All Warped Up And No Place To Go...

 As I have said several times, this is the year I am going to use up the yarn in the house.  This is so I can with good conscience buy more for specific immediate projects.  This is probably a pipe dream, but hey, it is still a good idea. And it really is not a pipe dream because I do not now, nor ever have I, smoked anything of any kind--well, except for that one puff on a cigarette during play practice on the stage at South Royalton High School when I was a sophomore and coughed so much I nearly, or did, throw up.  That put me off smoking forever.  Adding that episode to my lungs being what they are due to all the pneumonia and bronchitis I had as a child...well, smoking has not been part of my life.  And I try to stay away from people who are actively smoking even today as it is still hard on my lungs.

So, that was an odd digression.

Now back to the subject in the title...

Yesterday I got up and started roaring around  getting things done early in the day.  By this I mean that I was downstairs by 9:00 AM having already completed my morning routine and was ready for something else. Well, Dear One would have loved breakfast but I was not interested in that. 

 I want to weave a shawl for the Relief Society closet.  The yarn I pulled out a few weeks ago for this project was all the bulky yarn I had picked up on very serious sale at Hobby Lobby.  These have been waiting for me in a nice flat-bottomed grocery bag from, I think, Harris Teeter (when we go on vacation I like to buy one of that type of bag from whatever store we use to buy our groceries-though on that front I am hoping not to be self-catering from now on, going out to eat has some real pluses to my mind--I know some people like to buy tee shirts to remember trips. Dear One likes to buy hats though they sometimes disappear on him...) so I pulled out that bag and took it downstairs with me.

Last year I had been fortunate enough to find an Ashford 32" rigid heddle loom with the old-style stand that has the little shelves on each side.  The loom was $175 and came with a good variety of parts.  If you don't know about weaving on a rigid heddle loom you should know that they are set up to use stick shuttles to wrap your yarn on for weaving the weft threads.  For the 16" rigid heddle loom, I use a boat shuttle which came with it. That loom and accessories were WAY WAY more expensive than this 32" loom but did have several heddles in different sizes, etc and would have cost a couple hundred dollars more if I had tried to buy everything new.  So this loom seemed like a good idea and was only a four-hour round trip to pick it up.

So...first thing yesterday morning I was ready to
warp the loom--which means putting the yarn on the loom through the heddle slots which will be the warp threads, as in the threads that run north and south in your project.  The weft threads are the east/west threads in your weaving.  Well, last week one day I decided how long the warp threads needed to be to give me the shawl length that I wanted and had measured the kitchen from the end of the island where the warping pegs would go to where the loom needed to be sitting to get that length.  I meant to take a picture of this but was so into warping that I just carried on to the next steps.

Here is the loom all warped up.  You recall that I said I was using up yarn?!  Those are all five different yarns. The things they have in common are: 1.  They were very cheap on sale...$1.26-$1.86  per ball, 2.  they were colors that I did not think would look terrible going together, but that was not high on my list of criteria for choosing them, and 3. I thought there would be plenty to warp the loom and weave the shawl.  Well, that dog did not fly! 

From right to left in the photo, they were all full skeins. They all except the lefthandmost yarn(that yarn was meant to be weft!) seemed to have lots of yarn in the ball.  Turns out, they were not even close.  Actually, looking at the photo, I guess that is not true...but I did think I had enough of the second and third balls to completely warp the loom.  Math was never my strong point...!

Anyway, I did get the loom warped and ready to go. The next step was to wind the warp onto the loom.  Usually you want to wind paper or some other separator in with the winding on process so the threads do not fall into each other.  This is probably especially important with wool yarns because wool loves to snuggle in together with its neighbor which would make weaving more difficult. This is acrylic yarn which came into being all those years ago to mimic wool yarn and be more price friendly. 

In the photo you can see one piece of rolled paper hanging down.  That is the leftover from the separator/winding on process. I didn't want to cut the paper because I might want to weave a longer length of fabric next time.  On the side where you do not see paper hanging down, the pieces of paper I used were all used up by that point. Actually there were several shorter lengths of paper that I used.

I moved the loom over to my chair in the living room next and started threading up.  Threading up is when you take one of the threads from the slot you had pulled the warp thread through and thread  it into the hole in the heddle to the right of the slot.  This enables you to make a shed where, when you move the heddle up and down, the threads in the slot go one way and the threads in the holes go the other way...up and down.  The space in between those is called the shed which is where you slide the shuttle through.  In this case the shuttle must be a stick shuttle as you cannot "shoot" a boat shuttle through as there is nothing to slide it on like there is on a floor loom which has a little "shelf" for running the boat shuttle along.

So now, finally,  we get to the "no place to go". My plan for the day had been to warp the loom first thing and then when I finished a taxing "fifteen" I would rest in front of the loom and do a fifteen weaving.  If I did all the fifteens I had written in my journal as the plan for the day, and did fifteen minutes in between each of them weaving, I was thinking I might actually get the shawl finished by bedtime. DID.NOT.HAPPEN!

Why did it not happen you ask, because I had not noticed that I did not have a 32" stick shuttle.  What a dope!  If I had checked things out when I first thought of weaving a shawl a couple of weeks ago, I would have known I needed to get one or more.  SO...I went to The Woolery's website and tried to order an Ashford 32" stick shuttle.  Did not have any available.  So I checked out Kromski stick shuttles. They were in stock.  I ordered two.  It was a bit wrenching because I am a brand loyal person. I really like Ashford.  They make good things that hold up.  Things I have: Ashford Traveller spinning wheel, Ashford E-Spinner 3, Ashford 16" rigid heddle loom, Ashford 32" rigid heddle loom, Ashford 10" SampleIt rigid heddle loom (Dear One's project), and multiple smaller accessories for the looms.  Brand loyal with good reason!  These tools work very well.  If I had a problem, Ashford answers emails and maybe even phone calls.  I won't swear to it, but I think I called them once.

When I was looking for the stick shuttles and realized I needed to get the Kromski brand I remembered that I had talked  with Kromski America before I found the first used rigid heddle loom.  I had thought I would purchase one of their looms but then the 16" Ashford fell into my lap.

So now we wait for UPS to come next week sometime, hopefully, then I will get back to the weaving project.  Maybe by then I will have completed a few other pressing projects and will be able to just sit down and spin.  Based on the math problems as I was warping, I am unsure if there will be enough of the weft balls of yarn.  The cream ball is half used. I have two black-ish skeins of the same type of boucle-like yarn but have no idea if there will be enough to finish the shawl.  If not, then I will figure something else out about weft yarn.  I WILL NOT BUY MORE YARN.  I am saying this out loud for my benefit, not yours. I just need to continually remind myself that I have enough yarn,  that I have to use up the yarn in the house NOW!  What a feeling that will be.  I will feel very virtuous if I get there.  No, I will feel very virtuous WHEN I get there.  Hopefully before Christmas.

Knitting Set Up, Upstairs and Down

As I have aged I have found that there are some things that make my hobbies more enjoyable and productive.  One thing that has really helped is a metal music stand with magnetic strips. I can put pattern pages on the music stand and place the magnetic strips strategically to keep track of my place in the pattern or on the chart.  Works like a charm...unless I have several pages then the magnetic connection is tenuous and can fall off.  This always aggravates me and reminds me to "just do it right"!  Which means have only the one sheet of the pattern on the music stand and everything else organized elsewhere.

This is the set up!  The music stand is to my right with my headset waiting for me to use listening to an audio book if Dear One is watching something on the television.  I have my pattern for the mug rugs there with the line magnet at the top. (Hopefully I was successful in blanking out that pattern since it was a paid for pattern. I do not ever want to violate copyright.  People work very hard to create and if they want to be paid, far be it from me to take away their remuneration.)  There are stitch markers on the little wire arms that help hold the pattern pages to the stand.  The aqua lanyard has a small pair of very sharp scissors  attached and a little bottle which has a set of large tapestry needles for weaving in ends. (I feel very smart about that bottle--it is an empty pill bottle.  I got out the Dremel tool and drilled two tiny holes in the top of the cover then inserted some yarn in and made a loop to hang up the bottle.  Works great.).   There is also a pencil which I use for making a little chit sheet when I am making things like the purple periwinkle flower that is going on the front door wreath soon. You can see the chit marks for two different periwinkles. You can also see the television in the upper left.  When Dear One is not watching something, I use my phone to "cast" YouTube videos up there to keep me company and teach me stuff.  I love to learn new useful things.  

Speaking of learning useful stuff--I think I heard through the grapevine that a dear old lady friend in town is getting one or more sheep!  Yay!  I am looking forward to finding someone local who will give or sell me a fleece from time to time after they shear.  I am hoping she wants sheep to graze her lawn, and not necessarily for their fleeces....Does that sound bad?  I want to become a good enough spinner that I can  consistently spin yarn worthy of  knitting into useful garments.

Also in this photo you can see a new book that arrived this weekend:  Teach Yourself Visually -Sock Knitting.  I just saw yesterday that the deadline for Sock Madness was two weeks ago.  Probably just as well I missed it. I used to participate every March or at least for a couple or three years. I did a lot of sock knitting and learned a lot.  Eventually I gave those socks away.  Now I have sock yarn again and have socks on the needles all the time, ready to put in a few rounds at the drop of a hat.  I would REALLY be happy if I could spin reliable sock yarn!  But I don't expect that will happen.

Also in the photo you see a nice orange sunflower-y project bag. I "designed" my own zippered project bag.  I made about a dozen of them in different colors.  I do love them.  They are all filled with projects. This is in an effort to organize myself and prepare every needful thing.  Does it count if the bags are all full?!

So that is it for today.  One day I will put up the pattern instructions for the project bags.  You need one yard of cotton fabric and one 22' plastic teeth zipper.

Monday Morning Mug Rugs!

Over the weekend I put aside my Atta Girl Sweater knitting and picked up smaller needles to knit a few mug rugs.  I had (on Friday-Valentine's Day) seen a pattern called Pair of Hearts for mug rugs.  Hearts, flowers, and butterflies always suck me in!  We have a ton of heart shaped cooking pans.  Love them.  Including a heart-shaped cast iron Lodge skillet.  I love that pan even though it did not work the way I thought it would.  I will have to make several more things in the pan to see if I can make them work.  Actually, I have only tried making pancakes in that heart cast iron pan.  How did I imagine I was going to flip that pancake? It did not work...

Anyway, in the spirit of using up all yarn in the house this year, I made a dozen heart-y mug rugs!  I love how they look.  Here is the big picture:

The first one, in the upper left corner, was made using US 8 needles.  It was too floppy for me so I dropped down to US 5 needles. I like them a lot better. I would have used the US 6 needles but they are all in other projects (another plan for this year is to finish ALL projects that are on the needles!) so they were not available for this project.

These mug rugs are knitted using the mosaic technique.  This is a very easy way to do color work.  For garter stitch mosaic knitting you will need to knit over and back in one color only.  For this pattern you knit the background color then slip the contrast color stitches as you get to them WYIB (With Yarn In Back).  On the way back across you slip the contrast color stitches WYIF (With Yarn In Front).  On the second color row you will be knitting the contrast color stitches and slipping the background color WYIB, then on the way back slip the background color WYIF, and on and on until bind off.  The designer of this pattern uses the Chinese Waitress Cast On which I did not notice until I had actually finished the last of these dozen mug rugs. Oh well.  Maybe I will try it next time.

Here is an up-close (more or less)  mug rug:

As you can see-I did not actually lay the mug rug flat to photograph...I just laid it over the arm of the chair which is why is looks somewhat wonky. It really is rather nice.  At least I like it.  I will be giving these away today.  This makes me happy.  I love to share pretty stuff.

This one I chose to add to the post because it clearly shows that I am using up yarn!  I finished the white yarn then started in with yellow.  Yay!  One ball down, many to go!  

Mosaic knitting is:  So easy. So fun.  So colorful.  It just takes time

While knitting these mug rugs I was watching YouTube, as usual. There were some great spinning videos plus I watched a few Knicoleknits Knows Knitting videos.  One was on marling.  You will see that here in the future, at least you will see my efforts at marling!  When we were on our mission lots of yarn was given to me.  Eventually there was too much so I started a marled blanket project.  It was very fun to do.  

The yarn organization project is in full steam ahead condition currently.  I bought some hair clippy things to attach yarn ends to balls so there will be no more tangled messes.  To give you an idea of the magnitude of the "problem"--I have purchased four cards with 14 hair clips on each card.  Today I need to purchase more hair clip cards...!  Not quite finished with the ones I have but don't want to run out.  When I am on a roll, stopping is not a happy option...

Organization, and Another Knitting Set-back

Yesterday morning as I was in the Come, Follow Me app for study, part of the message was an excerpt from President Russell M. Nelson about removing debris from our lives. I took it to heart and immediately started removing/organizing real debris from my desk. After many hours it is still not done but the surface of the desk is visible in multiple places. Such a boost to my spirit. I REALLY need a nap right now, though.

Just because things are looking better is not a good reason to show off pictures. Pretty soon I will be more likely to show-and-tell. Now it is just telling...

As I was sitting here working at removing and sorting and placing in final resting places all kinds of things from recipes to knitting patterns to Relief Society paperwork to hoped-for paper-crafting projects, I started thinking about the Elizabeth's Percentage System Yoked Sweater I have been working on for months for our daughter. The yoke was finished during our vacation last week, even though the final five inches was knitted more than once! (When really tired and not really able to focus, it is probably a good idea NOT to work on precision-needed projects.) All at once I thought of the collar ribbing.

Here you can see that the ribbing was knit with too-large needles.

What a bust!!! I had already knitted it twice with different needles. As I was sitting here I realized I needed to have gone down another couple of needle sizes! Rats! Well, there are so many other flaws with this sweater that this one which is so easy to correct shall be corrected. Of course at the moment I am writing I just want to go to bed but it is not quite 5:30. This would be a mistake. The last few days I have been so tired mid-afternoon that I took a nap. This raised Hob with my night-time sleeping, which is the second reason I am so fagged out right now.

Better get to the sweater...

Another Busy Morning: Organizing This Time

Are you able to make a plan to get organizing and just go for it?  Well, I am able to do that sometimes.  Lately organization has taken a back seat to getting things done that were pressing.  Or seemed pressing at the time.

This morning I was souped up about making Christmas cards.  Before we left the mission in Portland I went to Dick Blick's Art Store.  While there I found a masking fluid pen.  That really caught my interest and I instantly grabbed it and put it in my small shopping basket...small because much of the great stuff at Blick's is more costly than I would like.  So, I purchased it.  And brought it home.  Well, sent it home. Then put it on the truck to come south.  I thought it was with my art things.

This morning the need for that masking fluid pen came to the top of my list of things to do NOW.  So I started going through boxes and bins in the workroom.  This time, instead of just pawing through things, I made new homes for a mammoth amount of stuff...and tossed some things that did not make the trip to Vermont and then to South Carolina in very good shape.

At one point Dear One looked in on me (perhaps he was thinking we ought to have breakfast sometime before 11 AM, which was the time he looked in) and asked what I was doing.  He did not actually say, "Looking for something?"  but I know that was in his heart.  This is not a new thing: something is missing and I go crazy until I find it.  Finally, around 11:30, I finished all but one of the containers, which, from the top view, seems to have yarn and fabric in it.  Since the frisket pen did not turn up, I went to our best friend, Amazon, and placed an order. It should be here on Saturday.

Actually, as I just turned around in my chair to look at the shelving unit, I realize I am not as lily white as I stated above:  there is the bin of mission things still needing to be installed in my mission journal, a bin of thread and other sewing things, and two smallish bins of wool yarn and knitting needles.  It is possible that the small frisket pen is in one of those, though I don't know why it would be.

Something I did NOT find which I was also looking for:  the big slug of Butterick, Simplicity, McCalls, and Vogue dressmaking and crafting patterns I thought I had brought south. I must have given them away.  Oh, well.  I can always re-buy, except with the closest Joann store an hour away in each direction, it is not too convenient.

Maybe we can go over to the Cayce Joann after the temple in two weeks.  Assuming I allow myself the luxury of that pattern purchase.  I have decided I need a new temple bag.  I want to make one of a pretty quilted fabric that has a zipper that zips all the way from bottom to bottom and which is in a zipper tape at least 8 inches wide.  When we were at Joann the last time, I did look at patterns.  There is not a pattern for exactly what I want so the chances of making a nice temple bag is not very likely to happen.  I have not seen what I want already made up.  And I am probably too cheap to buy it if i do find it because "I can always make one".

Even with all this work, and even more chitter-chatter, I am not ready to post a picture of the workroom.  It really is still in no kind of shape, though there is much more floor space than there was.  Some day!

PS . We did eat breakfast a little after noon...French fries in the air fryer and chocolate chip cookie pieces...and the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers.