Thread Organized!

 I am not going to write much, in case this doesn't work, because I'm trying to do it from my phone. I saw an idea on Pinterest for organizing your thread spools on dowels, and I was talking to my brilliant husband, Seth,  about it, and he said, "You could use old knitting needles." My job dropped at his brilliance, because I had been wondering how you would keep them from falling off the other ends of the dowels.  I exclaimed, "You're smarter than Pinterest!" He replied that he is also smarter than Facebook. No doubt about that!  Anyhow, goodness knows that I have enough old aluminum knitting needles but I have never gotten rid of for some reason. I also lucked out tremendously, when I walk two blocks to the nearest St. Vincent Depaul, and found the perfect vase: wide all the way down with a nice heavy bottom and tall enough to not tip over. Not to mention it was marked at four dollars but was a green tag 50% off week so it was only two dollars!

OK, back to the computer--couldn't do anything with the photos or video from my phone.  Let's see....

Well, the video wasn't that amazing anyhow.  You get the idea! ;)

Thread Organized!

 I am not going to write much, in case this doesn't work, because I'm trying to do it from my phone. I saw an idea on Pinterest for organizing your thread spools on dowels, and I was talking to my brilliant husband, Seth,  about it, and he said, "You could use old knitting needles." My job dropped at his brilliance, because I had been wondering how you would keep them from falling off the other ends of the dowels.  I exclaimed, "You're smarter than Pinterest!" He replied that he is also smarter than Facebook. No doubt about that!  Anyhow, goodness knows that I have enough old aluminum knitting needles but I have never gotten rid of for some reason. I also lucked out tremendously, when I walk two blocks to the nearest St. Vincent Depaul, and found the perfect vase: wide all the way down with a nice heavy bottom and tall enough to not tip over. Not to mention it was marked at four dollars but was a green tag 50% off week so it was only two dollars!

OK, back to the computer--couldn't do anything with the photos or video from my phone.  Let's see....

Well, the video wasn't that amazing anyhow.  you get the idea! ;)

Weaving Around

          Sooooo, I just purposely deleted a half-finished (incredibly funny, of course) post from 5 months ago. It was all about those dishtowels I showed you the wound warp pictures of.  Since then I can hardly believe how many projects I have done on my lovely, mid-century vintage Arthur A. Allen folding floor loom.  Which brings me to a big sigh.

SIGH

          I need to sell it.  The good news is that it is because I love weaving so much that I have purchased a different loom.  I am hoping that I have moved up a mini-notch on the loom ladder and not just betrayed my one true love.  Time will tell.

SIGH

          So this post is going to be all about how I have improved and woven on this loom for my exciting first year of discovery of weaving around the weaving world. It may well need to turn into several posts. Or if I do manage it all at once, feel free to skim and/or read it over several visits!

SIGH
   
          I bought this loom and immediately signed up for a 3 day intermediate weaving class at fiber arts retreat called Fiber In The Forest, run by the local weaving shop, The Eugene Textile Center.  I figured I had better whip something out pretty quickly at home in Rose Cottage before driving into the wilds of Oregon with it to be sure I could get the thing to function at all!

Weaving Tips I learned from this project:

*Handwoven dish-towels are 110% better than store-bought.

*I love weaving!

In the collage below, look at the pictures counterclockwise starting with the cones of yarn on the stairs

Weaving tips I learned from this project: 

*You can take apart your teeny warping board and screw it to your fence to make it larger. 

 *You can also use it to hold your reed on a table to sley the reed.

 *Using 2 very different threads in your warp is extremely difficult because they would be happier with different tensions. 

*Doubleweave weaving is difficult, but fun.  

*You CAN do a 3/1 treading on this loom even though it is counterbalance, but you have to watch the shed carefully (especially if you can't get the tension tight enough). 

*Madelyn VanDerHooght is an excellent teacher.

*This loom needed a little TLC and rehabilitation.

      So, upon return from Fiber in The Forest I set about the beginning of the loom rehabilitation.  Overall it was in great shape, but the wax cotton cords for the treadle tie ups, roller bars/harness hangers were gross and hard to handle.  Also, the brake didn't work very well, which really contributed to my tension problems.  Over the course of the year I managed to fix all of those things to my great satisfaction (just in time to sell it). This collage makes it look like it was all really fast, but it took several projects to identify problems, a lot of head scratching, trips to various shops and plenty of help with tool loans and a second set of hands from my handy husband.

Arthur A. Allen Counterbalance Loom Rehabilitation Tips:

*Don't try super-gluing sandpaper around your back beam to increase friction on the friction brake. It helps for about 5 minutes, then you can't get it off easily.

*Heater hose from your local funky auto parts store is the perfect replacement for the rubber tubing.

*Use a couple of zip-ties to replace the wax-string wrapping that keeps the tube bent around the bolt (you'll understand this only if you are actually rehabilitating one of these).

*Attach the brake tubing to the spring with a tiny cheap something that opens--try various size carabiners--to get the exact right tension and make it easy to remove rather than lashing the darn thing through the spring-end-hole (again, this will only make sense if you really need it to)

*You don't need little plastic connectors for Texsolv cords.  Use loops (see top center) and the holes.

* I re-inforce sewed the apron/wavy metal rod then lashed on a hollow 1/2" aluminum rod cut to length for a normal apron rod (you can see a tiny end of it sticking out of the cardboard by the brake)  You could remove the canvas aprons, but I like to keep as much intact on vintage things as possible.

*It's worth it and you feel good about yourself when you accomplish little mechanical tasks.

          Wow, I feel like I am starting to weave around nearly literally after staring at the computer screen so long.  Perhaps now is a good time to pause and publish. Given my previous record on "coming right back" to the blog, perhaps I should end with one shot of the loom in full, just in case I don't make it back super soon. If you have any specific questions about any of these things, shoot me a comment!

Now, wouldn't she look cute in YOUR craft space?

Fleece out,

LauraRose

There's No Place Like Home

That was a very pleasant vacation seeing some new towns like Bloomington,

and Indianapolis;

knitting--and finishing-- my Knit-1-Below leg warmers in the rental car on the way through Ohio;

being taken care of by my folks for two weeks back at the cottage on Lake Erie;  

eating the original Buffalo wings at the Anchor Bar;

and hanging out in good old Wash, PA.

 I say "good old," but, dang it has really grown with all this natural gas drilling and fracking going on.  I almost fell out of the car driving around -- there are OUTLET STORES for goodness sakes.  There were people from OTHER COUNTRIES in the AT&T store. Seriously astounding.

Anyhow, we made it back only an hour late on United. The trip out on American was perfect. And the staff was friendly (and existent). I'm so glad American is flying into Eugene now.  We are definitely going to continue to try to avoid United. 

Anyhow, anyhow, we got back and the next day I went to Eugene Textile Center to get a cone of black 10/2 Pearl cotton to go with my other Lunatic Fringe yarns which I had left from my Fiber In the Forest doubleweave class with Madelyn VanDerHooght last spring. Now, that was a totally awesome class, and I learned a ton and a half, but it was seriously a bit over my head. I was so excited about weaving after that though that I was acting like a crazy chicken. I knew I needed to do something a little more basic, but what? Did I want to try to do handspun? Did I want to try some more basic dish towels? Wool or cotton? Did I want to do different threadings? So many options! Of course the result was, I didn't do anything until now.

While I was toiling back along the rails to trails bike path from Ridgeway to my folks' cottage on Silver Bay on a cranky old bike one chilly day on vacation I kept my mind off the sore parts by planning out my next project.  Doing multiplication while riding is recommended only on easy trails!  I finally decided to use the beautiful Lunatic Fringe Cotton for some multicolored dish towels where I could try different treadlings on one tie up. I used our delay "due to weather" in bright and sunny SanFrancisco, to type up my plan on my iPad.  My mental math was right, I was pleased to find. 

I grabbed my tiny warping board, which I have taken apart, and screwed it to the fence with the sides a yard apart to make it bigger.  Now this worked great the first time I did it, last spring for FITF,  

but this time the screws (which I had not too intelligently put back in the same holes in the fence) started stripping out on the right side so that edge started leaning in and the threads kept sliding off the pegs which are a little shorter than I would like anyhow since it is only a small warping board. I just kept powering through because I didn't know what else to do.  Of course the last half of the warp ended up being about 8" shorter than the first half.  If I hadn't been in a panic (did I mention I was outside and it was getting dark and I had to go to my piano class?)

 I might have realized I could just stop that warp and start a second one for the rest.  I know that's what "people" do for big warps, but "I" have never done that in my vast warping experience (I think this is warp #5).  It turns out I could even have done the colors separately.  So much to learn.  I had "heard" all of this, but it's not until you really experience something that it thoroughly sinks in.  Next time I will think in smaller warp chunks (392 ends was probably a bit much for my short pegs even if they hadn't started to come out of the wall) and be sure my warping board is really secure. Oh, yeah, and don't start later than 12:30 pm.  

It was hard to chain t off the board because of the sliding issue, but I managed it.  Whew. 

I suppose 8" of loom waste is a very small price to pay for the education.  

The saga continues in the next installment!

Rose Cottage is Open for Fuzzy Fiber Fun!

   Step right in.

 Lamby and Minky will welcome you and protect your head from the stair corners.

Can you tell I'm excited about the ironing board and ex-ironing board bookshelves?

 Piper's Corner

All the curtains are "up- cycled" hand-pieced quilt tops that I got at St. Vincent De Paul's!






Cool old glass shades from Hippo Hardware.

Rosie says, "Don't just stand there, go check out the upstairs loft."

 It's hard to back up far enough to get good photos up here.  I love that I fit so much craft stuff under our little ol' antique rope bed.





The bed doubles as a handy workspace, but I'll clear it off for you if you come visit.

I'm looking forward to it getting even more overgrown! 

Window is open, hoping that Bumbles will figure out she can go in and out. See the back of the curtains show all that cool hand-stitching some spirit quilter did just for me?
 Come visit. I'll make us some tea and we can craft the afternoon away!

Word Lite -- easy on yer brain

I am so behind! The Rose Cottage is nearly complete--we literally only need about 4 more things to get wrapped up and we'll be done!--but anyone who looked here would never know it!

So, here is one of my infamous whirlwind photo heavy, sparing text, catch-up posts, to continue the saga of how to build an art studio in your neighbors' back yard:


STEP 24:
Call Rock Roofing (they did our house a few months ago) and have them come back in the fog and use the same super-coolio red shingles on Rose Cottage as we put on our house:

STEP 25:

Have Andrew from Salamander Construction come back and start putting up your redwood board siding.  He was very patient with cutting the top of each board just a weetle different at the top for the crazy swoopy roof!

   

STEP 26: Mask the heck out of the place before the insulation blowers arrive!

STEP 27: Wait for it to be the second worst snow storm of the year to have your insulators drive over the mountains to get to your job. Then have them Blow in this stinky, but highly effective, stuff, just before you leave for the weekend.   Exciting day!  

This is taken after our return--you weren't allowed in for 48 hours!
 This stuff is hard as a rock though! And it's a vapor barrier.

STEP 28: Call Rick's Rain Gutters to put up some nice

 galvanized half pipe gutters and downspouts. They look really old school--and they match our house, too!

STEP 29:   SHEETROCK!   Oh, yeah! Lookin' like a room!

STEP 30: Plaster.  

 

These guys were fast and awesome and I LOVE plaster.  I love the roughness and the look. It just seems "real" in a world where so much is pre-fabricated.  Smearing mud on your walls--can't get much more old school than that.

Wheeeelll, I'm no where near caught up, but I'm going to give myself carpal tunnel if I keep clicking away much longer! Hope you are enjoying this!  I know someone is looking at it because the Google tells me so.  Feel free to leave a comment.  I'm pretty sure it's fairly safe to do so.  (Is that enough qualifiers?)