Let's try again, Dorothy

Weaving - Take 2:

So, I promised Dorothy not to put her back in the laundry room, dejected & defeated for another year.
Let's PLAY some more...

That Scarf has issues, sure. But this is no time to quit. Practice Makes Perfect ...okay NOT perfect. Exactly.
But we'll have fun, explore possibilities and see what happens. (Warping the loom began while it was still very dark outside...)

Besides. It's freaking cold outside.
What else is there to do?

And my 1st born baby moved to Minnesota.
Total Travel Estimate: 26 hours 51 minutes / 1631.58 miles
Mom distractions needed to fight the It's not just for a visit this time blues.

Daylight arrived to light up the fact that we had a long way to go before weaving could commence.

No surprise here...?
This project didn't go exactly as planned either.
But we had a good time getting there and Dorothy is still welcome in the living room. (Just to be clear ;)

I chose a pattern for threading the warp from Mastering Weave Structures, page 208: Plain Weave with Rib weave stripe.

I had actually considered trying fabric strips, mixed in with textured yarns in shades of tan to yellow.

That didn't seem like it was going to work so I tried to follow the actual directions from page 208.
More or less.
I soon realized the warp I used would be too thin to match the texture of the sample on page 209.
So I did just a plain weave.
Back and forth; boringly satisfying.

No Rib Weave yet for Dorothy and I.
Sugar 'n Cream cotton yarn weft. Potpourri.

Things learned best NOT to do this time:

Take off wire heddles after the loom has been threaded.
There were too many wires strung on shafts 3 & 4 since I was trying to thread all the way across the frame. The extras usually pile up on the side and hang out of the way. Threads from shaft 1 & 2 could not get past the stack of unused heddles hanging on the sides of 3 & 4.

Add 2nd strip of (yellow) warps after the loom is threaded to double each of the warps where Rib Weave would have happened.
I added 6 to each side, proving it could be done.
Gave up on the other 30 or so in varying colors I had considered.

A Temple is a new term I've only just learned. It might possibly have kept the woven fabric from pulling in so much trying to do the Rib Weave. Pretty hard on the outside warps if the beater has to smack 3 or 4 on the outside in either direction away from the actual edge.

This is why warp yarn breaks?
I think yes.
This is why I quit while I was ahead and settled for boringly satisfying.

It's not your fault, Dorothy

Seemed like a good idea at the time*

What NOT to do (perhaps) with 2 pricey skeins of Noro Silk Garden yarn.

This was the first Noro I've ever purchased.
And last most likely. While it was VERY pretty on the outside of the skein, inside dwelt some of the yuckiest purple + yellow + green equals mud I've never imagined.
I know this about variegated yarn and still I fall for the pretty bits on the outside. I much prefer a one or two color-shade variation. Why do I keep forgetting that?
All those colors don't belong together!

I didn't read yarn reviews until after I bought it of course. The knots where they joined blue and green with no attempt to match the color pattern would not have come as so much of a surprise if I had. Likewise, the mysterious foreign objects spun into the yarn that have now been identified as sticks, hay and other little "bits" sheep get stuck to themselves. No mystery.

We've got issues:

I threaded the reed at every other space with the 1st skein of Noro, thinking that by spreading it out farther across the loom it would make the scarf wider. The 2nd skein would be the weft. The tiny little skeins didn't have as much yardage as I imagined they might.

Wish I could say lack of yardage was this Scarf's only issue!

I began with the plan to do an all Rib Weave (page 20 - Learning to Weave by Deborah Chandler). Didn't look good and I suspected this was due to the every-other-space threading.

But did I weave backwards (unweave?) and start over?
Thread the reed differently?
NO.
Should I have?
YES! Definitely.

I ended up breaking a warp within 6 inches and it was pretty clear things were not going to get any better. The force of the beater smacking up against the yarn - especially the outer edges - was certainly going to break a few more very quickly. Did I stop NOW and regroup with a new plan?

NO. Well not exactly.
I "beat" nearly the entire thing into place with a comb.
(Do NOT recommend!) The beginning of the weaving where I used the normal beating action was several inches wider than the rest of the scarf.

I ended with a Rib Weave pattern to see what it might have looked like, if threaded correctly.

Thinking I can cut off the wide end and make hems so it looks even. Steph says they are "her colors" and she likes it. I've given her permission NOT to say "My Mom Made It" if anyone asks.

In fact, I think I would rather she did not...

Backstrap Weaving UPDATE

TAH DA!!

I cut off the heddle strings and prepared to scrap my 1st Backstrap Weaving project. But I'd carefully saved the cross as I considered whether or not it was worth a try changing out the heddle strings to match same fiber as the warp and see what happened.

I FINISHED IT!

Not sure I did the braid ends right but it is D.O.N.E!!! It's a little primitive - or as Steph said "I like it...it looks primitive."
(I can accept that ;)

Weaving did get easier, although after a few inches started matting up again. The first & last warp (the ones that had a slip knot to start with) were not the right tension - too loose - and contributed a little to the funky edges. Along with all the other things that this beginner did wrong, I'm sure.
(Like winding on 2 yards of 96 wraps and skipping the BEGINNER PROJECT with only a yard length of 20 something ends.) But I'm pleased to have completed it rather than quit. I am NOT a quitter!

An extra cross in back has been suggested by the experts at Weavolution as a way to control the tilty sliding around issues, of both shed rod & the ends themselves. I thought I might have missed a step, but I've now learned how to add an extra cross after the loom is set up. I drilled extra holes in the ginormous wooden knitting needle I was using as a shed rod and it seemed to help keep that from sliding all over the place.

(That funky, weird single "needle" was in some stuff I inherited from aunt Nonnie's craft stash, so I was happy to find a possible use for it. Although now that I've drilled holes in it - it probably won't function well for whatever it was originally intended!)

NEXT TIME I will add the extra cross in the back to see if it helps with stability.

TA DUMB??

Just to keep me humble in the new year, I managed to knit the crap out of a Mystery Sock Knit-A-Long. Wrote down the 1st clue and then after the 3rd row, proceeded to knit what the hell ever I felt like, it seems.

"It only hurts for a minute" to yank out the needles and start over?

Yeah ...sure.

This much was ripped out. I've now reknit it (following the ACTUAL directions) as well as getting the 2nd sock almost to this point. Directions include a bead option but I don't seem to have anything that works in my stash. This is Opal yarn, about the thickness of a strand of hair. It's been hanging around for a year or so in the yarn bucket. I swore I was never making socks out of yarn this thin again.

Now I remember why.

Which path will you choose?

Backstrap Weaving: a lesson in how. NOT.

So just before Christmas I dusted off Dorothy and brought her out from her storage room once again. I had recently read blogs about weaving with sock yarn and felt a burning desire to weave something. I wound warp from 3 left-over balls of yarn (last of 2 skeins Sara gifted me from her trip to Germany) and since there was not enough for a very wide scarf, contemplated which other left-overs to add to the mix. And then there was the question of which weft to weave with. I was thinking something to tone down the reds.

I day dreamed of a quick trip to our only local yarn store (LYS) for another skein of "the good stuff". AcMoore's limited choice of sock yarns was hit pretty hard by holiday shoppers. My biggest obstacle was the fact that my jeep was in Orono with Steph. Said yarn shop's location coincidentally. But I was not. No wheels, stormy driving conditions and holiday chaos* all conspired against me & Dorothy.

So Dorothy waits patiently. Out in plain sight in the living room; petted often and promised soon.

I explored many "weaving" websites in the process of waiting patiently and came across a Backstrap Weaving site, complete with tutorials and how-to-videos, done so well anyone happening upon them might easily be convinced: I CAN DO THAT! Might even lead to playing with power tools and an unexplainable compulsion to hunt & gather assorted supplies. Most of which promised might actually be readily available in the basement.

For days I poked around, looking for wooden dowels, rulers and rope. Rope turned out to be the most allusive actually but finally all things needed were gathered, measured, cut, drilled and ready to TRY. (I should preface this by stating I had a good time trying and there will be an attempt 2. What follows is how my Wednesday went...)
Backstrap weaving attempt 1:

Ready?

Tilty!
My former girl scout knot tying skills need a refresher course. Also, very old ginormous wooden knitting needle did not prove to be a good choice to use as the back shed rod. Rolled around and was too heavy and tipped from side to side.

WEIGHTY?
Not weighty enough! I thought our rustic coffee table along with some heavy books would anchor the back end in place. It did not.
Oopsy!

Had trouble opening the back shed. Strings used to open the front shed DO NOT belong way down in the section marked off with cardboard for fringe braids later.
(I knew that.) I just couldn't figure out how to open the back half at first. I had my laptop down on the floor of the living room in my sunny warm spot - all ready to watch the helpful video on how to string the heddles once more. EXCEPT that sunny warm spot made seeing the laptop screen IMPOSSIBLE.

Sticky!
Yarn choice sucked. Piling & matting fiber beneath the heddle strings made opening the back shed a nightmare. But I can tell you the first time I actually got it to open was JOYOUS! They had been strung correctly, but with the wrong choice of yarn was clearly a setback.

Tricky.
Why is the shuttle yarn wrapped around my leg?
Once I actually had some weaving going on, I put down the shuttle at some point. (Answered the phone, let out the dog, let in the dog, took laptop to kitchen where I could see it in order to find out if the heddle strings were tied right, etc.)
Number of times I accidentally wrapped the shuttle yarn around my leg: 5!

CRAPPY.
No amount of fiddling can overcome this sorry first effort and I don't think I will continue struggling with bad yarn choice. Will TRY AGAIN using different threads, rather than torture myself with this and become so frustrated I quit.

And I have the jeep for the morning!

Does this cable make my hand look fat?

So I STILL hate making thumbs.

I've finished another pair of mittens and this time they fit me. I used Caron Simply Soft that was left over from a project that got frogged (ripped out and shoved aside...ribbit!) and I suspect they'll stretch out of shape big enough to put both hands into one mitten, judging by socks I once made from the stuff.

But they are warm.
And soft.

I used all but about 20 inches of yarn for the first pair. I wish the thumbs had been longer but maybe they'll fit a 12 year old. We don't have any 12 year old's around to shove them onto. I'm thinking someone with freakishly short thumbs with long fingers?

I ripped out the top of the hand on the first pair as the fingers were too pointy. I'm still not loving the decrease methods I've tried so far.

So far. Did you catch that? Likely to be more. Mom helped me write out her basic recipe for mittens last week but I've lost it already. Should probably quit experimenting stick to mom knows best method.

Still making it up as I go along. The cables need to be ended in a less abrupt manner and tapered off so they don't look like they're designed for a platypus!

Mittens HAVE THUMBS

I can't explain this.
It goes against everything I've believed until now. I am knitting MITTENS. 

I got out my Barbara Walker Treasury Books 1 & 2, inspired by this picture of mittens, chose 3 stitch patterns from Book 2 and for some reason felt compelled beyond all understanding to rip out 18 rows of ankle knitting and make mittens instead. There's thumbs in mittens
(we don't likes thumbs!)

They started out as socks.
Really they did! A one Goodwill skein of yarn I hoped to use up from stash to make a pair of socks.

I cast on Saturday morning for some grocery store knitting-while-waiting (for mom) and by Sunday morning I was ready to do the heel flap. I hoped to repeat a recent triumph in optimal skein usage and knit up as much as possible from the single skein of yarn. There was no label, not that those are much help to me. I grabbed up some size 5 needles and cast on a random number and hoped for the best. They would be whatever size they wanted.
 
I knit until the voices in my head said to change direction.

Knit both at the same time and tried to guess how long the yarn would last. That little scrid of yarn next to the brown flecked socks is all that is left from that skein of yarn!  

BEGIN RANT: Dear SOCK YARN people: put enough in a damn skein of yarn to knit a damn pair of average (small even) socks. Most of us have 2 feet and this gimmick of "you need 2 skeins to make a pair of socks" is unacceptable. END RANT.

I've been knitting under the radar since the middle of October. My sister-in-law's grandmother mentioned her church was hanging items on a tree instead of ornaments and I thought I would Knit Unto Others a bit. Use up some stash yarn.

In between socks I started doing some more Fetching fingerless gloves. This probably explains how the thumb thing happened. It occurred to me that knitting the WHOLE THUMB might actually be easier than binding off a hobo half-thumb.
 
PLEASE NOTE: I seem to have conquered (for now) my lack of LEFT/RIGHT sense. There's going to be one of each!! These do not fit me however. The do fit one of my offspring, who points out she has a brown coat. I may have to buy a special skein for myself to justify the next attempt.
 
We'll see if this thumb business sticks.

African Violet progress report

Starting Over Began With Forgiveness

My Mom has always grown African Violets. She grows them on her windowsills and there’s nearly always something in bloom. No names in “heavy” potting soil; in plant pots twice the “proper” size. So far as I know she’s never bought fertilizer in her life. None of this matters to the plants on her sills. They bloom.

When I moved away from home she happily supplied me with a plant or two in full bloom. I would enjoy them a few months. And then they would be dead. (A little water wouldn’t have hurt!) My sorrowful confession would result in blooming replacements. We would repeat this love-kill relationship several years before it occurred to me these plants weren’t meant to be disposable and surely I could do better. I went to the internet and was amazed by what I found. They had names! With blooms in colors I had never imagined; variegated & girl leaves were a delightful surprise and so of course: I had to have some!

For three years I became a fairly successful African Violet grower.

"Laurie was a newbie, enthusiastic and wildly modern in her approach and expectations of her violets." To quote a friend in Montana!

The miracle of babies-by-leaf was perfected and beautiful plants bloomed on my new lighted shelves. Purchases from well know vendors were made, private collectors traded extras for postage and BINGO was won. Twice! Before I knew it more than 100 names came. And went.

Problems began. Gnats were everywhere. Powdery mildew appeared. Plant centers began to look funny. Information overload probably made things worse with every counter measure I tried. I started throwing plants away by the tray full and before I knew what had happened, I was back to three plants on a windowsill.

Over the next two years they would barely survive. They stubbornly hung on even as their labels fell away and watering went back to the desert-flood method. (Ignore until desert dry and then water the crap out of them like that will make up for it.) Shame on me! I knew better. I had made internet friends with wonderful people like Mrs. John of Violet Voice, Fred Hill, Nancy Robitaille and Rich Follet - I won Sweet Violet’s 1^st Bingo! My youngest went away to college, as I think back now. Empty Nest tears & fears may have played a role in my disheartened lack of energy. They felt like too much work.

In December 2008 I decided I missed the blooms; I missed standing in front of the lights each morning with my 2^nd cup of coffee, lifting pots; testing for “heaviness” to see if they needed watering or grooming. I missed my internet friends but I didn’t feel worthy of joining the forums again until I could prove my new found enthusiasm was more than a whim. I would allow myself a lighted shelf for the winter months and IF my three survivors made a healthy recovery I would feel like I belonged once more. On Valentine’s Day a local nursery newsletter announced it had AV’s “Just in – to fight the winter blues!” My 4 foot shelf had plenty of room so 3 no-names were chosen. Their soggy peat was replaced with my mix, suckers were repotted and leaves were set to practice propagation. It was all coming back to me and it was fun again.

Three lighted shelves have been turned on now and 1^st blooms have rewarded my renewed efforts. My original three are in bloom as well; enough so I can tell who they are once more. They’ll always need an “*” if I bother to mark the pot with a name, but Woodland Sprite, Rob’s Toorooka and Rob’s Zoot Suit have earned their spot back on the shelf. My named collection now number about 30. Keeping that number at a manageable level takes a constant reminder of the need for self-control. Too many may take the fun out this just like before. But once I forgave myself, it felt okay to begin again.

Ramblin' Sunshine was among the first plants in an order I placed in May 2009 - after I had proven worthy of buying more. It was actually a "gift" from the seller. (shhhh....*gawd awful ugly little plant is hurtful and we were in denial ;)

She has come a long way under my rehabilitated houseplant care!

P.S. !!

Violet Voice is about to host a game of HOLIDAY BINGO! I'm donating socks & wrist warmers - and a journal. NEW MEMBERS are welcome to play.

Discovering America

We drove to the EDGE of America!

On Saturday we set sail in our Jeep Wrangler to explore America.

Route 9 to Calais, Maine for some Leaf Peeking.

Weather forecast promised a mostly sunny afternoon. So we drove to where it remained mostly cloudy, with rain.
A pattern for 2009 it seems.

Since neither of us have a Passport it has just hit me: we are prisoners of security.
No spontanous visits to Great Grandparents graveside in Canada, even if we wanted to.

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave motto needs to be adjusted to the reality of today. We are locked in until we pay up for new ID.

Over reaction from 911?

Common sense was the first to go.

Although, judging by the line of cars and the random concert of honking horns, coming back to America is more tedious.

As if an unseen maestro was directing a parade of standstill cars, non-angry honking horns sounded off in a harmony

of musical notes floating across the St. John.

For as long as it seemed to be taking, it's a wonder the honking was not the angry kind.

Then again my sense of Homeland Security may be temporarily skewed by the number of times last week I listened to airport terminal messages explain 311 for carry on liquids in luggage, reminders not to take things from strangers and the strolling TSA agents with seemingly nothing better to do than to step outside for a smoke.

Take off your shoes and get in line.

Bright side: for 3 hours I was able to make progress knitting my socks-while-waiting as Sara's plane from Finland was still on the ground in Newark, NJ when it should have been just arriving in Portland, ME.

She pointed out that if I had a cell

phone I wouldn't have missed the call 10 minutes into my road trip warning of her absence.
2 hours 32 minutes; 142.86 miles according to MapQuest.

Each way.

But I digress.

We were leaf peeking explorers.

Did not know blueberry fields put on such colorful fall display.

Are you paddling back there?

Sunkhaze Stream
"Where the Wild Things Are"

We took a canoe trip on the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend. Another one of those close to home - right in our backyard adventures you almost forget to take advantage of.

Perfect weather for it and many wildlife sightings along the way included a turtle sunning itself on a log in the middle of the river, a family of 5 river otters and a family of cranes. The river otters swam just ahead of us for much of the way, blowing bubbles at us and rolling onto their backs, floating along side.
























A crane never strayed far ahead of us or the otters, keeping careful watch over everyone. A very tiny baby crane showed itself standing on shore just as we realized there were actually 2 cranes swapping places with each other.














A train whistle sounded in the distance just after we passed under the trestle on the way back, so I made the steerer in back turn us around so we could wait for it and get pictures.






(Tom does a lot of "steering" back there and not much paddling if you don't keep your eye on him!)

The engineer had a sign under his window announcing it was his birthday. Tom saw it, although I would have missed it but for the joy of digital camera age!

NO CABOOSE?


PS to BLOGGER: your edit features suck! I need a tutorial for moving pictures where I want them.