Puppy Love

I can't believe that I haven't posted on my blog since July. Wow. I get a little weaving done here and there and have done some knitting this winter. I always get the urge to knit when the weather turns cold.

We now have a new member of the family - Vince Lombardi. (My husband, a Packer fan, named him) He was supposed to be an Australian Shepherd/Lab mix but everyone who sees him, including our vet, thinks he's a St. Bernard mix.

Only crazy people get a puppy in the winter. There's no joy like taking a puppy out to pee at 3am when it is below zero. But, I'm seeing a lot more of the moon and stars than I usually do and I appreciate the wonderful quiet in the middle of the night outside.

He is a cutie. He's gained a few pounds since this was taken and he now has a Green Bay collar to match his tag. A friend of mine told me to take a picture of his paw so here it is. He's a big boy.

And I'll try to post a little sooner next time!

Buttons and such

More dyeing . . . Now the yarns for the rug are ready and I have started weaving . . barely. Today I am adjusting the tieups on this new to me loom for a better shed. Then I can start weaving in earnest.

And we now have a robin who has taken up residence in the pergola. She started 3 different nests and I thought she had abandoned them, but she flew out when I was standing next to the pergola last night and scared the heck out of me as I was watching the raccoon in the neighbor's yard. 

And here is the raccoon. It was only about 6:30, so I thought it was early for him or her to be out and about but what do I know?

I have been going through boxes of "stuff". Stuff from my aunt who passed away a few years ago, stuff in my fiber closet, stuff I have just accumulated over the years to pass things on to people I know will enjoy them, or donate them.

I came across a shoebox, filled with little boxes of buttons and found these beauties. It's mother of pearl and abalone. There were 2 large buttons and 4 smaller ones.  They are gorgeous. I think I will have to sew something with handwoven fabric that needs some buttons.

    

More Color!

I did more dyeing over the weekend. The teal is darker than it looks on my monitor. I wanted gradations of color, so had 2 dyepots going with the teal. When I bought the Cranbrook, I got a lot of great yarn with it, and some colors that aren't what I would normally use.

 The yarns above on the left are overdyed yarns. The yarns below are the ones that I dyed over with teal.

I have one more color to dye this weekend and then I'll be ready to weave the rug!

Love my Cranbrook!

I just took the sampler off the loom and I am going to love weaving on this loom. I was able to start dyeing some wool yarn this weekend but have more left to do.

Go for it!

For years, I have thought that I would like to have an orchid. But I never bought one because I thought it wouldn't grow well, since I might not have enough humidity, or the right amount of light. 

This past winter it was so cold and snowy for so long and I saw this orchid sitting in a display at Walmart for $10 and I thought, "why not?". Even if the blooms lasted for only a couple of weeks, the beauty of the flowers would be well worth it. 

I have sometimes forgotten to water it for a couple of weeks. It sits on the windowsill in my home office and it got kind of chilly up there when it was cold outside. 

It just keeps blooming. It has been blooming now for at least 4 months. It seems to be happy where it's at. 

There is a lesson in this for me. That I can sometimes just do something that might not be sensible or seem like a logical thing to do and it can bring a lot of unexpected joy into my life if I will take that leap of faith. 

And maybe since it's going to be sticking around for a while, it's time to get it a real pot. 

Sampling

First I did some sampling with the shaft switcher, which didn't work well because I used nails instead of eye hooks and the doups slid right off - which I thought they might. But I tied the ss warps to either harness 2 or 3, just to see how the spacing of 5epi worked with various yarns and after all, that's what I really wanted to know. This portion is plain weave. Because I warped this up in a 4 end block weave, I am also able to do plain weave, just using 2 other treadles tied up 1&4 and 2&3. I'm going to start a rug using that and I wanted to see how various colors worked with each other. I washed my skeins of white yarn yesterday and ordered the dyes which should be here by next weekend. It's good to be doing weft-faced weaving again. And I got another towel done on the David loom.
By the time I have woven this rug, the shaft switching device should be finished and then I'll have levers!

Shaft Switching Sampler

It's been several years since I took Jason Collingwood's class at Juanita Hofstrom's Vavning Studio. So I had to reread my notes and look over Peter Collingwood's books again to figure out what I was doing. I have the new Cranbrook warped with linen for a sampler and I made some shaft switchers out of some wood strips with nails. All I have left to do is make the doups and I'm ready to weave.

I want to try out some different sized weft yarns to determine the best epi. Then I can make the shaft switching device using levers.