On the Beam

The Proudz, I has it. 

Ochre scarf is finished. The canvas structure really pops in Pony II. I'm very much in love. Ok, so I finished it weeks ago, Holidays are hard!

Random striping is harder then it looks. 

I was determined to use up all my blue/purple rag, and I almost succeeded. This rug is over 70" long. I used a 100 inch warp, the same as I do for a 72 inch scarf, and I had no loom waste. Didn't even have room for a dummy warp!

Nailpolish marks the center of the beater.

Current project: pointe twill rag rug. Color choices are slightly unfortunate but in a fun way. I'm aiming for a 2'x3', which will leave enough warp for a craazzzy stripe number.

At Least the Scarf is Done

Today Didn't Go Well for Anyone.

So today sort of sucked. Various little things went wrong all day, but at least I had gotten my Luskofte! scarf knitted and fringed and washed and outside to dry. So what if my camera deleted the photo tutorial I was going to post on how to put a fringe on a knitted scarf? At least the scarf was done.

And a Damn Fine Fringe it Was Too. 

So as usual, I completely forget about this thing called a dew point until after the sun is done and everything outside is covered in dew. With a sigh, I go and collect my knitting from the outdoors.

It crunches.

Because, you know, it's winter. There isn't a dew point. There's a frost point.

I may have knitted a Companion Cube or three. 

So on top of everything else that went wrong, I froze my knitting. Great.

On a related note, ironing a scarf after midnight is the sort of thing that causes existential crises.

The pin marks 40 inches.

Weaving continues apace. This ochre really is a lovely color and I'm ridiculously proud of it.

Scrap Monsters

Mary-Beth, Alphozo, Alice, Raymond, Quincy, Tolly, and Ozwald.

I don't believe in wasting fiber. So when I finished my senior project I had two nine foot crocodiles, and a lot of left over fabric in odd shapes. It seemed perfectly obvious therefore to make a series of scrap monsters.

The difficult part is putting together the body shapes. Mary-Beth was easy, she's a rectangle with rectangular appendages. Smaller, odder-scraps demand more complicated shapes. Sewing machines like rectangles like Mary-Beth. They don't like oddities like Ozwald, or sewing through five or more layers at once as is necessary for appendages. So a lot of the sewing I do by hand, or I reinforce by hand afterwards.

Adding Eyes.

Additional features are hand felted on. Eyes begin as huge balls of fluff that get matted down slowly. Generally eyes that look straight ahead are confrontational or creepy, so most of my monsters look off to the side. Oswald has three eyes, so he just looks everywhere.

Uh, Shelby? You got something on your mouth, there.

Felting is a process of making things smaller. Fine tuning the shaping on eyes and mouths can take forever since every alteration in outline changes the proportions and density of the entire feature. Above, Shelby's eyes are still pretty irregular. That can't be fixed until his mouth is on, since adding the mouth pulls in the entire plane of the face.

It might be awhile before I can finish him up though....

Rags to Riches I

A finished rug.

I make all of my rag rugs from rags. I think it's ludicrous to use new fabric as rag, but I know plenty of people do. Clothing is too difficult to take apart (which I'm sure is why many people buy new fabric) so I use old sheets. They're conveniently rectangular, lots of yardage in a single piece, and easy to come across. A ripped sheet fits so perfectly into the, "too good to throw away, too bad to keep," category that people are happy to donate to me. As a general rule, two queen sized sheets will weave up to 15 square feet, with a pretty high margin of error.

Pro Tip: Pull out shower curtain so you don't get dye on it like I did.

I have professional grade fiber-reactive dyes, but they're finicky so for rag rugs I usually use Rit. Dump bottle in tub of water, ignore for a few hours, and then give a quick rinse. Easy peasy. The brilliant thing about dying fabric rather then yarn is that the washing machine can do all the heavy rinsing and washing for you. Just make sure to do an extra rinse afterwards to make sure there isn't any dye lingering in the drum.

The Long Part. The Very Long Part. 

What takes the longest is cutting fabric into strips. There are two main methods, ripping, and the rotary cutter. I recommend a rotary cutter as it can go through three or four layers at once and is therefore some what faster. Either way, wear a mask. Tiny fibers go EVERYWHERE and when I forget the mask I end up coughing and sneezing like it's 1914. The finished strips can be wound into balls, although for today I just tied them into bundles.

Sleeping it off.

I feel Luskofte must be pronounced with a Fist Bump.

Winterfest was amazing, but very tiring. Arrived at 7:30 to set up, and didn't leave until five. Of course packing up was much easier since so much stock was sold. I and the other Quaker Ladies had a huge blast.  Finished up the evening, and most of today, with some peaceful knitting.

Loom is Empty but Dye Pot is Not

I have plans for rag rugs to use up more of that indomitable stash. But first to use that ochre warp I haven't done a thing with yet.