Number 5

Yup.  This is blog post number five for 2014.  (Henry likes counting in Spanish so he would say, cinco).
I could apologize for my absence, but I won't.  This is a place I come to with things that have inspired me and stories that I want to share.  And I have no regrets for how I've spent my time so far this year.

But how do I catch up to the current inspiration?  Thankfully flickr and IG remind me.

I wove a scarf on my loom.  I'm delighted that I found a good place for two of my favorite stash yarns and super duper glad that a good friend was willing to give this scarf a home.




I gave up knitting one sweater.  But selling the yarn and some hoarded fabric allowed me to buy...




...some Madelinetosh yarn to knit another sweater.




I had to rip that sweater, too.  But when I love a yarn that much, I don't mind knitting it all over again.




We took a road trip with the boy...to Wisconsin...in February...with the added fun of a polar vortex. We had a great time on our trip, but I swear that we should meet up with my family in a warmer locale next time.




While in Green Bay, I helped my mom quilt her Farmer's Wife quilt.  It was a huge job but definitely satisfying.




Lastly, I finished some ancient bee blocks.  I feel like ancient is the primary adjective I use when describing bee blocks here.  I think I need to keep up on my bee block calendar a wee bit more for the rest of 2014.  Do you agree?





Whew!  That was all January and February.

Stay tuned for my next update.
I'm totally serious.  I will be back very soon.

Unexpected Finished Object

I have to start with an admission....  I am a terrible housekeeper.  I like to start a lot of projects, but I'm not good at finishing things and, to top it off, I'm awfully forgetful.  So, that results in my house covered in lots of little piles of things that I mean to finish.  But, I move to the beat of my motivation (not the best priority-setter), and I'm usually inspired to start something shiny and new.

So, this week I decided to tackle the piles around my house and thin a few.  I didn't get far uncovering the dining room table, but I did sort some lovely fabric bits in my craft room in the basement.  Henry was "helping" by tearing up the shelves and banging on my project on the loom.  My table loom sits on the floor now that the sewing machine and a million projects live on the craft table.  Remember my scarf from this post?

It was woven only 36" long (not just the 6" in the picture) and still was on the loom five months later.  While I sorted fabric, Henry was yanking on the scarf and futzing with the parts of the loom and then he toppled over.  That's a good sign for nap time, so I came back to the loom during my free time.

The first step was to examine the project and figure out why I put it down in the first place.  In this instance, the grey alpaca yarn that I chose for the warp and the weft is truly, truly lovely, but it is so overwound that the lines of weft couldn't be beaten snugly.   This resulted in a scarf with lots of holes and a stiff fabric.  That doesn't seem cozy to me.

So, I took a deep breath and then started the tedious job of unweaving 36" of work line by tangly line.  That took most of a three hour nap on Tuesday.  The next day (and next nap time), I auditioned eight different yarns, chose a new weft and wove 16".

On Thursday I wove another 32" during nap and some more after Henry's bedtime.  I also took the loom outside for some pics in the outdoor light (the basement lighting is atrocious).

On Friday I wove another 2", tied the tassels, wove in the ends, washed and blocked it.  And there you have it.  The scarf is dry and soft and gorgeous and finished.

 (doesn't the overwound yarn make the most perfect twisty tassels?  i love them!)

I guess it isn't really unexpected that I finished it since it took four days, but it still is delightful.  Doesn't a finished object make your week a little brighter?

Now I just have to hold myself back from starting another loom project just to let it languish on the floor for baby fingers to play with.  Nope, I must must try to find my dining room table.
I cannot let the siren call of fabrics and yarns distract me.
:: plugging my ears and humming to myself ::
Really.  I know there is a table here somewhere....

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