I must have pissed off the Mohair Spinning Faerie, maybe my offering of weaving a beautiful scarf was just not enough for her? Maybe a burnt offering might appease, because that is what I was about to do to this warp, while manically singing "BURN BABY BURN". This warp has been abusive to me! The white mohair is tearing after a few pics the beating of the reeds is wreaking havoc on this yarn or my tension is or both I dunno. It's been over a month and I've only woven 12" with a lot of breaks and re-tying. I've also left it on the loom after one extremely frustrating session, not only did the damn yarn break, but my hooks holding the lamms would come off every other pick, the selvage yarn kept breaking off and I just ran out of the room before, I lit the whole thing on fire. Ever see those commercials where someone takes a bat to a computer or their car because they're at their wits end, yeah I was there about two weeks ago. The loom and project has been on timeout, me too as a matter of fact since that fateful day. In the interim I went on vacation and had a great three days off with my hubby, I'll show you all some pics later this week. I came back refreshed and decided to try again before I just cut the loom loose of this warp and have a ceremonial burning festival. I rolled my beam and started fresh with a new determination. I figured my tension was the cause of the breakage plus that the beat needed to be more gentle. After about an hour I wove 18", this might just get done without much more delay this week, I'm keeping my toes crossed because Lord knows I need my fingers. As an incentive to finish, I started warping for a new baby blanket. I have these funky fuzzy yarns in baby colors and want to weave them up for a cushy, soft blankie, in the most simplest of tabby. After the current warp I need something mind numbingly simple, ahh the luxury of simple tabby dances in my mind's eye, woohooo only two shafts, two treadles and a stick shuttle, basic, simple, yet refreshing. These are the moments when I wish I would still have my RH loom, and regret selling it.

Don't those colors just scream baby, spring and Easter?

I made my mom another chemo cap, she had her 2nd treatment and is feeling tired, but in good spirits and is eating well. I need to find some buttons to compliment this one. It my own pattern and I used Caron Simply Soft Paints, that yarn is so soft it's a pleasure to work with.

I've also been working on my neice's baby gifts, these booties pattern is Classic Cashmere Booties

from the book Simple Knit for Cherished Babies. It's full of sweet little knits I got it at the library and am thinking about ordering a copy for my personal library.
Along with the booties I've been working on a Tomten baby jacket, which of course is an Elizabeth Zimmerman classic from the book Knitting without Tears. I love the way this jacket comes together. I'm planning a cap for this set.

On the weaving front, I have selected yarns for my SIL's scarf and will start winding warp tonight, I would like to have it tied up my the end of tomorrow and hopefully start some weaving next week.

Other than Weaving

We will have a new baby in the family soon, my niece is pregnant after some difficult miscarriages last year. Thank God the baby and her are doing well and I've started knitting for him, yes we know it's going to be a boy! He's due in July and so I'm creating some larger pieces for the winter when he'll be 5 or 6 months old. This is the baby blanket I started the pattern is from this washcloth, I just increase it to get it to baby blanket size. It's a challenging knit and keeps you very aware of your stitches, especially if your like me and lace is an issue.

While I was recovering from surgery I was also knitting this Baktus for my DD that's her lovely neck sans head as per her request. She choose the color from my stash of Caron Spa, in Ocean Spray, goes great with her green eyes, but not in this shot hehe..

Hannah's Blankie

I finished and in time, the shower was Sunday and I gave my gift to Hannah's mom, she loved it and was so trilled, it made all the boring work worthwhile. I embellished with ribbon and embroidery and a ladybug button.

Working on Overdrive

Just as the title suggests, I'm bored with the baby blankets and have been putting them off. Of course I learned that both baby showers are on the SAME Sunday, they can't be put off any more. Now I'm under a deadline, which I don't like, they're just plain evil, but must finish. I'm looking forward to the embroidery part of the blankets, which I have not done in a few years. The weaving is dragging on, like an endless wave of blah.

The top pics is of the lighter weft and the bottom the darker weft

On the second blanket, I changed the weft to the darker pink and its a drastic contrast from the first, still girly but no so much, I am enjoying the color change as I weave with the different wefts although I should have woven a sample in the beginning this way the change would not have caught me by surprise. I have extra warp towards the end and I think I'll do a sample with the three colors as a keeper for color contrast reference. I know I should do sampling before weaving the actual project, I will keep in mind to put on extra when I warp , make my sample in the beginning and then start my weaving project, with the colors I liked the best in the sample. I know most of the experienced weavers are shaking their collectives heads at me thinking "geez that is so elementary, why doesn't she just get it or do it" and by now I should have. But you know, I like the adventure of not knowing what it will look like until I start weaving, it's part of the excitement and it feeds the kid in me, but granted I should see before hand what I'm doing, that way I avoid the mishap of not liking the color combos. I guess I'm starting to grow up in my weaving journey, and the newbie fly by the seat of my pants is starting to wear off, hopefully not totally gone, maybe just a bit more mature.

With this new maturity in my thinking about how and what I want to accomplish I've been collecting different yarns during the summer for a project I've been visualizing in my mind I know what I want the end project to look like and for then next exercise, I will plan my warp and weft, sample and then dive in. This one should be a lot of fun and a good amount of texture to boot.
This is an up date of my Folk Shawl Ruana, it's been slow going because of the heat, but we are starting to get some relief and I'm starting to get the "I want to finish" on this one, it also helps that the coffee shop our knit group meets at is freezing, so I can wrap myself in something while we knit and gab the night away. I dragging this one to work so I can knit it up at lunch time, it should be done by the end of November.And last but not least the afghan progression I'm on row 27 and have three more rows to go before I start the garter edging. Woohoo, it starting to look finished and hubby is happy, since he's been commenting on how "you work on everything else but my colchita" ( kol-cheeta - little blankie in Spanish) Of course I took a pic where it will eventually have permanent residency, his *cough* ahem *recliner, which I finally broke down and agreed to since it was the trade off for my much needed new living room sofas.

Mitered Baby Blanket

This is the progress on the mitered baby blanket, I know I promised no endless photos of mitered squares, but I thought I would share with you what I've been up to. I like the colors and the design I came up with, what I don't like is the reverse side, can anyone say, sloppy and messy looking, ugh!! I think I'm going to sew a complimentary piece of material on the other side and keep all the mess between the fabrics, I'll have to think about how to accomplish that with out it looking like a big pillow case. Maybe with some quilt stitching which I've never done, but I guess I'll try.