The Fabulous Five Meme

What were you doing five years ago?

1. Working here at my current job. (yuck it's really been 6 years)
2. Re-doing the kitchen in the house. (think take out for about 3 months)
3. Contemplating and making the decision that we will move to North Carolina, during a romantic vacation in Lido Key, Fl.
4. Attending my first Evangelical Christian Church. (this is where I became a born again Christian)
5. Getting the kids prepared to attend High School. (wow, now I really feel old)

What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?

1. Get my work done, I missed work yesterday to take care of my grandma, who is unconscious and bedridden, so my mom could have her colon test. How my 65 yr old mom does this on a daily basis is mind boggling.
2. Warp my loom for some more color play I had a great time with the last warp and I want to keep my momentum going.
3. Show the house to the same folks that came yesterday, they were interested, which will include making my bed (see below).
4. Get some laundry started, the pile is knee deep.
5. Get a travel bag packed, we are taking a weekend trip and I really can't wait.

What five snacks do you enjoy? (Really only five??)

1. Three Musketeers my favorite candy bar
2. Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream I love ice cream
3. Cella's Chocolate Covered Cherries
4. Marble Pound Cake with vanilla ice cream
5. Onion Rings
This last one made me hungry, ice cream anyone?

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?
1. Pay off the house and give away to a single mom with kids or a family that are struggling to make end meet.
2. I'd buy some land in the mountains, with a chalet style home and a studio.
3. I'd give money away to help missionaries around the world and help my church achieve it's outreach program.
4. I'd buy a deserted town, and try to convert it to an artist's haven with a schools for learning, shops, cafes, B&B's, antique shops, etc. Hold conferences, workshops , and make it a really great destination to visit.
5. I'd buy a closed up manufacturing plant and reopen it, to give a community new life and we can stamp on it Made in the USA. (you can tell I really dislike that everything in this country is outsourced and we are losing our small home town America, although helping out on a global platform is great, but I think we really need to start helping ourselves)

What are five of your bad habits?
1. I never make my bed
2. I tell the kid's they have to make their beds.
3. I can curse like a drunken sailor, and always have to ask the Lord to help me with this issue. I've gotten much better, now I get annoyed, irritated and catch myself before I start.
4. I drive really fast no matter what the speed limit, and sometimes I don't even notice it.
5. I spend a lot of time on line, although I love the online community, it really is a distraction and time hoarder.

What are five places where you have lived?
1. Placetas Las Villas, Cuba
2. Brooklyn, NYC
3. Union City, NJ
4. Hialeah, FL
5. Miami , FL

What are five jobs you’ve had?
1. Cashier at the family grocery store (started at 12yrs old)
2. Secretary for the OR scheduling.
3. Executive Secretary for Entenmann's Bakeries for the Director of the South East Market Area
(fancy title eh, but tons of traveling and with small kids this job only lasted 2 years)
4. Human Resources Director (another fancy title, tons of aggravation, this job caused an ulcer)
5. Service Manager for a Sign Co.,

Which five people do you want to tag?

I want to tag anyone who has the patience to read this post, ha, your it.

Really no obligation just some clean fun.

Have a great weekend!!

Long Weekends Rock!!

What do you get when you place a motivated weaver, a loom and uninterrupted weaving time? Well in my case I love, love, did I say love long weekends, because I get to start and finish a project. I warped my RH with a color exploration from Plain Weave is Anything But Plain, by Leslie Voiers, but I read the draft wrong and warp two end per instead of one and I added and extra color so I did mine with four instead of three. I really love the results and plan to recreate it with the right amount of warp for a scarf.

I hand hemmed instead of machine hemming, although the process is slower it was relaxing. I had extra warp and I wanted to experiment with the new Textures and Patterns book so I used the 5/1 pickup for window panes and used the remainder of my yarn that was on the shuttles, I made a mistake and missed one of the pick-up, leaving a extra long warp shot, so I need to practice, but I'm confident I'll turn it out and have some lovely towels to go with the mats.

I'm warping for a few more kitchen towel, but in a different sequence of solid color blocks to see if I get more definition on the patterns, as I think the pick-up's get lost in the variations. I'll also experiment with different pick up's and test how they look, that should be fun, I'll get towels, practice, and samples all in one shot.

I also got to snap a pic of the baby hat that I finished, here it is along with the cardi, which are now on their way to South Carolina. I decorated the hat with a pink bow and an ever so cute lady bug button, just perfect for a little girl.

ALL THINGS FIBERY

Sunday night I finished the last scarf for SSVE, I washed it and twist fringed (ugh), someone should come up with a gadget for twisting fringe it's annoying. I've commissioned the DD to take some pictures, hopefully all the photography classes she's taken will come in handy ;o).

Whenever I finish a project I get the blues, like oh it's done, now what? sort of a process of grief, I know it sounds silly but I always feel that way for a day, then I look at the finished piece and get total satisfaction in the completedness (new word?) of it.

So in my euphoria of completedness, I cast on a toddler hat to go with the flyaway cardi I knitted for Abby, it's on DPN's, to knit in the round, God help me. I cast on just fine not a problem understood how to separate the stitches amongst the needles, (always easy with a calculator, no I'm not a math wiz (hangs head in shame). I started the ever so simple pattern I found here on a great blog, thank God bloggers are so generous with time and advice. As I started the pattern I being the idiot novice knitter I got through the K2, P2 rib and joining the piece just fine, then came the stockinette stitch and I thought I had to purl once I passed the start point and knit on the RS, never mind that I've knitting on the knitting loom in the round, this tidbit of experience for some ungodly reason disappeared from the memory bank. Needless to say I had to frog and start over another one of my favorite things, ;o( this time I ribbed and kept knitting, not because I had an "AHA" moment but simply forgot about the start and finish. I just kept chugging along having issues with the needles in my way (how do you guys hold these things to knit so they don't protrude everywhere?) as I knitted each row I low and behold it worked, DUH!!

Yes, I should have known but I didn't realize the concept was the same as knitting with looms in the round, why I don't really know, sometime all the info in my head is just there, then something triggers and the whole right/left hemispheres seems to click and pass info to each other, amazing how that works LOL. So I guess I can maybe think about doing a pair of socks, which is the only thing hubby has asked for and I'm deathly afraid of doing. I would need the easiest sock pattern designed, non wool yarn in sock weight, I don't think I've ever seen any, and tiny dpn's, I don't really care for really small needles. Oh the challenges of loving the DH to death, only for this man would I ever attempt knitting socks.

New Toy and Some Weaving

I got an inkle loom that was a great deal on Ebay. Since I didn't know if I was going to really enjoy weaving on it I didn't want to spend a lot. Well, I love it! what an interesting gadget, warping had it's challenges, but once I got through it, I started weaving. So far I only started today at lunch, since I can take the loom home just yet, ( I have to figure out how to tell DH that I bought yet another weaving loom, hehe).

Warped and started.

Side view of the warped inkle.

Close up of the strip.

I have two 3oz skeins of this particular yarn and want to finish it on something so I'll be weaving strips until it's gone. But I have a plan for the strips - your gonna love this, I plan to then take the strips and weave them into fabric for a bag.

New Book and Some Knitting

Since I can't show you any of the current weaving, because it's for SSVE I'll show you the next best thing.

The new Textures and Patterns for the Rigid Heddle Loom, by Betty L. Davenport it's an update to her earlier textures RH weaving book!!!! I'm so excited!!! ( I literally did a happy dance at the mailbox yesterday, yes my neighbors think I'm nuts, but I don't care) I receive my book for review and from my brief look at the pages, I'm really impressed, there is a ton of information and some really impressive weave structures, I didn't know I could achieve with my RH, I've already started drooling over a Twill Band Runner at the end of the book that is calling (ah - screaming) my name.

I've been putting off sampling from the various books that I own, but I'm resolved that the project for the summer will be samples of the weave structures I find the most interesting . I have a feeling that this book will be invaluable to me. There's a lot of lace and hand mani's that I can't wait to try. I may even start a WAL (weave-a -long) on the RH loom group and get some members motivated to join me.

But before I start I need some help from my more experienced weaving buds; What should I use for sampling? (please remember that I'm allergic to animal fibres).

Should I have color or basic white/ecru?

Your answers will guide my next yarn purchase,(as if I need a push for towards buying yarn, LOL) thanks in advance!

On the knitting front I've been busy with the entrelac stash buster afghan, I've gone from warm to cool colors and intend to keep the sequence going. On my trip to Naples, Fl with hubby and mom, she express such interest in this afghan, little does she know it's hers. The project is starting to get weighty, I can work on three or four rows (which is about two hours) and then quit because my hands get sore, I've never had this happen and it's a surprise, I usually don't have any problems with my hands but then again, as my co workers tell me, the older you get the more stuff hurts, at 42 I'm the baby in the office so everyone, has little purls of wisdom in that department. Really I just think it weighs too much for me to carry it with my non-knitting fingers for a long period of time, but don't tell them that, they don't need to know hehehe..

And for my last shot of the day; this is the beginning of the sweater from the pattern in Knit Simple which was in this post I've been challenged by this one also, but the pattern is written for easy following by newbie knitters, which I appreciate. The only thing I'm confused about are the increases, they are in the front for the allowance of the sleeves, but not on the back?! Since it's my first top down and in the round knit I guess I have to just wait, knit and see.

Mother's Day

Mother's" Day Glitters





Have a wonderful day!!

I won a contest on Kimberly's blog, she's a military wife, mother of a few and a homeschooling mom. Check out her blog here. This cut key chain was my prize, I attached to my tiny weaving scissors that I love to use to cut between my warp when adding new weft.

This is the close up of the little letter beads, which are oh so cute. Thanks Kimberly I'm totally enjoying it.

I have become a little more proficient in warping my loom, I guess I felt that way since the warp I tied on last night was no more than 7 inches wide *grin* and got done in an hour and half which made me feel like a queen, hehe... I warped some sport weight creme and cable crochet yarn, the same combination I used for the shawl - ahem , turned window treatment; since I had enough left over I thought it would make a really pretty delicate scarf.

I started with my usual plain weave and decided it needed some pizazz, well at least some lacy treatment, so this is the results of my hand manipulated weaves. Don't tell Meg I showed you *wink, wink* its for the Small Scarf Virtual Exhibition so this is all I can show you :)

CARDI FOR BABY

Another FO, whew, I need to pace myself. I going to set a precedence for actually posting FO's LOL. This was the cardi that I was complaining about the pattern, still not happy with the pattern but I am with the finished results. Putting it together was a snap and I found these oh so cute button, that are see through pink you can't even tell they on. I think I might knit a hat to go along with this, which would accomplish another knitting goal, using dpns.

Knitting has it's challenges

I picked up this magazine, because I really liked the cover project, I'm planning to make that particular sweater for myself. I love the look and it's knitted in one piece top down, which I haven't done and would love to try.
As I was flipping through, I found this adorable baby cardi, and thought it would be a great gift for Baby Abby, so I started knitting and everything was going great, until the pattern omitted the joining of the pieces. The pattern reads " With RS and circular needle k25 sts from the right front holder, pm 38 sts from the sleeve holder etc... til you put all the pieces on the circs, the at the end it states "DO NOT JOIN". So I thought ok why put them all on here if I don't join them. Duh, well it meant don't join the opening, I thought, that's obvious, but maybe not so, I got past that hurdle and then I get to this the part where your joining and decreasing for the sleeves and back and the pattern cuts off after you knit the back portion, you still have the other sleeve and front to do, I know I have to do the same stitching in reverse, but why not write it out? So I got out my post-it notes, which I find are invaluable for knitting notes and wrote the same stitches in reverse, since I have to do it 5 more times, I figured I'll never remember it. Is that a normal process for designer's patterns?

This is what the cardi is looking like after all the duh moments I've had. I guess I need more step by step than what seems obvious to other "more experienced" knitters, is a question for me. I picked a pattern with the skill of level intermediate, because I thought it would be challenging (which it has been) and I don't want to stick to beginner and easy all the time, so I guess I was my own instigator. But I must admit, I have learned and I guess that what knitting, weaving and using my creative outlet is for.

Failure at it's finest

I was inspired to make an eyeglass purse from u-handbag.com and curious textiles , which I think have the most beautiful bags and coin purses.

I purchased these frames and of course the small one is for eyeglasses purse, so I grabbed my project bag that I had put together for this idea. I followed all the directions with the exception of zigzag stitching my woven fabric so it would not fall apart, well as you can see in the pic after all the sewing and interfacing and turning the bag inside out, I found *shaking head side to side in dismay* that my woven fabric came apart at the seams. WHAAAAAAA!!! This only fortified my fear of cutting the stuff, not a good outcome. But I have convinced myself after much debate (this goes on in my head so that the family doesn't think I've lost the little marbles I have left) that I must try it again, no matter how painful, stressful or time consuming it is. I can't give into that feeling of hopelessness that I get at the thought of cutting my hand woven. I can only thank God that I'm not using any yarn that I would consider irreplaceable or valuable, I'd probably have a nervous breakdown.

I know - it looks so pitiful, oh well, try, try again. I need to weave some more fabric for it.

No pics for you!

I've finished the Exhibition scarf, but can't show you a pic. I'm still knitting the baby cardi, but forgot to take a pic. So what is this post about, well, it's Monday and I've been all over the blogs and have found two from Peg's list that I want to share with you in case you don't read Peg's and since I have no pics for you, I figured I can give you some eye candy from elsewhere.

The first is a Finland weaver, with the most beautiful weaving, simple but very striking just a wonderful blog,which I totally enjoyed. Then from her blog I got to this Brazilian weaver so many interesting pieces, I fell in love with the wall hangings and my creative juices are starting to buzz around, I loved the weaving, but what really struck me is the framing of it. So simple and complimentary to the pieces, just beautiful. There is some sisal rug burning technique that I need to translate, but really interesting.

One more blip in my scattered form of writing today, does anyone know where I can find an inkle loom that won't break the bank, below $50.00 would be great, thanks... :) (well not really so scattered this would pertain to the wall hanging nugget from above)

Recycle and Re purpose

What do you get when you mix a used bath scrubby, a bread bag tie, and yarn?


If you live n my house, the used bath scrubby gets washed in the washer and hung to dry, then taken apart and cut it to store knitting yarn, as in the pic below. This idea came to me as, I'm notorious for getting commercial skeins knotted and tangled from the wrong end as I start knitting that end always seems to undo itself, although I can sit and un-do my mess I rather not, so in comes the netted scrubby.
I cut the length to fit the skein tie two knots at one end put the skein in and leave the other end open for the working yarn to flow through.

For the bread bag ties, well those get used as yarn bobbins, they work like a dream. This is something else the kids know that doesn't get tossed out, but into mom's craft draw. I got this idea from some magazine long ago, I wish I would have kept the article, but I didn't so I give credit where it do for the idea, but I sure got use out of it. Recycle and re purpose.

Small Scarf Virtual Exhibition - Scarf #1

I warped my loom for the Small Scarf Virtual Exhibition that Meg is putting together follow the link and you too can join.

I bought the chenille yarn and I thought it would be good to give it a try. Warping with it was fine, worked out some kinks, figured out why I was having issues and accomplished the task with out a hitch, of course I didn't warp the entire width just the required 6" or so.

I started with plain weave and soon found out that this stuff is sticky, there is no throwing the shuttle and catching it at the other end, it gets stuck in midstream. This really is not a problem cause I can nudge it through. But when it came to the leno lace I was putting in, well now that's another story all together.

Getting the hand manipulated twist was, shall we say "challenging" and as a result I don't like the look of it. I thought since these colors remind me of a rugged log cabin/flannel shirt, some lace would be unexpected, and it is, in concept but not in actuality. The ends look really sloppy and the leno twists are not as twisted as I would like, so I will unravel it back to the leno starting point and well, start over. I'm going to try something different and see if I can accomplish the delicate/rough balance I'm trying to convey. If I don't get the balance then It's going to be a plain weave color exploratory.

I'm using the same sequence in the weft colors as I did in the warp and do like the look of that so that will definately stay.

Organizing Projects

As you may or may not know I like to organize my projects once I know what I'm doing with what yarn , pattern or idea. So what I do is that I take the plastic zipper bags that bed linens come in when you buy them at the store and re-use those as project keepers. Yes, some folks might think it's too much work, but it keeps me on track , but most of all, the projects don't take over the house, which DH, DD and both DS's really appreciate. There nothing like waking up in the middle of the night and tripping over a box of chenille yarn that was next to the loom that was pulled into the middle of the room to be worked on, that you accidently stubbed your toe while trying to get to the kitchen for a glass of water, *guilty smirk*, so it keeps the peace and the house in order.

My projects usually start this way, then I pick the bag that my project will fit in and stuff it with all the ingredients needed to make the project.

So then for the eyeglass purse I took, my woven fabric, my marking pencil, glue, purse frame, flannel lining and thick interface. I also stuck the charms I wanted for the loop and the CD with the purse instructions I got from U-handbag

The final outcome is this package that I put on the shelf so when I get ready to do it, everything is at hand.

When it's yarn and knitting instructions, I make a copy of the instructions and put in the yarn, needles, stitchmarkers and whatever else needs to go into that project in the bag. Everyone in my house knows that zippered plastic bags go to mom, so whenever anyone comes home with one, they get donated to the craft shelves.

So there's my anal rententive summary for the week LOL. But really if it helps one person then it was worth the blog post, and possible eyerolls.

Decoupage Tutorial

Some of the FO for this weekend included this project.

Decoupage has been something I've always liked to do, it fun and the results can never really be planned. I had this really pretty, deco silk screen image and always wanted to place her on canvas I thought about transferring the image and painting her, but never really got into doing it. I bought the canvas this weekend and painted it contrasting colors of what my image was to do this I use acrylic paints and mixed them as I painted on the canvas, some I mixed before hand. I use and empty Styrofoam egg crate to mix acrylics, The paint doesn't stick to the crate and I get to recycle the egg crate by washing it out, I wish I would have gotten a pic of my paints inside the crate, but you get the idea.

Then I poured some Mod Podge, which is like Elmer's glue with extra water, although I never tried that, I guess I should, covered the entire surface of the canvas and laid out my silk screen deco beauty. I squared it off and let it dry for about 15 mins or so.

After that I poured more Mod Podge and covered everything all over again, making sure my brush strokes were deliberate and thick.

At this point it really needed to dry overnight, once that was done I took some Antiquing acrylic and rubbed it all over the totally dry canvas.

Voila, finished piece of art work ready to hang and enjoy.

So what are you waiting for, go decoupage something, quick LOL...

Babies, Babies and more Babies

This beautiful baby is Abby, she's the daughter of my friend's in SC. She's all wrapped up in the blankie I made for her, such a cutie.

I had a really busy weekend DH was doing inventory cycle counts on Friday and Saturday so I was left to my own devices. I shopped on Friday evening at the AC Moore store I found, what a great place it was so organized I was almost afraid to touch stuff, but you know I did. I picked up a few items, and there was yarn on SALE!! I also did some serious weaving, knitting and I even got a chance to paint and decoupage this weekend.

I have an FO to show you, I finished the mitered baby blanket for my co-worker just in the nick of time the baby was born on Thursday, so when I went to the hospital on Saturday to see them I took this to her.

For the reverse side, since I didn't do a really good job of joining the pieces together the back was uuuuuggggglllyyyy, I knit a piece to cover that portion of the blocks and bought buttons to hold it all together, and after the washing and drying all the ugly stitches were gone, I was so glad, but next time I know better and will try a pickup technique that I have learn although mitered squares are not really something I was to revisit I didn't enjoy knitting these, maybe if I find a pattern that is knit rs, purl ws instead of this one that had knit, purl and garter stitches, for all the squares I knit I never learned the sequence.

The Reluctant Model

This is my DD, as you can tell she doesn't like to model. But she does love her new sweater, which I'm glad she does because once again I'm not happy with the pattern.

She is, as you can clearly see a XS or S, I choose the S so that if she wanted she'd have some room to layer, well the S body fits me except for the upper arms, mine are too chunky! What am I? L or XL, I measured, did the gauge swatch, pick the correct yarn and needles, but yet, the elusive correct size is evading me. Another little mishap was the collar it was too open a V neck I had to crochet a loop and put in a button, which was a cute addition, and it helped to keep it from rolling down her shoulders. The positive was that it was an easy knit and it went by rather quickly. I want to knit myself one and will use the M size and open the arm holes larger, I will also not open the collar so far down although I like the button idea. If your inclined to try it, here is the pattern.

My LYS has a class on how to properly fit patterns to your or anyone else's body type, I think that's the next class I will sign up for, hopefully I can learn to design my own patterns.

Life's Curve Balls

We're back from the surgical center, and DH has been diagnosed with Colitis, after his Colonoscopy. So he needs to go on a lot of antibiotics and pills to regulate the outbreak, he also has to be on a Low Residue Diet. Poor baby, he's been ill for three weeks and has lost 15 pounds, he was really unhappy with the whole out come, but as I said to him, it could have been much worst, so we do have to thank God that since it's not curable at least it is treatable.

I have been working on some projects and finished DD sweater, I just have to get pics of it all. I also got my purse frames, and that was exciting, they're so cute. I have some woven fabric that has already been designated to a eyeglass case so once I design what I want and get some supplies together I can work on it this weekend. I just found out that there is an AC Moore near me, well really 10 miles away, but I've never been to one and the lack of craft stores in my area is sad, really, just think I actually got excited about this discovery, sad very sad, LOL.

Hand Manipulated Weaving

I kept the center warp of the window treatment ( if we can call it that) which is 3" wide and have been experimenting with some hand manipulated weaving. I like the look of the fabric and the texture given it's sort a spongy and puffy. I was under the impression that I would have a balanced weave since both warp and weft are the same yarn, but on closer inspection I have noticed that this is a weft faced weave the warp is all but gone. So that was an interesting discovery for me. I also noticed in my weaving that the right side is nice and even and the left is not, so I need to work on keeping my tension even in throwing the weft and pulling through.

Meg is trying to put together a virtual exhibition of woven scarves. She has asked that I submit one, so this small piece will be the inspiration for the scarf with, of course some leno lace, which is one of my favorites at this moment.

I created a new group in yahoo a while back, RHLoomers and have discovered a lot of RH weavers, many new, some very experienced, but all excited about their weaving experiences, it has grown considerably in a short period of time and I hope that it will be a source of references, help and encouragement to the RH weavers.

Windows, afghans & UFO's

I cut off my weaving with much pain, but I could not get my warp to un-tighten itself. As I was in the process of doing this my realtor called, and had buyers that were coming to see the house. I was changing out my master bath, with new rugs, shower curtain and details, but I had forgotten about the window treatment, so in a pinch guess what made it into the bathroom?? Yeah I know it's short all around but in a pinch it worked!

I have gotten this far in my stash busting afghan, it's roughly 36" wide and I'm only on the fourth row, since this will be a Christmas present I'm not really pressed for time, this is what I take along to doctor's office visits, which lately seem to be one every week , since I've memorized the pick up and turns it's relatively an easy knit. I can't believe that I learned this only a few weeks ago, really neat stuff!! I also have learned that I'm definitely a earth tone yarn collector, no bright colors, harsh colorways, just natural tones.

I have currently four knitting UFO's which I'm not proud of owning that many, but I've been told that for knitters that is normal. My dilemma is if I weave, I don't knit and if I knit I don't weave. I'm seriously considering quitting work so I can stay home and do my thing, the trick is work pays for the supplies and then some LOL. Ahhh one can dream can't they?

I hope you have a wonderful Monday.