I finished weaving my scarf! Yarn is Gist Array in US sourced Corriedale and Columbia wool. Colors are Lotus 1, Ocean 1, Tangerine 2, Violet 3, and Daffodil 3.
I’m pleased with it. It is nice and long. That’s one of my pet peeves with scarves. I like them long enough to triple around my neck. It looks great with my blue coat!
I enjoyed weaving on the guild’s Schacht Wolf Pup 4-harness floor loom. As a thank you, I enclosed the accessories I made and purchased in a bag I sewed with black walnut leaf dyed cotton canvas. Another guild member made a raddle, so it will be nice to keep these things together for the next person who borrows the loom.
I am really enjoying being part of the guild. So many lovely people and some in person social time is doing me good.
I’m not sure I’ll make weaving one of my regular crafts. I prefer knitting, and I have so many things I want to knit. But I may consider a rigid hedge loom in another year or two. I’d love to weave dish towels for the house, and for gifts.
I finished my Peaceful Lodge Sweater. I absolutely love it. I can wear it without a shirt underneath, too. I was worried about that because of the kid mohair content.
I grabbed the Cornbread and Honey yarn last spring at the Wild and Wooly Fiber Expo in Cleveland. There were five skeins of this colorway, and I scooped them all up with the intention of knitting a sweater. This is one of those dream projects that came together without much planning. Just a lot of knitting, so nothing to complain about. Mostly stockinette, too! I knit it on US 9 needles to get the most yardage out of the yarn, plus I hit gauge and liked the drape of the fabric.
I cast on Powdermill this week and have completed one round of corrugated rib. Not much to see so here is a photo of my pins. Marilee and I are having a little Powdermill knitalong. She wanted to start the new year off with a bang.
I continue to make progress on my scarf. I weave at least one color repeat each day, meaning all five colors. The stripes are random, so it’s not a pattern repeat. The purple is my favorite, and I’m halfway wishing I had woven the entire weft in purple. This will be fun to wear, though.
Yesterday, for Saturdate, Bob and I played a new game: Horrified: American Monsters. It was a little complicated at first, but once we got the hang of it, it was really fun. We also watched After Midnight. We enjoyed this romantic horror comedy. I haven’t laughed that hard during a movie in a while.
I’m nearly done with my Peaceful Lodge Sweater. I’ve finished one sleeve. I thought it would take me a couple of days, but it took me a week! At this stage, though, I am obsessed with finishing. I’ll start the second sleeve today, and hope I can finish it this weekend. I’ve learned both the stretchy i-cord cast off and the sewn tubular bind off for this project. I may have done them before, but not recently or frequently enough to remember them.
My woven scarf is coming along. I’m choosing weft colors randomly from the same colors in the warp. I’m a little worried about my edges, but since it’s my first time weaving on a floor loom (second time weaving at all) I’m happy enough.
I hope you’re making progress on your projects this week!
I’m ready to start the New Year right with an impossible list of items I will never accomplish. At the same time, having a list ensures I will be somewhat productive. I do love the feeling of checking items off a list. Perhaps I will start adding gold stars next to completed projects. Plus, it gives me an excuse to blog weekly when I can’t think of anything else to say.
I’m grateful the Year of Projects group is loosely organized, and I was able to take a break last year. My approach this year is to divide and conquer. I’ve divided my full list of knitting projects into separate lists for 2023 and 2024. 2023 (below) includes works in progress (WIPs), and new cast ons I hope to complete this year. Add to this list socks, since my plan is to knit a pair of socks every month this year. That’s not realistic, but that’s never stopped me from trying. Some of these WIPs probably won’t make it this year. There’s a reason I’ve set them aside, but I’m not ready to rip them out yet.
I’ve noticed my approach to sewing is to make a pattern to see if I like it. If I do, I make multiples so I don’t have to learn something new every time I sew. It’s more enjoyable for me if I can skip the instructions. So my plan for 2023 is to mostly make multiples. Also, I’d like to sew a trench coat, but I don’t have the fabric for it right now. Maybe next year!
I’ll finish spinning my Pumpkins for Sale BFL and maybe participate in Tour de Fleece. I think I would also like to dye my natural rovings and spin skeins for gift giving this year.
Happy New Year! We’ve had a lovely weekend, with a gathering at a friend’s in Canton, then an overnight stay with kids in Cuyahoga Falls. New Year’s Eve was spent eating pizza and watching Bloody New Year and Terror Train. Neither of us had ever seen these, but they were an enjoyable diversion. I impressed even myself with my facial recognition gift by pointing out John from Shaun of the Dead in Bloody New Year. (I have a gift for pattern recognition. I am currently using this gift in my role as part-time Remote Bookkeeping Elf — title my own. I log in to computers remotely early in the morning and work on other people’s bookkeeping while they are still asleep. They wake up and their bookkeeping is all done for them! I would love to have an afternoon job that is more creative, and I’m thinking about knitting pattern tech editing.) Today we’re going for a New Year’s hike. Bob will make black eyed peas and collards for dinner.
I usually choose a word for the year, although I don’t think I chose a word for 2022. I spent most of the year focusing on my mental and physical health, and made some progress. I was able to stop taking medications. I was able to get off social media except Facebook. I think about closing my Facebook account, but there are connections with family and friends there I would miss. In fact, a friend recently shared this article that plays into my word for 2023. My word is Voice. The goal is to recognize and reaffirm my own voice, and share it if I want to. No pressure, though, if I don’t feel like it. My resolutions for the year are to knit from stash and have more fun. We’re also having a “no buy” year, as we have a new furnace and electrical system to pay off. This means we can buy food and necessities, but not anything else. Bob pretty much lives like this, so I think we all know who is going to be struggling the most. This was my idea, by the way.
I have wanted to learn to weave for a couple of decades, but either time or expense prevented me. I now have the time, and my guild has looms available to borrow. I borrowed a Schacht Wolf Pup and am teaching myself how to warp!
I don’t have many tools, including a warping board, so I watched this video about winding a warp using chairs. It seems to have worked just fine. I created a spreadsheet to help me calculate the yardage needed for my project. I’m now ready to warp the loom.
What am I weaving? I thought a plaid scarf would be a good first project, and I’m basing the colors on the sunshine colorway from Studio Donegal:
I found some wool yarn in the correct sett for the loom reed from Gist yarn, in similar colors. It will be a plain weave. Originally I wanted to make a coat in the colors below, also from Studio Donegal:
I had lost this image, but found it while searching my blog for something else. If I enjoy weaving, I will make this my next weaving project. I only have this loom for one month, so I’d better get going on my scarf!
I’m not completely new to weaving, as I had a rigid heddle loom at one time. My hope was to eventually weave dish towels and other home textiles in cotton, which requires a finer weave than possible on the rigid heddle loom (at least the one I owned). I’m glad to be moving on to a floor loom.
Do I need another hobby? No. But this fulfills a long-time desire. At least I can say I tried!
Snakes & Cranes 
