Social networking

I seem to have spent most of yesterday and today messing about on social network sites: Facebook, Tagged, and Twitter.

I joined Tagged some time back when my daughter sent me a message about it and have used it a lot recently. Apart from the usual men who want a quick bang, or those who are after money because they see women in their 50s and older as desperate!!!, I have made a couple of nice, funny and caring friends. One lives in Liverpool and the other in Italy. We write, send silly jokes, exchange music, chat about football. Many things and it is really nice.

Facebook is a recent addition and took me a while to find my way around. I have found one of my S-I-Ls on there, as well as his sister, and a niece who goes to Yale University. I can see what each of them is up to from here in the US as well as leave snippets of information myself.

Twitter is really new. I joined up last week and didn't think I Would like it at all. But I have watched what goes on and found a few people to follow and discovered that it can be quite addicitive! I have hooked twitter and facebook together as well, which was something I did not understand to begin with. And I have tweeted on a twitter Map. So all in all it's been an informative weekend.

Oh, I have managed to get a lot of weaving done in between spells on the laptop. I have to stand up and move around fairly regularly and each time I see the loom glaring at me. I have to finish what's on it by Tuesday so I can give the loom to my friend for lending to a new member of the weaving guild.

Loose Ends

I have completed one of the hats I am knitting for hubby. The loose ends had to be woven into the fabric and disappear. I now have to finish the other hat which only needs maybe a dozen rows at the top completed. And the loose ends sewn in! Although that's not really true.

I have already woven in all the ends on this hat as I finished it last weekend. I used a new decreasing for the top method and feel the hat needs some extra rows in the top as it came out a bit tight. So I have undone two thirds of the top for reknitting.

Yet another project with loose ends is the weaving I talked about before. So far I have woven 3 inches. It has been sitting on the table since then. In some ways I am reluctant to work on it as the loom looks so nice warped and ready with the full shuttles lying underneath it. And I am a perfectionist, wanting the edges to be straight with no draw-in. I will just decide to go for it one day soon and whip it off. Just need to psyche myself up to do it and accept how it comes out. With some care taken in the weaving anyway.

This all makes me think of life. There are many loose ends in our lives, some that we can weave away neatly and quickly, some that hang around for a long time. We hang on to some ends for longer than we ought to because the ends are comfortable. We know them so well that we are afraid to let them go, even when our inner voice tells us it is time to drop them.

Some ends are elusive, hiding or slipping away just as we stoop to pick them up. These ends are afraid of us weaving them in so they avoid completion, deny connections. With these ends we sometimes have to turn our backs on them and let them come to us when they are ready.

There will always be loose ends in our lives, no matter how many we have woven in or tied off. They creep up on us or jump right out and hit us on the nose. Yet what would life be like without any loose ends? Can you imagine going through your life, endless? Enjoy your loose ends, no matter what type they are. Nurture them, see them for the magnificent ends they are, be grateful they are there.

Dressed Loom and Half-Knitted Hat

As soon as I sat down to write this post, I remembered the picture of the loom. I had to put the loom on the floor as the warp consists of mainly dark colours and I had it on a dark table. I took a picture from the front and one from the back. This is the better of the two pictures, taken from the back, showing the rigid heddle loom dressed and ready for the weaving to begin. The silk is dyed a dark purple with random strands of reds and blues running through it.

Now I have to decide on the weft colours. My first idea was to use a darkish dusky pink. I tried a few strands in the warp and was not to keen on the result. I have now found a nice red that matches the main red strands in the warp, and a dark purple. I might use both colours, with the purple as the main colour and work some random stripes in the red. This is an experimental piece in two ways. Firstly using a rigid heddle loom, and secondly weaving silk with rayon chenille. How ever the fabric comes out, I will make the poncho with a crocheted edging to give it more strength. I can wear it around the house or as a bed poncho.

I am just a bit over half way through the patterned area of the hat. I will knit another four stripes before starting the stitch reduction for the top of the hat. I am choosing the stripe colours as I go along, and so far I think they look nice. The colours look a bit brighter in the picture than they really are.

The pattern is called a two colour seed stitch and is very simple to do. It has four rows to each pattern repeat. I am doing four rows in one colour, then two rows in the base grey colour for each stripe. I sit and knit a stripe when I have coffee, three times a day so it is growing quickly and will be finished by the end of the week.

Sticky warp

I have been putting the silk warp on my rigid heddle loom. It has been an extremely difficult task because the warp is the most sticky warp I have ever dealt with. The slightest movement and clump, the threads stick together, wrap around each other, tangle up. I have a 14 inch wide warp at 10 threads per inch and have nearly finished threading the heddle. That leaves tying onto the front beam and tensioning. Everything else is done. I am taking a short break before completing the heddles. Then it's off to bed and finish in the morning.

I had thought of using this silk for weft originally, but was not sure if there would be enough, hence using it as a warp. I have plenty of rayon chenille for the weft and hope the weaving will be relatively painless. At least the weft will stay in place as the silk grabs onto anything! So, tomorrow's post will be a report on how easy or otherwise, this warp is to weave. Maybe I will take a picture of the warped loom as my first picture on the blog.

Tasks are piling up now. I have 5 pairs of trousers hanging by the table waiting for me to take the waist in on each pair by an inch or so. Then some will need hemming as they are unhemmed. I haven't checked lengths yet, as I wanted to make sure the fit was good first. I also have a jacket with sleeves that need taking up a bit. All this is for my hubby, as he has lost some weight recently. Not that he had any weight on him to lose - he is very thin already.

I have knitted about half the first hat. I am not too keen on the ribbed edge with the pattern I am doing. The colours are blending together well. Another picture for the blog coming up, I think.

Quiet Day

Once in a while it is nice to have a quiet day, and today is one of those days. I have been sitting around, writing emails, chatting with my daughter on Skype, and knitting the hat for my hubby.

The knitting has taken a longer than it might have if I had not followed a simple pattern for two needles without thinking about how I needed to change every even row for circular knitting. After doing around an inch I realised the pattern was not what I expected. I made a swatch on two needles to see what it was supposed to look like, then worked out what I needed to do on the circular needle. Unknitting is one of those skills that I have developed over the years, so I quickly got back to a good restarting point. Now the pattern is as I like and I am just concerned with colour changes to get a nice look. As this is for my hubby I have to be a little careful with the colours or he will not wear the hat.

I have also calculated how many warp threads I need to wind for weaving the poncho I described in yesterday's post. I brought my warping board down to the main room, checked the sett or how many threads to the inch I need for the rigid heddle loom, and now can wind the warp. The rigid heddle is 10 threads to the inch, and I will weave a 13 inch cloth. Allowing for draw-in during the weaving, I will wind 140 warp threads, each 2 yards long. I can weave a cloth around 56 inches long on that warp. I hope to have enough silk left to warp a 3 inch scarf about 6 feet long.

So back to knitting now while I listen to some good music on the radio. From the Top has just finished. Those young players are fantastic, and most have a great sense of humour, too. They are truly inspiring and dedicated to music.

Fibre Crafts Again

I knew I had a lot of weaving yarns in a cupboard at the top of the house so I have brought all the bags down to see what is there as my husband has asked me to knit him couple of hats. I found several cones of wool yarn for him to choose from, and a book of knitting patterns to make an interesting colour combination.

I also found 400 yards of handspun and hand-dyed silk yarn. I have been thinking of making myself a small poncho and was wondering what yarn to use. Now here is the answer. I will use the silk as a warp and chenille for the weft, loosely set in. I have a rigid heddle loom that will do the job as I will be weaving a simple tabby. Colours are purples and reds, with a red chenille. It will look and feel so nice. A picture of the completed article will be posted when I have finished.

Another find was three small picture frames warped with strong cotton to do some practice tapestry weaving on. They are staying out too and I will be working samples of tapestry techniques and colour swatches using rayon chenille, as I have a lot of different colours in that fibre. So more pictures there for the blog.

I seem to have found lots of things to do on these extremely cold evenings, after cello practice which has to come first.

Weaving Guild, Pot Luck, and Music-making

The Border Weavers met today in the home of one of the members for our delayed Christmas pot-luck lunch. This had been postponed in December due to an ice storm. We also checked out each others weaving books and magazines for inspiration and information.

The Border Weavers Guild was formed by a group of nine ladies who were members of a knitting circle. After several meetings where woven items were shown as well as knitted items, it was suggested that those interested in weaving could form a weaving group. And so that is what we did.

Weaving is one of those activities that needs lots of different skills, from maths to colour design. And it requires attention to detail when warping a loom or following treadling orders. most of the members have a tapestry loom, made by the husband of our oldest member. Most of us have tried some tapestry weaving, albeit simple, and one lady made herself a poncho on her tapestry loom. I must give that a try. Several members have floor looms and make the most wonderful woven items - scarves, towels, shawls, wall-hangings, rugs. Everything is just so beautiful.

The pot luck was fabulous with cream of broccoli soup, chicken wings, coleslaw, home-made breads and muffins, pear and pecan crisp, brownies, key lime pie and my pumpkin cheesecake. I just love the way so many meetings and get-togethers are around pot lucks over here. Not something I had ever done in England, but I am definitely going to start whenever I am back there visiting family or working.

I drove to the weaving meeting today and had to stop on the road to let a gaggle of around a dozen wild turkeys cross the road. It was a great sight – they are big birds and looked at me as they crossed in front of the car. Of course I didn’t have a camera with me! The roads are very slippy with ice and snow on them. I enjoy driving in this weather for some strange reason. It’s been about -10 all day and is going down to -20 tonight.

After the meeting I went back to the house of my violin playing friend so we could spend a couple of hours playing together. I had taken my cello into the meeting with me as it was too cold to leave it in the car. We played some fiddle tunes that I had copied and written in the bass clef - they sounded good played on the two instruments. Than we did some Handel and Bach pieces that we like before finishing with some show tunes.

This is the best therapy I know. Music lets me leave all cares behind, yet brings emotion into my life. It is so much fun to play with others - we laugh a lot, especially when things don't sound so good! Time to go home came too quickly, so I set off along dark, lonely roads with Yo-Yo Ma and Claude Bolling keeping me company with their wonderful jazz. One day I'll sound like that. One day.....