Saturday, March 13, 2010

what it REALLY looks like


here is what the weaving looks like now that i have put in the lighter petticoat Opal yarn to break it up. i htink it has much more interest and brightens it a lot. the other color is nice iwth the warp too but the opal makes it sparkle!

Let the REAL weaving begin!

and so i have finally begun to weave on the colorful warp I began putting on last weekend. and this is what i have after an hour and many many breaks for lexulous and email checking and picture taking... and now, without further ado I give you the weaving!


for those who do not weave the white is waste weaving to spread out the warp (lengthwise yarns) and keep it there as you begin weaving with your real weft (horizontal yarn)

and those are indeed toilet paper rolls cut and clasped around my front beam to cover the knots from tying on the warp. i'm not sure this is right but seems i read something this week about covering up the knots so you did not get wells/dents/misalignment of the yarns in the finished fabric as you roll it on the beam.

i'm not very happy with my edges. i wound up puttin to yarn bits in the last slot and hole on either side of my weaving to see if it would fill my edges better. i may just get up from posting this and then un-weave all of it and do it with my edges just a bit tighter. after this much weaving i have a better idea of where the yarn needs to be on the edge and how much angle i need before i use the heddle to beat it in place.

i also learned that i must use a sword to clear the shed after each shed change and before i put the stick shuttle through or the yarn (opal solids and one hand dyed knitpicks sock yarn) in the warp will stick as it is a bit fuzzy. God bless those that use real mohair! And I was thinking of using up the mohair from my sister-in-laws mitered or logcabin or something or other scarf/stole i made from that mags kandis pattern to weave with. not any time soon!

i also received my color gamp kit this week. alas, i am very confused as to the pattern instructions. there are NO PICTURES of the finished items you can make. In quilting this would be billed as a mystery quilt. In weaving I expected to see a blasted picture or two so i could make the changes i needed to make in order to fit it on my 32" harp when the baby blanket is like 45" and 4 harnesses.

so i will be doing LOTS and loads of research while i am working on this scarf before i can put the gamp rainbow kit on to the warping board and then loom. i had hoped to finish this scarf this weekend and be ready to direct warp the loom with the rainbow "lesson in color" project on tuesday and wednesday night next week when dh is traveling. Much easier to think that through without him here. too much smoke emits from my head when i'm thinking through stuff on weaving.

okay posting so i can get back to the loom!

hugs all

mathilda... here i come! get ready to cooperate :)

Sunday, March 7, 2010

A Rainbow of colors!






so real quick with maybe more later.. the second ever warp and the soon to be first real project! very colorful. much more ME! See? the camera case is the same bright colors! and the pic to the right is for recalling how i warped it to get this length in the future.
Below is a picture of the large mouth bass i caught yesterday on my FIRST cast into the retention pond behing my inlaws. I can't recall the last time i caught one this large. over a year anyway. and he is all of 20" long and heavy enough to require me to hold him up by the brass swivel! so at least 5 pounds if not 6 or 7! :) my hand is held up next to him and spread out. that is 8". it starts at his tail bottom. hope you can see it in the pic!






Wednesday, March 3, 2010

and the weaving saga continues...

So i have pictures. i have tons of pictures to post but they aren't on this computer. THey are on a very heavy external harddrive that I did bring with me but i'm so annoyed i'm too lazy to reach over and set it up.

so the first warp has been woven as much as i intend to weave on it. i cut it off the loom on sunday night to take to work for crafting monday as a show and weep with me over this piece type thing. oh its not so bad truly. but it is NOT a rug and that was what i was making. it is way TOO thin to ever step on let alone wipe your wet shoes on. and the things other than that that are wrong with it i have figured out the error of my ways. so it was a good learning piece.

one of the things i really learned was that i wish i had warped for the scarf! so i plan to warp for the scarf this weekend and weave on it next week. which means of course, that the weather in florida should be extremely warmer by the end of next week when i suspect this scarf might be finished by. always the way, eh?

so i broke down and on sunday i ordered a kit for a colorwheel gamp. whatever a gamp is. i made the mistake of mentioning that if this will not be for a 10 dent heddle please adjust. well turns out i got told it was for a 12 dent heddle (the pattern that is).

so then i went through three emails of explaining that my question referred to the yarn and heddle's capability and not the pattern. then on tuesday when i had not heard back to my last email AND i did not know if it had shipped or was cancelled i called.

guessie what? the "new" girl answering the phones did not know and could not see my order in the system. she walked to the back to get the girl who does the internet "stuffs". well she does not weave and so and so will be in on wednesday to answer my question. well by then i was annoyed and cancelled the order.

spent two hours on line looking for small cones in a rainbow of colors with reasonable shipping etc and finally said to self " not may fault they choose to hire people who do not particiapte in the fiber workings at a fiber providing place. I'm confident enough that i did my research and i can do no less than divide my heddle count in the proper number of amounts and warp for "stripes" and even weave it for squares to see what happens. "

so i placed the internet order again, followed it up with an email telling them i had placed the order and yes it was a REorder. I placed that order at 12:05 pm my time, which is also their time.

I got a reply this morning at 8:51 AM telling me it is backordered and expected to be ready to go out tomorrow (thursday) and would be delivered on the 10th! Needless to say, i'll get this kit from them but then i'm going to save up my pennies and get full pound cones of colors i want in the future from someone else! there is no excuse in today's looking-for-work market to have noone around who knows a flip about weaving, or apparently fiber in general, so they can answer questions.

on an up note, one of the other fiasco's of this whole weaving experience is to arrive today. the second heddle and support blocks are to arrive today for the mistakenly ordered 32" size Kromski Harp. I'll believe it when i see it. After all, it can still arrive and be the orginally desired size of 24" instead of the size that would fit the loom I actually received.

I really don't think i'm suppose to weave! Just really bad karma all around about this thing.

i'm even considering selling this loom for what i paid for it to someone local and they'll get a great deal and i'll be out of the bad karma on this whole thing!

maybe i'll save for a Northwest Pioneer loom which i discovered online yesterday! it is the absolutely sweetest looking thing seen here http://northwestlooms.com/

so yea that is a lot of pennies to be a saving up for and the pioneer has a max of 15" while the other one the frieda i believe has a mx of 20" opps my bad. the pioneer can do up to 20" the frieda only up to 18" but a significant diff in price between the two when only comparing same width and 8 harnesses. guess that would be an after birthday/christmas of 2010 purchase at that price unless i take a second job!

oh well, off i go to work in ends on my Carole's Clever Little Shawl that i finally finished knitting over a week ago from hand spun by my sister. you ahve to dig for pics of this one because the pattern does not have any i'll try to find links which if you are on ravelry you can search patterns for it and then projects and look for a pic in someone's projects folder.

pattern here http://www.cheryloberle.com/ scroll down to the link for it
pictures here http://theyarnmarket.blogspot.com/ go to January 22, 2010 and if you want to read the woes of the poor gal there, read the january 30th post. never ever send money for mugged people or "in jail" people etc. recently my poor dear inlaws had someone call them telling them he was one of their grandsons and he was in jail in Canada and needed money to get out. Gratefully, whoever stole this information from them did not know that that grandson was far from getting any bailout money from them etc. So be SMART do not react via your emotions, be cautious! better to have your money then to get swindled because you just reacted and did not think it all through from all possibilities.

have a grand day. off to work in those pesty ends!

denise/deBRAT in tampa bay florida