through the whole place, I usually pick up a piece of two that spoke to me. Last year I ended up calling my sister several times because just before we left we'd decided Mom needed a new warmer winter quilt and I was to pick the fabric. That year they didn't have much with flowers on it. Mom loves flowers. We ended up getting a bunch of pieces that coordinated with a big print of poinsettias and the quilt is great. I posted pictures last summer when we pieced it while I was here. It's weird, last year they had so few prints with flowers. This year they had a bunch! figures, eh?!

 That was the first day driving. I got to just north of Kansas City. I purposely went beyond Kansas City, driving almost 14 hours (including the half hour at Hancocks) because I knew the next day could be iffy. I'd heard via the grapevine that I-29 was closed at one spot about half an hour north of St Joseph. I'd only been driving less than half an hour when there was a sign saying that at the next exit turn right, go about 60 miles, then north up to Des Moines before cutting back to Omaha to go north. That seemed a bit excessive so I stopped at the Love's truck stop at that exit and asked. The lady said the interstate was closed all the way to Omaha (about 120 miles, I think) and don't go to Des Moines, go west about 20 miles then straight north up #75 to Omaha. That worked. Country roads but good ones that you could go at the speed limit and would have been wonderful except that half way up #75 there was another sign, detour to the left about 20 miles and then up another road to Omaha. About every 20 miles it did say that it was a detour. Once at the edge of Omaha I asked someone about the interstate and I was on the right way but had to ask again later because you couldn't get on I-29 there. Had to go east about 20 miles and then backtrack to what actually was I-29. That was noon. I'd been on the road 5 hours, went well over 100 miles more than I should have and finally was back on the road.
There hadn't been any fast food places on the way so I was very ready for a pit stop, took the first exit and stopped at the McDonalds.

 Those are sandbags with just 2 entrances to get into the restaurant. There were floods up here how many months ago? They still have the sandbags there. This place wasn't at a low spot either. The floods must have been awful!!

 You couldn't go through the drive through either yet. That was amazing.
What kind of bugged me was that there wasn't any warning about the long stretch that it was out. My DH went to AAA to ask about it and they didn't know that the highway was out for so long a stretch. I will have to go back another way. I haven't opened the map yet because I'm here several weeks but I'm not looking forward to finding another way south!
The next 20 mile stretch or so I guess the highway is a bit lower than normal because on 3 sections they had sandbags on each side of the highway, both directions. I'm talking about bags that are over 3 feet high and big! I am not comfortable taking pictures while I drive so you just have to imagine long stretches of highway, the 2 lanes really down to 1 because the sandbags were placed closer in than the edge of the road to make sure the highway stays open. Somewhere down that stretch I noticed a bunch of water on the field and in the middle a home, still underwater.
The rest of the trip, thankfully, was uneventful. I did have to spend the night in Fargo instead of going on to Grand Forks because the hotels in Grand Forks were full. I'd asked DH to help by finding me a reservation. Turns out that this weekend was a long weekend in Canada so alot of Winnipeg was down in Grand Forks to relax! The Canadian dollar is much stronger now and it pays for them to go down to shop. They have a Kohl's and alot of other stores down there!
I spent Saturday crossing the border, heading to Altona to the IGA store to pick up farmer sausage and a bit of New Bothwell cheese. I take a cooler along so I can transport it to my sister's place. You can't get Pioneer Sausage out here and I can't take it south so have to enjoy it now. For lunch I went to see my high school friend Bettie in Steinbach. It's a tradition I don't want to stop. Then on to Winnipeg to stay at my sister in law's for night, heading west late Sunday morning and getting to Moose Jaw about 5:30 their time.

At Hancocks I'd bought a few pieces of fabric for my sister. Today I pulled it out for her to enjoy. She's been wanting some fabrics like the 30's reproduction fabrics or the reproduction flour sack fabrics. Now she's got a few.

I had a bit of trouble logging onto our site. Somehow the blog knew that I wasn't at home, that my sister had had to get a new password, etc to get her signal so I was posting from a new place even tho I'd written from here last year already.
Hopefully there won't be another problem and I can post from here again next week. I have no idea what we're going to do that will be deemed worthwhile to write about! My nephew and his wife are coming for a few days. I do have my sewing machine along and a few projects.......and it's warm here. No air conditioning and it's over 80 degrees but it's better than the 107 that I saw it was in Columbus Missouri on Thursday!!
It's good to be with family!
Carol