daily yarns 'n more

still busy on the farm

I got over my nervousness and just jumped in and started a weaving project.  I first had to figure out what I wanted to make, after that was out of the way I had to order some yarn.  I was so pumped that a warping board was included with the loom I bought.  I didn't have to have Jim make one for me.

This is where I'm at right now with the project.  My warp chain waiting to be sleyed through the reed.

 

Friday Jim went back to Illinois for business so Lauren and I went to town.  We walked the streets looking at what the town has to offer in the way of shops.  I did find a scrap booking shop, a quilt shop, a yarn shop a book store, and a few coffee shops/restaurants.  What more could I need right?

 

We have a quaint old library and I got a new library card.  I remember fondly of the library I went to as a child.  I used to take my older kids there, and it smelled the exact same as I remembered.  Funny how smells stick you with you. 

I had to stop at the post office to mail something.  I felt I was walking back in time when I went in there.  The photo from my previous post is of the bench in front of the post office.

Jim and Lauren did yard work on Saturday.

 

The hens are still doing good and so far not a one has been breakfast, lunch or dinner for the hawks or any other predator.  Here Buffy is taking a dust bath.  I just love watching them do this.

I hope you all have a wonderful Monday.

Blessings,

Judy

don't pinch me, i don't want to wake up

I just can't believe what has been happening lately.  As you all know from the previous post I started knitting again on the sweater I'm making for myself.  Well, to make a long story short, a mouse...yes a mouse somehow got into our house in Illinois and chewed on some of my good yarn...GASP!!!!!  I know, I know, my heart skipped 10,0000 beats when I found the evidence.  The little bugger also chewed on the yarn that I was knitting my sweater with.  Luckily he didn't chew what I had already knitted.  Anyway back to my story.  I decided to check out the yarn shop in town to see if I could get one more skein just in case I ran a little short, since the little bugger did some damage to the skein.  Talking to the owner at the counter I spied an ad...For Sale 4 harness Kessenich Loom.  After inquiring about the ad, the owner gave me a copy of it.  I couldn't get home fast enough to give the lady a call.  Yes!!!!  She hadn't sold it.  The seller didn't live too far from us, so Jim and I took a ride through the country, and after looking at it and talking with the seller I bought myself a weaving loom.  It is a Kessenich Loom from the 1950's and they were originally made in Wauwatosa Wisconsin.  They are now made in Michigan.

So, here it sits in my living room.  It actually looks very nice there.  I need to do a little bit of cleaning on it, but it's in great shape.

 

And with it came some goodies.

Renee had asked if I plan to do anymore weaving and yes I do, only I wasn't going to buy a new loom as they can be quite expensive.  I've had my eye out for a used one and so did the instructor I took the weaving class from.  

Now, I have lots of reading and learning to do and I can't wait to get started.

I don't know how much I'm going to be around in the next week.  We are having our Minnesota grandchildren starting today.  My daughter and her husband are taking a 10th anniversary trip to Mexico and the kids are coming here for the week.  We'll have lots of fun with them.

I hope you all have an awesome Friday.

Blessings,

Judy

my first weaving project finished

It's in it's place and it fits perfectly.

 

I finished the edge with a fringe.

It's an elongated version of a log cabin pattern.

The loom is now folded up and ready to be delivered back to my instructor.  I really enjoyed weaving and hope to continue doing it.

the loom

This loom has been in my house since the end of May March and I'm finally getting around to not only showing you it but working on it.  Too much going on around here and not enough fun.

 

I'm really not sure what you would call this...a runner, piano topper...What ever it's called, it's going on the top of my piano.  Here are a few pictures to kind of show you what it's about.

This is definitely a fun thing to do.  This loom is not mine to keep.  It's on loan from the instructor.  How trusting is that?  All seven of us students got to take the one we worked on home.  I just hope I remember how to take it off the loom when I'm done weaving :)

sleying the reed

I haven't posted about my weaving class and how that's been going.  Before we left for Florida, this is what we did in class.

This top picture is not my work.  I didn't take my camera out until the class was almost over.  This is the start of sleying the reed.

Here I've started to thread the heddles on the loom.

 

A side view of the loom and how the beater is tied up to make it easier to thread the warp threads through the heddles.

 

Just another view.

At the end of the class each loom gets folded up to be put in the closet for next week.

Last night was my weaving class and on the way there I realized that I forgot my camera.  Last nights class would have been great to show you, because I did what was called beaming the warp.  I did start to weave and I have to say I'm very happy with the colors and pattern I picked out.

It's been busy as usual around here.  We had to put one of our hens down who was really aggressive towards the other hens to the point of drawing blood.  She was feather pecking them.  We separated the injured hen and she is now on the mend.  Soon we'll reintroduce her back to the flock.

I hope all is going well with you and I'm trying to catch up on all your blogs.

Have a wonderful St Patrick's day.

Who's having corned beef and cabbage?

and so, my project begins

Last night was my weaving class and I have to tell you I did not want to go.  After a long day at work I just wanted to stay home and veg-out.  But, I went and I'm so glad I did, because we started our projects.  We used a warping board to measure out our warp ends.  I had to wrap my warp threads around the pegs so that I had a total of 224 warp threads.  Some had to do way more than that.  I was pretty happy to have picked a smaller project for my first time weaving.  Some of the ladies were sorry they picked the projects that they did.

When I was all done I had to tie on some "choke ties", and that is exactly what you want to do is "choke" the threads so that they stay tied and can't get tangled.

After all the choke ties are in place you start taking the warp off the warping board....Very carefully tho...Once it's all off the warping board you make a chain with the warp.  It reminded me of macrame.

 

This is my warp chain.  I picked the colors pink and raisin for my project.  I am making a cover or runner to go on the top of our piano.  I was happy to have finished last night because the instructor was there to help, but a bit sorry because I would have been able to take the warping board home to finish.  Then I could have shown you exactly what it looked like instead of pictures from my weaving book. 

 

I'm going to take my camera to class from now on and hopefully the instructor won't mind me taking pictures of my progress.

i'm ready for the next project

Before I actually started taking out the mop yarn I finished the edge with a straight stitch and a zig-zag stitch.

The mop yarn is taken out and it's all ready to have the fringe cut off.

I decided to leave a bit of a fringe on the edge.  It's washed and dried.  The yarn closed nice and tight almost like felting but not quite that tight.  It feels soft like a baby blanket.

 

Even tho it's just a sampler it's found a home on my table.

Now I can't wait to start the next project.

i knew if i did this i would be hooked

I'm telling you it's addicting.

This is what we worked on starting with the first class.

 

We learned to weave many different weaving patterns.  Here you can see the different patterns that are really in no particular order to resemble any type of pattern.

 

The instructor is teaching us pretty much everything in a compact sort of way.  How much can we really learn in 10 weeks other than the really important things right? She taught us what to do if we break a thread or warp as they are really called.  So to demonstrate that she reached over to the back of my loom and snipped a thread.  You should have heard the gasps from all of us.

This is the added thread and when it's all finished you will not know which warp thread had broke.  At least I hope you won't be able to.

To finish off this piece I have to do a wet finish on it and those white mop threads that you see on the ends in the top photo will not be there when I'm done.  Let's just hope I do it right and the finished edges will look how they are supposed to look.  If I do a fringe edge you'll know I chickened out and picked an easy way to finish them :)

do i really need to learn something else?

You bet I do!  I got an e-mail from a gal last summer if anyone from our knitting group was interested in learning how to weave.  I was very interested.  So when I got another e-mail with all the info I quickly signed up and last night was my first class.  The instructor only takes about 7 students per session. 

I have to tell you I really loved it.  We started learning how to weave right away last night.  I couldn't believe it.  I guess I wasn't sure what to expect on the first night.  The class is only 2 hours long and runs for 10 weeks.  I didn't want it to end last night.  I wanted to keep going.  I really wished that I had taken my camera but I wasn't too sure how the instructor would feel about that.  Each of us works on our own loom and we had to put our names on them so we'll know which one is ours for next week. 

We'll be doing a project and I have to think of something to weave.  I'm thinking of making either a table runner or something for the top of our piano.  This will be a project that we won't be finishing in class.  We'll each get to take the loom we're working on home so we can finish our project and when we're done we give the loom back.  How trusting is that.

How many more days until the next class?  The week is going to go by sooooooooooooooo slow.