Harrisville Designs 22" Four-Shaft Four-Treadle Floor Loom!!!

A week ago I was sitting in my knitting/scripture-reading chair early on Monday morning.  I use an app on my phone (We Believe) to organize my scripture study every day and I do mean every day.  It makes the days go so much better.  Well, I was reading in Jeremiah and a note popped up from one of my fiber  group friends saying something like, "This looks like a good deal."   Since my scriptures were not going anywhere, I clicked on the link!

Wowzer!  This is a Harrisville Designs 22" Four-Shaft Four-Treadle Floor Loom. (If you click this link you will see this is a kit for $1800.  If you want it pre-assembled -not a bad idea!--it is $2550.) I don't think they make this specific one anymore. I think they all have six treadles...for which they have upgrade kits.  I will have that in the back of my mind but I will have to exhaust the possibilities weaving on this loom first...!

Here is the loom in its new home beside the spinning wheel in the front window!

About twenty years ago I went to Harrisville, New Hampshire to attend a one-week course on weaving on this very loom style!  I was so thrilled to see that note on my phone.  I went back to my scripture study and had a brief chat with Heavenly Father and said that when I finished my scripture study, not taking any shortcuts, if the loom was still available, then I would consider that He wanted me to get it.  I did my study.  I texted the seller.  The loom was available.  Pickup was available that day.  The only glitch in the plan was that it was an hour and a half drive away on scary fast roads BUT I decided I could do it.  After packing a couple of apples in the car and stopping at the credit union to pick up cash (where I learned I could not immediately fix a perplexing mobile financial app problem), I hit the road and managed to find the home where the loom was located.

The loom had belonged to the seller's wife who had died a year ago and which loom had been her pride and joy.  Now it is my pride and joy!  The kind man and his friend carefully loaded the loom in the car for me and I headed for home.  GPS decided to take me home a different way.  The first thirty minutes were white-knuckle driving then I got on familiar roads and crawled along at the usual snail's pace, safely pulled the car into the garage, closed the overhead door, went into the house and collapsed onto the couch to get up strength enough to go to bed!

The next day I brought the loom inside then over the past few days have found a permanent home for the loom in the front window next to the Ashford Traveler Spinning Wheel which tools are book-ended by the slate table we got in Vermont many years ago which houses the computer/monitor set up and on the other side by the horizontal wooden file cabinet my sister brought to house the color laser printer and the black and white laser printer which we purchased this spring when the old color laser printer bit the dust.  (Parenthetically it had not actually bitten the dust, we two of us just could not figure out the problem.   A kind senior missionary who likes to fix things fixed it and gave it to a "friend" at church.  That was no problem then and no problem now.)  And in case you want to know why I thought we needed a color laser printer--I plan to print out my electronic journal which has lots of photographs in it...which I wanted to be in color.

So as I have been watching Tom Knisely weaving videos I have been pricking up my ears from time to time as he shows something that I needed to know.  I do think now that the loom parts are all happy.  The last thing Tom talked about was care and maintenance of the loom.  I will get some Murphy's Oil soap and scrub down the loom in case there is grunge on in though I can say that the home it came from was immaculate...unlike some places I know rather intimately...!

The Deborah Chandler book: Learning To Weave arrived last Wednesday and I have been reading it and making notes.  It is a book that is actually a weaving course.  I have completed Lesson One and am on Lesson Two...which I do not want to move on to until I have scrubbed up the loom.  Of course, I have not read all the way through Lesson Two, and I have not gone back and re-read Lesson One which Deborah recommends.  I did measure the sample warp.

This is obviously going to be a striped piece.  I have not read ahead to learn more about what the sample will create...but I do know it will be a piece of cloth that will be 22" in the reed.

The sample warp Deborah calls for has you use a 12-dent reed, which I do not as  of this moment own.  The loom came with a 10-dent reed and I ordered an 8-dent reed since I often have used at least worsted  (number 4) weight yarn for weaving on the rigid heddle looms we have.  After ordering the new reed I actually tried putting the yarn I plan to use for the first real project (Christmas kitchen towels for a friend who already gave me the yarn...) through the reed and found it would have worked just fine.  Oh well.  It is only money and I am sure I will use thicker yet yarns in the future.

So the sample warp is ready to go, but I do plan to re-read Lesson One before dressing the loom.

That is it for today.

Do good.

Be good.

Let's do it now, together.

Back at the Computer With Weaving and Spinning

 Today I have spent mostly sitting at the computer watching The Loom Owner's Companion  a video with Tom Knisely.  I have watched numberous videos by him and his daughter Sara Bixler.  Today I even ordered a Spinning 101 book by Tom. I have been doing a little spinning that I want to tell you about.

When I went to Vermont recently to visit family and friends and to attend the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival I discovered that South Royalton, the town where I was raised, was having a smaller fiber festival thant the one at Tunbridge Fair Grounds.  My friends Judy, John, and I went to the SoRo event as well. It was so lovely and somewhat a relief after the crowds at VSWF five miles up the road!

On the green in South Royalton I found a vendor booth for Heron's Llyn Farm where I picked up a bump of lovely pink fiber.  Since our granddaughter is a pink fan and intertested in a pink Emotional Support Chicken, (the picture here is the most recently completed chicken.  It turns out grandchildren wanted chickens rather than blankets!!) I decided not to resist that fluffy ball!  

Since I liked the fiber I emailed the people at the farm and learned that the fiber was a Romney blend from their own sheep (she even sent me a photo of the darling sweet-faced sheep!) and which fiber she dyed using cochineal.  I had no idea you could get such a nice pink from cochineal.  I have thought multiple times of dyeing with cochineal but have not yet gotten to it.  Maybe next year...

Since I returned home I had a strong urging to go ahead and purchase the Dreaming Robots EEW Fold electric spinning wheel.  I had planned to buy that for Dear One  this spring when we were talking about new activities he might enjoy.  He had not found handweaving on the Ashford SampleIt Rigid Heddle Loom intuitive and nixed that idea.  We do have the blessing of that loom in the house which a friend is using to learn to weave and see if she will want to purchase her own rigid heddle loom.  I have also used it for a quick sample one time and will do it again. 

Dear One also tried crochet briefly but found his hands were no longer in shape to manage a hook and yarn.  That was sad to me but a reality.  So we thought spinning might be enjoyable but then things changed and that was not an option.

Well last week I went ahead and ordered the Fold spinning wheel (teal since they did not have the purple in stock!)  which came quickly and yesterday sat down and began spinning.  Of course, I do not produce a wonderful spinning  result but I have a wonderful time doing it!  And actually hand spun yarn should not look like commercially spun yarn so why do I say I am a bad spinner?  I am not.  And I am collecting a pretty good pile of skeins of yarn to either weave or knit into some useful thing.

Next week I will tell you a story about weaving...!  Wait for it.  It is a good story, in my view!

As I say on my YouTube channel (The Country Wife From Vermont)--Do good.  Be good.  Let's do it now, together.

A Nice Impulse...Hopefully!

 Sometimes a nice impulse comes into my mind.  Two weeks ago I was having an echocardiogram.  I was knitting in the waiting room when the tech came out to get me and usher me into her office.  She spoke with me about knitting and said that she wanted me to be thinking about knitting and crocheting while she was working and then tell me at the end my impression of both of these crafts.  I thought that was a nice way to take my mind off the procedure (which by the way was not at all difficult for the most part).

When she was finished we chatted. It turns out that she had had a goal to learn to crochet in 2026 but had not yet started.  I told her there was still time and that she could go to Hooked by Robin on YouTube for some wonderful instruction.  I really like Hooked by Robin.

So as I was walking across the parking lot to go home I thought:  You could make her a project bag.  So I did.

You can see the floral project bag in the background.  It has a nice zipper top, a strap, a zipper pull made easy, and a little Handmade With Love tag.  

If a project bag as a good idea, then a little zippered fully-lined tool bag must be better so I made the gold-y yellow bag.

You can never give a person a purse without putting in a coin, so I put in one of my little hinged metal pencil boxes which is the perfect size for crochet hooks. I put in my favorite Susan Bates ergonomically helpful 5 mm crochet hook and one smaller one.

In the meantime I had gone to my bookshelf and was going to include the Crocheting For Dummies book but hen felt the title would be off-putting so I looked on Thriftbooks and found Crochet for the Absolute Beginner.  It came the day before I needed it!  It is really an excellent book.  I may purchase another one to have here at the house.

Finally... how can you give a yarn project bag without yarn so I chose two balls of Hobby Lobby yarn that I liked and hoped she would. I crocheted a granny square with the variegated yarn: one square with the 5 mm hook and one with the smaller one.  I am pretty sure the smaller one was 3 mm but might have been 2.75 or 3.25,  (Writing after the fact can be an issue!)

Anyway, as I am writing I am just about to hand over the bag since the same tech is supposed to do a carotid ultrasound today.  We will see if it was a good impulse or not...!

Update on the echocardiogram: since I am not a trained medical person I don't really know what the echo said but there was nothing so glaringly wrong that they called me back in.  What I read said the the left ventricle was not perfect and other spots were not wonderfully visible...probably because of "the extra flesh"... so I really am not so much better off having read the report.  If anyone knows how to read the reports I could share it...though I expect to see my doctor soon who will give me the word.

Trying Again To Take Back This Blog With Granny Square Chickens!

 Early this year you may remember me saying that something was wrong with my blog.  I was able to write blog posts but I could not share them on Facebook.  So...I spent most of my "online presence" energy with my YouTube channel (The Country Wife From Vermont).  That channel has been rather enjoyable but many friends told me they liked my blog posts, so I will try again.

Today I am in chicken mode.  Most recently I have been working on crocheted chickens.  You might wonder why I would do that. Well, it is possible that some children will come to our house to learn to crochet. I wanted them to see something they could pretty easily make.  I have had a ton of fun, and learned a lot, as I have been making chickens.

Number One Thing I Have Learned--absolutely you need to make the granny squares with a much smaller crochet hook than the ball band calls for! This gives a much denser fabric and I imagine will make the eye placement more successful.

Here are the fanciest chickens I have made so far:

The upper left chicken is from Sweet Softies her pattern for the Spring Court Chicken.  I love it. I will make more of them.  The pink chicken is a regular granny square chicken.  Soon I may make a post on how to do it and what I learned NOT to do!

You can see the few notes I made on this Ravelry page.  

Now for the fun stuff...let me see if I can actually post this page!  

Best wishes to all.

And Vermont Friends:  I am coming to Vermont!  I will be there from 29 September through 4 October which will include the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival.  If anyone wants to get together, please let me know and we can make it work.  I am so very much looking forward to this visit to see family and friends.

Fun Spinning Project

 There is a Spinalong to Knitalong sponsored by Andrea Mowry. I joined by purchasing her Jaunty Shawl pattern then buying some fiber from Hello Yarn called Little Jaunt.  I thought the names  went together so well. The first, of two, bags of fiber went through my fingers over the weekend. I made twelve little soft nests. On Monday I pre-drafted  them and started spinning on Tuesday. Today, Wednesday, I finished the first bobbin using up seven of the nests. Such a fun activity.

The finished bobbin.  You can see it is ghastly yarn but it makes me happy anyway.

These are the five remaining nests ready to spin. Maybe tomorrow…

After both bags are spun and plied I will knit that shawl. It is pretty likely I won’t have enough yarn but we shall see. Fun anyway… It will be interesting to see how all things work out!

We Have A Budded Daffodil!

 Here is another of God's wonders, right in our front yard!  I love daffodils.  They are such a sign of hope.

One of the beauties of this scene to me is how many more daffodils there are this year.  When I put them in the ground probably three, maybe four, years ago, there was one daffodil.  Also one hyacinth.  I hope that guy comes up eventually.  I adore hyacinths.  They are so beautiful and are so fragrant. What is not to love?!!

How Glorious Is Our World!

 Last night we walked out of the house to assist at the FamilySearch Center.  This is what we saw at the end of our street:

May I say that I am so very grateful for this beautiful world in which we live!  There are so many moments such as this.  I hope it is comforting and inspiring to all.  It makes my heart soar.