It is a mystery

I can set my loom up in the shed to weave on it. The shed is dry and it has lights. I can just weave in the shed!!!!! The actual difficult part will be finding all the materials i need but I'm willing to dig around. I'm going to collect the few things I know I'll need from here at the house and go over in a bit after finishing reading my book that I got halfway through waiting for my truck inspection

holy shit!!!

(this post brought to you by helping my dad laying flooring last night, one half of the smallest of three rooms + hallway is now laid *upside-down smiley face emoji*)

I have no real evidence of this but...

Last night was the Weaver's Guild Bucket Sale, which is where the guild members bring in items they no longer want in their stash, donate them and get tickets in return. You can also purchase tickets, which is what I usually do. Then we all wander around and put tickets in buckets for items we might want and do a drawing. The money all goes to the guild and there is also a silent auction. Members who bring things often don't want more things and will give their tickets to people they judge need more. As soon as I walked in the door holding too many things, someone unsubtly stuffed some tickets into my hoodie pocket. 

I brought a spinning wheel for the silent auction, an Ashford Traditional that I was given by F's mom, who got it from a member of her knitting group where it had sat in someone's basement for a few years. I didn't enjoy spinning on it, it pulled too much for my taste, but a member said that I might have tensioned it wrong. It ended up being the hot ticket of the silent auction and the person who got it is going to use it for her other guild as a loaner. I almost posted it in the newsletter for free but I forgot. 

The bucket sale had a ton of spinning fiber which wasn't the case last year, pretty much all of it from one member who is doing a cleanout as she has been having some health issues and is thinning out what she is keeping. It was probably the equivalent to my entire spinning stash to be honest. And I know she's got a ton more. But she's also really fun to talk to and also does card/tablet weaving which we had a great chat about in October. 

The scheming came in that the folks who do the drawing asked me to help and somehow I ended up being the one calling names...I have a suspicion that they are trying to get me into a leadership position in the guild. K did ask me to run for guild president back last spring but I declined at the time. But I was very helpful during the guild show and sale which is the sort of thing I like to do. I understand why they would be trying to get me into leadership, once I took one position, I could rotate through some of the others and be involved as one of the youngest members of the guild. And I appreciate the interest they're taking. But with the potential move coming up, I suspect I won't be able to be involved in the way they were hoping. Which is kinda sad because I do enjoy the guild and the people and I would like to be more involved. 

Ah well. 

I brought home an Ikea bag and one large reusable bag of yarn and fiber, plus some books and a lucet. More yarn than I expected but that's not a bad thing, I go through more weaving yarn since I weave faster than I can spin yarn for weaving. The spinning fiber is all really nice colors, G has excellent color taste and a lot of it is merino/silk which is not normally my jam but it is very soft and I could put it in the show and sale for next year if I don't want to keep it. 

I helped with the guild's show and sale this weekend, I also entered some items, so anyone who enters items in the sale has to help at least three shifts with the sale. I asked about tasks and a big one was being in the rooms and helping customers with items and make sure no one takes anything small. bleh. I don't want to give people advice on what scarf they might like. 

So I signed up for setup and teardown shifts. Thursday morning, I headed over to the venue and met some folks there who were unloading stuff they brought. I helped them unload and then we headed over to the storage unit. It was a little 5x10 unit and we unloaded everything into our vehicles. Plenty of space for everything and I took over all the bins so they went in the bed of my truck and under the cover. 

Then went back to the venue, unloaded all our vehicles, helped all the people bringing other stuff unload their stuff and started setup. This mostly involved carrying things up the stairs, zip tying things and getting things into their place. I had told folks that I was able to carry heavy things and I was called frequently to do that. I would say I didn't carry anything over 30lbs but most of the people in the guild are elderly women and some elderly men. I'm the youngest by probably 10 years although one or two new folks are around my age and definitely of the folks doing setup. 

There was definitely some amount of: setup a display at the direction of someone, walk away to do something else, come back to help again where they half change the display, move it around, and then finally give it the final okay to be strapped down. But it was fine. Towards the end of the night, I helped with setting up one particularly difficult display rack that needed to be assembled and the lighting. We needed more lighting but they finished it up friday morning and made a note to do some purchasing of more lights for next year. 

Each area was set up by type of item, so scarves had their own section, gifts, rugs, clothing, accessories, etc. 

Thursday 4-5 was the first official dropoff time, so I set my little batch of items out in the proper places and headed home. I had mostly key fobs that I made out of tablet woven bands, eight skeins of handspun yarn and a shawl. There apparently were 900 towels in the sale. I was the only one with handspun yarn.

I didn't work the sale friday or saturday but we got day by day updates on sales, so I knew some of my items were selling each day. Woo! 

Sunday, I was signed up for a spinning demo and breakdown and I brought my big CPW which was very good fun. Some folks came and chatted and I also had a nice time talking to other guild members. I think part of the issue I was having with the guild was a lack of recognition on the part of the other guild members, I came to the meetings but didn't really chat that much and no one could remember who I was. But, with the demo I did back in October, plus this, I finally managed to have some nice chats with people and they now remember who I am. 

Definitely good bonding experience. I also got to look at someone's very fancy Louet Megado dobby loom, which was extremely cool and uses pegs to do the pattern shaft lifting. Extremely cool. 

Breakdown went extremely quickly, end of show was 4pm, weavers had to pick up their stuff by 5 although we were breaking down around people, we loaded everything up into vehicles and I was very glad I had my truck because otherwise we would have had to do two trips to the storage unit and we were wrapped up, the storage unit was loaded by 6:30pm and I was home by 7. I was impressed. 

In the end, people mostly bought my handspun yarn, the keyfobs were hard to display with the size tags we had on them, so they didn't sell that well. The shawl didn't sell but that's okay. The guild overall had an excellent sale, with a 25% increase over last year and nearly 100k in sales for the whole weekend. I had a lot of fun and I'm scheming about ideas for next year. Even if I'm back at the farm, I can still sell in the sale as long as I am a guild member and I come up to work for the weekend. Someone who lives in Virginia did that! 

The warp I've got the on the loom right now is slated for things to sell, my mom asked for a purse for Christmas so I'm getting a practice bag in to sewing more bags out of handwoven. And I'm going to try and pick up some fiber in the guild bucket sale next month for spinning up, even if the fiber isn't my color. I sold all the ones that I didn't enjoy the colors. 

it was fun!

June crafting goals

• Spin! finish the 6oz spin, and spin something else - 6 oz completed and I also spun and plyed 8oz of roving from Giant Cricket Farm to use as weft to finish the mohair warp on the loom, started 3oz of hand combed CVM from fleece and my goodness finewools are pretty
• knit sweater - worked on it a little
• start a crochet project? - nope
• get the tablet weaving done, it's just sitting - worked on it a little
• weave! get it off the loom? - got it off the loom! got it wet finished and also wet finished another older weaving project that has been sitting
• Buy sewing supplies - all bought! thread was buy 3 get 3 free at joanns, so I bought a bunch, also bought fancy horn buttons, crafting hangout helped me pick out which fabric to use with the waistcoat
• Wash fleece maybe with a new setup? - nope but setup ideas are all worked out, so I might actually get to it
• process fleece - worked on it
• Other - finish some things to put in the guild show and sale by twisting fringe, ended up buying a fringe twister, made some tiny cordage

I apparently don't have any pictures of the finished 6oz of fiber on the bobbins, but I left it as singles and I'm going to weave with it, so I put it on a cone yesterday. 1500 yards in 6oz. This is Wensleydale Angora blend roving that I got from a destash on Ravelry and it's hella shiny


( more photos and rambling )
July goals

• Spin the CVM
• Knit sweater
• twist fringe on shawl for guild sale
• finish weaving on the loom and start warping next project
• work on tablet weaving
• Sew the waistcoat
• wash a fleece?
• process fleece
• engage in shenanigans (already happening >:) I went out and collected some nettles and invasive phragmites from the swamp this morning)

I got SO MUCH done!

January Goals

• finish alpaca, skein, wash and label new yarns, ply Masham on spindles - Alpaca singles finished and as of 1/31, they were 2/3 plyed and I finished that today (2/2), so the pictures will go in february's update post. I skeined and labeled the yarns, just waiting for a bath. I didn't ply the Masham because I'm going to use it as singles for weaving, not sure what project yet but plying them made them look terrible, so they're sitting around waiting for the inaugural run of the cone winder. I spun 8 oz of combed top from Wild Hare Fibers. I started working on my sampler packs again, got 25g each spun of roseplant fibers, seacell, tencel. Started spinning the mohair fleece and almost a bobbin done! I also plyed 8 ounces of merino blend in purple as a two ply
• finish combing mohair fleece (stretch goal but might happen) - DONE WOOO, started spinning it and it took a bit to figure out the best way to hold it and spin from the blobs I made
• crochet mittens - worked on it
• get weaving project on the loom - on the loom! and 2/3 done weaving!
• work on tablet weaving project - nope
• continue 100 days of spindle spinning - yep and started spinning cotton on my supported spindle! I think I missed two days in January
• wash a fleece? - haha no
• buy more fabric for muslins and find another project to start - bought more actual fabric and then was given a bunch of random fabric, project is a pullover shirt
• Other stuff - got a lot of knitting done on my sweater with all the meetings I've been having, started the arm gussets and had to buy the pattern book again because I lost it somewhere and buying a new one hasn't made it reappear so it's really lost somewhere

Whew, a lot happened.

Alpaca singles! These were hard to spin and have been on the wheel since August. 24 ounces, so a large amount but still not the most enjoyable spin. It required precisely the right amount of pull from the wheel and twist going in as I drafted. It probably would have been fine on my big wheel, but the first layer of the bobbin, it pulls like a work horse and it kept breaking the yarn, so little wheel it was. This will be weft for a blanket with a brown alpaca fleece being the warp. That fleece isn't processed yet, but that's next. This will also be the first run on the cone winder since it's for weaving. I just finished plying these today so those pictures will be in February's post

( lots of pictures )
February goals

• Spin mohair
• crochet mittens
• knit sweater
• finish weaving project
• start processing alpaca fleece
• spin more samples
• Cone winder alpaca, masham, skein rainbow, label
• start sewing jersey - muslin? or just go for it?
• tablet weaving project darn it

and some other stuff

The shelf is for my weaving cones, on the only available open wall I have other than the one directly above my bed. Conviently, it is above the tv I use while I craft, in the middle of my crafting area which consists of a double stacked shelf, a low table and my chair, plus the spinning wheels which enclose it.

My goal with this was to make something sturdy that would hold my cones and stay on the wall. It isn't a great feat of woodworking given it isn't square in any way. I still seem incapable of this despite using squares and everything. I think it's my cutting but oh well. I made it slightly taller than it needed to be, but I think that's okay since it fits well in the space. It is a 2x4 that anchors it to the wall and I built the rest of the frame by ripping 2x4s into 2x2s so it wouldn't be massively heavy but still sturdy. The shelves and sides are planed 1x10s.

F came and gave me a hand to get it on the wall, I had predrilled screw holes and set the screws in the shelf so it would be easy screwing onto the wall. I'm still using up the 4 inch screws that I used last fall to stabilize the shed so I'm pretty confident in the anchoring using eight. If I ever get worried, I can sink some more into the 2x2s as well. But in general if you mount things on a log home, you're supposed to avoid anchoring into two different logs in a way that might prevent the logs from moving. It's pretty secure and unless I start putting heavy weights on it, the shelf will outweigh the cones by 2 to 3 times, so it shouldn't come off the wall because of things I put on it.



I also got the warping board extenders drilled and the dowels glued in. I'll probably start warping soon.

I spent some time today baking, made hazelnuts cookies, a new cake from one of my christmas gifts (yesteryear by some guy), and vanilla ice cream. Hazelnut cookies were good as always, the cake doesn't really have a dominant flavor which is really odd, so I will make a flavored icing for it tomorrow. The ice cream is delicious but my ice cream maker has bit the bullet. The bowl, which is the thing you freeze and does the freezing and churning, doesn't really freeze the ice cream anymore. So I left it all sitting on the counter for now and whipped some air into the custard by hand and tossed it in the freezer. It should still taste good. I may need to look into better ice cream makers. I think last time, I noticed it wasn't working 100% right but let it go, so I need to go looking for a new ice cream maker at some point.

I'm spending tonight laying in bed and relaxing.

Hot water was restored on Monday to great excitement in the household. First task: run the dishwasher. Dishes were the most annoying task to do without hot water. Showering cold was not that bad. I am appreciating hot showers right now.

Yesterday and today, good long work days, one taking seed cleaning equipment out and about and having a field meeting and harvesting potatoes today. I forgot my bag of potatoes in the back of my coworker's truck which is very sad for me.

I spent two hours on Monday and two hours tonight working on the quilted jacket pattern that I got. Sewing clothing is fairly tedious and I can't believe that I decided to actually make a muslin. I have to do this again with the actual planned fabric. Now, I've chosen extra tedium by having a quilted jacket because it requires each thing to have 3x cutting for a single thing. Outside, batting, inside. Ah well. I think perhaps this is a pattern not to do with my current amount of handwoven cloth as I don't think I have quite enough for even the outside of the jacket. Sleeves take a ton of fabric. But I could probably do the vest version with my current handwoven with some other store cloth as the lining. Parts of a jacket: front left, front right, back (in one or two pieces), two sleeves, two pockets. Next step is quilting all the pieces together. I nearly ran out of fabric and I had to cut one of the sleeves off the grain of the cloth to have barely enough fabric. Shh, don't tell anyone, besides, it's a muslin.

I need to focus on weaving though. I have one idea to weave a written phrase onto something that will probably be long enough for a belt, but could just be decorative. But that means I need to actually get started on that if I want it to be done for F's birthday in mid-December. So that means I need to weave and clear my current test letters project off the loom.

April Goals (and May, and June)

• Spin something and ply the Montadale - I spun 8 oz of purple mystery wool and plyed 4 oz of purple with the montadale and then plyed the other 4 oz together. I also spun 4 oz North Ronaldsey roving which is going to be some sort of weaving thing combined with a fleece I have for rugs, just trying to decide if it should be 2 ply as warp or singles as weft. Also starting spinning through a bunch of samplers of cellulose fiber 25g each and writing some notes about them. I spun mint, ingeo corn, banana and soybean top so far. They're similar but not all the same. Also spinning a pound of roving on my CPW, which I'm done with 8oz and onto the next braid.
• Work on tablet weaving - worked on it! almost done
• Get Romney on the loom - got it on! need to make a whole post about it, but also got it mostly woven and off
• Knit sweater - almost done! I have a sleeve cuff left to knit. It's now a 3/4 sleeve very light sweater
• Process alpaca fleece (I want to try and get this done quickly to start another fleece for an event but we'll see) - I ended up pulling the other fleece out just for the event, prepping and spinning about 4oz on my CPW at the event which was very fun. I'm debating whether to switch to carding the alpaca fleece instead since I'm not enjoying combing it. I want it to be 2 ply warp for a blanket so combing would be better. Maybe I can card it into sheets and spin from those
• Crochet mittens - done!
• Other (not specified at the time) - mended a pair of pants with dragonlady7 's guidance, wound new warp to go on the loom, garden got in the ground and I have a lot of happy dye plants

Life sure happened and I didn't write these posts. I was busy.

Spinning!

This is the Montadale (white) and mystery wool (purple) plyed up. I'll need to skein and wash. No plans for these but it's more rustic, so good for mittens and things.



( Read more... )

July Goals (I wish I had time/energy for Tour de Fleece but I don't usually so I'm not going to push it)

• spinning - work on Pansy Pandemonium. I doubt I'll finish the 10oz in July but that's okay. maybe spin some more samplers on the eel wheel
• knitting - finish the sweater and get B to take actual nice photos of me wearing it
• finish the tablet weaving
• warp and weave the wool singles cloth
• process fleece - now that I typed that all up above, I think I'm going to switch to carding the alpaca and comb a sheep fleece
• dye something????
• wash a fleece

December goals

• Finish Romney fleece???? - I would need to wait to ply since a friend is borrowing my electric wheel for a while. That's okay, I can at least finish the singles. - singles done!
• Start tablet woven band - fully wove one and started a second
• fix and finish weaving on big loom- done! Just need to hemstitch and cut off
• Process alpaca fleece - making progress! I've got maybe 1/3 of it left
• Ball navajo churro yarn for weaving next - to do over holiday break at my parents - mostly done, just finishing up some of the weft, need to figure out yardage and start warping!
• Crochet something - start building my crochet tolerance back up now that my wrist feels better - crocheted a scarf!
• Knit sweater - still in progress
• Bonus: spun 4 oz of carded merino that has been sitting around for a bit. I carded it since it had felted very badly in the top braid and it turned out super nice

Romney fleece spun up, 30 oz, once I get my electric wheel back from B (she just texted me about it and will be sending it with her family that lives near here so I will have it back soon!!!), I will do a 4 ply.


( Read more... )
January goals

• Finish tablet woven band, it's very tiny and will take a while, start another?
• Crochet something? maybe mittens or socks
• Warp on new big loom project - Navajo Churro handspun yard for plaid twill for a big pillow
• Spin stuff - just started spinning grey romney fleece combing waste that I carded, want to spin something else next
• Finish processing alpaca fleece
• knit sweater