Its electric

Dyeing records act as inspirations

The problem with planning ahead of time is I get all excited about what will be happening next and bored with what's happening now. I have a rug on my loom but all I'm thinking about is napkins. Well, I say napkins. I'm actually thinking some 9x9 waffle weave face cloths. But then I could do napkins...

Drawdown for Waffle Weave.

This is one draft I'm considering. It's waffle weave, that eternally wonderful fabric relegated almost entirely to towels. The cells in this draft wouldn't be square, but the asymmetry would allow more depth then normal in a 4 shaft waffle. To heck with that though! If I want the trouble of setting up 8 treadles, I'll do an 8 harness pattern! For the record, I have no idea what "C 1hr, H 5min" means. I mean, I assume it's related to the dying records on the opposite page, but it's still greek to me.

Hemstitching: You have been Upgraded.

Any way, the reason for all the excitement about making washclothes/towels/napkins/placemats and everything else exciting in the universe is that Santa brought me a Brother 104D Serger. Hemstitching (above) is now a thing of the past! I can now weave 9 yards of fabric, run it through the serger a few times, and suddenly have 27 perfectly finished washclothes/towels/napkins - You know what? They're just rectangles of cloth, you figure out what to do with them.

In my excitement to tell everyone in the world about how utterly exciting this gift is, a lot of people have expected some sort of agonizing over whether these yet-to-be-rectangles would still be handmade, like I needed some justification for mechanizing part of the process.

Bullshit. Machines planted the flax/cotton, harvested, washed, spun, washed again and wound the yarn before I even get it. Plenty of mechanization has already happened.

Moreover, I weave because I love weaving. I hate hemstitching. This serger means more time doing what I love, and less doing what I hate. Perfect!

Oh, and I have an electric ball-winder now too.  I'm basically a cyborg already

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.

Clean Start

Some days I wish I could maintain a minimalist workspace. In reality, about half my life happens either on top of my loom or in front of my computer. Since my printer Kahn, so named because of the obvious facility of expressing frustration during paper jams, is being put down today, I cleaned off my desk.

Shit off my desk today:

• 3 balls of yarn (sock scraps, acrylic worsted, churro singles)
• 1 felting needle
• 2 darning needles
• A half felted doll head which is about as creepy as it sound. Needle felted projects generally shouldn’t be released to the public until completion.
• 3 books on knitting. Nordic Knitting 31 patterns in the Scandinavian Tradition by Susanne Pagoldh, Brave New Knits by Julie Turjoman, and The New Knitter’s Template by Barry Klein and Laura Bryant.
• Back up hardrive.. I keep this in a separate room from my computer unless actively backing up like I was last night.  Seeing as how once a tree fell on the house and trashed half of it, I like to hedge my bets.
• Knock off konad stamping plates (24)
• Q tips,
• Nail polish remover,
• Hand quilting thread. I don’t quilt except in cases of emergencies, but it’s much sturdier then regular sewing thread.
• 2 sewing needles,
• Konad nail stamper
• Kroger plus card
• Pink organza ribbon
• 2 crochet hooks (k&h)
• Student loan paperwork ahhhhh!
• Friends International Library brochure, covered in notes.
• 1 pair of earrings
• 1 #7 dpn.
• I page of fine sandpaper that I use on my bamboo needles when they get rough.
• 3 crocs.com coupons
• 1 weavers guild newsletter
• 1 dentist checkup reminder
• 1 Vera Bradley sunglasses case, empty
• 1 giant washer (no clue)
• 1 partial phone charger
• 1 thing of crazy glue
• Some alternate ear buds for my ear buds (department of redundancy department much?)
• 1 sandcastle figurine (free in box of tea)
• 4 stitch markers
• 1 wacom tablet and accessories
• 3 hairpins made from bent dpns.
• 1 #6 needle. I hate straight needles, but this one I use for making sock-size stitch markers.
• 2 bent nails 1 straight nail
• 1 rubber band
• 1 hair tie
• 5 CDs from high school that shall remain nameless.
• Another washer
• A few parts of a water bottle, although curiously not the bottle.
• One big amethyst magnet holding 3 pins and another washer WTF is with the washers?
• More scraps of yarn then I care to count
• 3 gauge swatches, one of which was horribly inaccurate.
• 1 chopstick,
• 1 pencil
• Needle nose pliers
• One water spritzer, an essential blocking tool.
• 2 cables to nowhere. USB to some shapes I haven’t seen before which were inexplicably still labeled USB.
• Another bent nail
• package of snaps
• lens cover (Nikon)
• my thumb drive (FOUND YOU!!!!)
• Another half felted project, although mercifully less creepy.
• 1 Derwent colored pencil 

You know, I get the feeling some day I'm going to make a great archeology exhibit. They find my body a thousand years from now buried in some giant glacial mud slide (those happen in Maryland all the time) and they're going to find evidence of everything I did for the past month lying about around me. 

Left is just the bare essentials. A glow in the dark pig wrist rest, a tape measure, eye drops, blank DVDs, nail clippers, my current lace project, plus my current cup of tea. 

RIP Kahn. You served well.