Weaving on the brain

I just got this book:

Thats Hands On Rigid Heddle Weaving by Betty Linn Davenport. And what this means is that my loom lust is getting much stronger! I wish I were weaving RIGHT NOW!

I've only skimmed the book (I am at work, after all, and do have stuff to do - and I don't want to just devour it all at once) but it looks like a great starting point and just in skimming it I've already learned more.

The best way for this to happen is for someone to give me the loom as a gift, so the man can't complain - if I try to buy one myself, it could be a problem...

Progress, of sorts

So to make up for the depressing sadness of yesterday's post (sorry about that, but it really did make me feel better!), lets talk about being productive.

On mom's sweater, I've finished one front and am working the ribbing for the second. The stitch pattern is becoming second nature - not that I'm getting rid of my little piece of paper anytime soon, but I have acheived that understanding of the pattern where I don't need to be constantly double checking it.

My ugly tofutsies sock got ripped and since I feel like I've been spending too much time on it, I just picked a mock cable stitch pattern to use on it and got back to work (I didn't even rip the ribbing - just increased a couple more stitches on the first pattern round!). I worked the heel flap last night. Still ugly. Plus, I worked on it in the dark at a lecture last week and made a few mistakes but I'm shouldering through anyway. After all, its not like these socks are for my mom or anything.

I'd really like to post my photos, but blogger still won't let me. Grrrr.

One important development I haven't discussed is that I bought a drop spindle at Rhinebeck!

When we were moving last winter, I was cleaning out this mail organizer thing we had (that was far from organized) and I found a birthday card from my beloved Grandmother who passed away in 2006. I opened it up, and what should come floating out but two crisp ten dollar bills. How sweet! So I was determined to spend it on something special, and I decided to buy a drop spindle. It cost more than $20, unfortunately, but whatever.

So I have been sorta practicing. I mean, I have been trying. And while its not technically difficult in any way, I surely do suck at it. Even if I could post photographs, I wouldn't post one of my attempts because a) I don't have photos of them and b) its just way too embarassing!

I really hate not being good at things (guess its a Leo trait) but I am sticking with it because I do believe that its just a matter of practice. I mean, I AM making yarn - its just really, really uneven. I can't even decide which hands to use for what, I keep switching off hoping it will click with one of them and its not. But, I tell myself, knitting well took time too.

You know what they say, though - if at first you don't succeed....

And I'm a loner, too. Did I mention that?

Have you ever had a day where you get depressed because you feel like you don't fit in anywhere, with anyone? I'm totally having one of those days, which I actually do with increasing frequency at work.
I'm not cool. I've never been cool and never will be. If I ever have kids, they will no doubt be doomed to the same life of uncoolness that I lived while I was in school (I always thought that coolness was inherited back then). But sometimes, especially at this job (and in this city, for that matter), I just feel like a big ugly black sheep (wouldn't mind getting a hold of some of that roving!). There is definitely an "in" crowd here and I know I'm not part of it and that I never will be, no matter how long I work here.
Its not that I don't reach out to coworkers, I do. Its just that it doesn't stick. I think people think I'm weird or maybe I'm one of those people who are hard to read. I am shy and I dislike small talk, and those two things don't help. Sometimes its just hard to know that I'll never be one of those people that everybody likes.
My class in horticulture school was really small and over the course of the two years, we spent a lot of time together. This one guy who was always goofing around and teasing (in a good, nice, friendly way, not in a mean schoolyard way!) was just never like that with me, even though he was with all the other girls. One day, totally unprompted, he said to me, "I just have too much respect for you to act like that toward you" which I thought was strange. Do I hold my head too high?
I'm not trying to be self-pitying, although that may be what it sounds like. And in fact, I feel better already than I did when I sat down to write this. Sometimes just getting it off your chest, even if no one is listening (or especially if no one is listening!) is all you need to readjust.

But that brings me to the loner part, which I have been thinking about writing about anyway.

I am a lone knitter. I don't have any friends who knit or are interested in yarn or fibers or spinning or anything, except maybe my mom. I don't go to any knitting circles. I visited this place once. It was pouring rain, and I thought it would be nice to go sit and knit somewhere warm and friendly. But it was about the unfriendliest, cliquey-ist place I've been since high school (and I had this job at that time too!). I left in tears and walked through the West Village in the rain crying, so unwelcome did I feel.
But I digress.
The lone knitter thing - well, I taught myself to knit out of a book. I prefer to learn things myself, alone.
It just seems odd, you know, given the tremendous knitting community online, that I still knit alone. It seems like every girl out there with a knitting blog has oodles of friends that they knit with and go yarn shopping with.
I don't necessarily want to be like that, its just that it makes me feel like...a loner. Which I've always been, and I'm happy that way, and even if I had knitting friends I'd probably still be mostly a loner because I'm happiest at home with the man and my rabbit.

So apparently, I'm a loser, too.

Ever hear Bob Dylan's version of the song, Creep, by Radiohead? Its so amazing and he sounds so much more like a creep than the singer of the original. In fact, I don't even know for sure if it IS Dylan, because the man just downloaded it years ago. It sounds like Dylan but it could be an imitation - anyway, perfect music for today.

Although - I'm already feeling sooooooo much better!

I am a TOTAL HYPOCRITE!

Yeah, I might as well just come out and say it.

But don't say I didn't warn you...

I am now a member of the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Rockin' Sock Club.

Just got my email confirmation. I am one of the chosen few now and dang I feel good about myself...

With these kind of prices for sock yarn, many of them will be gifts. Its like spreading your Christmas knitting throughout the year.

Sure hope all the girls like the socks I'm knitting for them this year!

And really, I am eager to see what all the fuss is about.

Sewing six sexy silky sashes

I finally have pictures and blogger won't let me post them! That will have to wait for another day. In the meantime, its occurred to me that I've never posted about sewing before and I did a little sewing prep this past weekend.

My dear friend whose wedding is just weeks away, asked me to sew sashes for the bridesmaid dresses (since I am a bridesmaid, this is a reasonable request). The dresses are irridescent taffeta and she wanted a shiny fabric for the sash for contrast, and those were discontinued. So she and I went fabric shopping and bought some lovely brick red rayon satin at New York Elegant Fabrics (on West 40th, between Broadway or Seventh and 8th Avenue).

I measured the sash that was offered at the store - 4" wide by 94" long. Though theirs was two halves sewn together in the middle, I figured if we bought 3 yards (108") of 54" fabric, I could cut them all in continuous lengths, fold in half, leave a spot to turn, then handsew.

I cut the sashes on Friday afternoon. As previously stated, I live in an apartment and don't have even remotely decent facilities for doing this kind of work - but that doesn't stop any crafter worth her salt. It just kills her back. Working on my dining room table (too short, hence the back-killing comment), I laid out the fabric and used a nice 24"x6" clear grid quilting ruler to measure. Since I wanted the sashes to end up at 4" and I'm using slippery rayon fabric, I allowed for 1/2" seam allowances which I will trim (probably).

Have I mentioned I don't have an ironing board? Well, I don't. So it was a great joy to switch back and forth between an old blanket for ironing and my cutting mat.

I measured the width of each sash and since I'm using the full length of the fabric, I'm off the hook there. Working away from myself, I folded the edge nearest me upward 4.5". Then I sprayed the fold and pressed in the crease so that the fabric would stay more or less together while I cut. I did this along the whole length and then switched to the cutting mat.

With a fresh new blade in the rotary cutter and the handy quilting ruler, I rotary cut the entire length, opposite the fold of course. Then I repeated five more times...it took three hours! And some of the sashes have iron marks in them - just dots from the plate. Weird. But I have a fancy pants steamer that I've not used and I think once they're sewn, the dots will steam out (I mean, I HOPE the dots will steam out).

Tomorrow, I have to go buy matching thread (I have a lot of thread, but the fabric is a very unique color and since I will have to handsew the turning pocket, I want it to match perfectly. Or maybe I'll use stich witchery. :) It is getting close, and all weekends leading up the wedding are pretty much booked...

Love sick

Perhaps that should read "loom sick". Because I am being driven half mad with lust for a loom.

At Rhinebeck (I have pictures, but I keep forgetting to bring in my card), I tried the Saori loom. I tried it last year too, but this year I spent much more time and the wonderful, sweet lady from Loop of the Loom spend lots more time with me, showing me some different techniques, like scooping, which results in something like this:

That is by someone named Coco Hirunagi and is part of an exhibition of a weaving class, though it wasn't done on a Saori - you can see the rest of the class's work here if you're interested. I'm showing it only to demonstrate how, in weaving, a simple technique can be used to amazing effect.
Anyway, Saori makes the lovely, fantastic SX601:

It may look like a complex loom, but it is designed to be simple to use. It is absolutely gorgeous and it has a built in bobbin winder and it folds to be marvelously compact, which she demonstrated for me. I had woven something I thought was really quite beautiful and was all geeked up about it, but somehow the man was nowhere around to see how small it folds up (with project still warped and everything). I LOVE this loom and I LOVE the Saori philosophy of weaving for everybody and I love the allowance for pure creativity. It is a bargain, actually, at $1290.
So I dreamed about Saori all that weekend and would still love to get one, but reason has set in (a bit) and I think that perhaps a rigid heddle loom, the Kromski Harp, would be a better place to start:

The 32" is a mere $219 and while much more conventional than Saori, you can still be as free form and creative with it as you'd like (well, once its warped, anyway).
I have been trying to research it online and frankly, if there is a big rigid heddle weaving community out there, they don't have a strong presence on the internet. Nothing even close to the knitting community. Part of my rationale in choosing the Harp is that it is an inexpensive place to start, it FOLDS with the project still attached, and the built in warping board could still be useful even if I outgrow a rigid heddle.
I think it would be a long time before I outgrew a rigid heddle, though, because I talked to a guy weaving on a huge Louet floor loom at Rhinebeck and it was interesting, but I am definitely not interested in making fabric that looks like it could have been machine made (yeah, I know, a loom IS a machine, but I mean I want to see the human hand in the product and I don't think you really could in his super fancy complex cloth). I want to use up yarn ends and fabric scraps, play with different fibers and colors and just make interesting things. I'd love to weave rugs, especially.
The man swears he's behind my weaving lust but he is pretty dead-set against me getting a loom. He swears we don't have enough space (we do). He's also worried I'll never knit him anything again, which is crazy because its not like you can take the loom with you on the subway and on vacation, so I will still knit every day, even with a loom. He had a color class in undergrad and the professor told them that weaving is sort of the ultimate color experience, and that color sense is "in the fingers". Maybe he is afraid of loving weaving too.
But if I get the regular check from the in-laws for Christmas, I really think I NEED to get the Kromski Harp. So please, weavers, if you somehow stumble across my blog, PLEASE tell me your advice on my loom dilemma and any experience you have with the Harp or Saori.

So, now that I have confessed, on to the knitting.
We were just in Michigan for a friend's wedding and I went to my mom's and felted the bag for my Aunt. The first go-round, it barely felted at all. The second time, we reduced the load size on the washer and threw in a pair of jeans. Then we went to the bank. Which, in retrospect, maybe was a bit risky, but I figured since it barely felted at all the first time, it was okay. When we got back, it had definitely felted! Not too small, actually. A bit too small, but that was probably my fault for not being able to felt the swatch and predict how much it would shrink, because I was happy with the amount of felting. The handles, which I did in seed stitch, didn't felt as much as I would have liked and there was quite a lot of fiber migration but all in all, I'm happy with it. Especially since it dried, because when it was wet, it smelled terrible. I have before and after pictures, just need to remember to bring the card in.
I have finished the back of my mom's sweater and am started on one of the fronts. I took a chance and showed her the yarn while we were in MI - just the yarn, not anything I'd knitted with it, just to see what she'd say about it.
And she loved it! Totally loved it! And not just in an, oh, thats pretty way - in a wow, I love that color! way. So that was a relief.
Finally, I am working on the world's ugliest sock. It is in Tofutsies which is fine to work with, but the colors in this sock totally make me want to barf. And its turning out really small. But all that is fine, because the person it is for likes barfy colors and is really small. So I'm chugging along on it and choking back my, um, reaction to the colors.

Happy halloween! Not that we're doing anything. I think there is some kind of haunted house in my neighborhood. Its probably for kids, but maybe we'll check it out.

The sad thing is - today is one year since we left for our honeymoon in Japan. I wish we were leaving again today.

RHINEBECK!!!!!! Rhinebeck, Rhinebeck, Rhiiiiiiiine-BECK!

How excited am I for another year of the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival? SO excited! Well, me and all the other knitters who will be going.

How can someone get so excited for a sheep and wool festival? Last year was my first time going and I was excited but I was also more just curious. Now that I know where I'm headed, I'm just totally psyched (everyone at work is laughing at me, as is the man, because I've texted him "sheep and wool!!!!" more than once).

In short, its heaven for fiber lovers. You're surrounded by thousands of other fiber lovers - but even a rather devout people hater like myself can manage it without problems - and they're all wearing beautiful things that they made and they're sitting and using drop spindles and knitting and crocheting and basically loving life.

And the animals! So many darling sheep and goats (I love goats!), alpacas, bunnies...so basically its adorable fiber animals, oodles of yarn and fiber apparati, and tons of like-minded people. Its awesome. Its so awesome that even my husband is looking forward to going back. Wouldn't characterize him as excited, exactly, since that is how I am describing myself, but he really enjoyed himself and also didn't try to talk me out of yarn purchases. I actually bought very little last year but I sense more purchases this year. It can be overwhelming, though, and you may end up buying nothing in the end. Or at least, very little.

Last year, I was at this one woman's booth and she was selling Ashford rigid heddle looms when this woman and her two young sons, maybe like 10 and 12 years old, comes up and says to the woman, "Well, he says he'd rather have this than a playstation for his birthday, so we'll take one". How darling is that?

Okay, so heres some photos from last year. The man took over 400 photographs - we were testing out our new memory card before our big trip to Japan, but also he liked taking pictures. Witness:

That is my arm petting these two sheep. They were the first live animals (not that we saw dead ones...) that we saw when we entered the festival so I was super excited. The poor girl leading them couldn't get anywhere for all the people stopping her to pet the sheep!

This is me with this cute little girl. I was looking at the sheep and she said, "do you want to feed them?" and she gave me a handful of sheep chow. It was so nice.
If you were wondering, what I'm wearing is a simple cardigan/jacket made out of Colinette Point 5, the colorway is cardinal. I love that yarn but I hate knitting with bulky yarns. I wish we could get Point 3 in this country (is anyone who can do something about that listening? And if so, is my opinion worth anything?). I'm also wearing my wedding shawl as a scarf. This year, it is going to be quite warm out, so I'll be wearing rossnyev with a brand new, hot off the sewing machine matching skirt. Wish I had time to knit a matching cloche.
Here are some more great photos of fiber animals taken by the man:

I think that guy was some kind of goat.


And heres a question for you - why didn't I buy this yarn? I'm looking at it like I love it, I'm loving it now, reviewing the photo, but I didn't buy it! Was it expensive? Don't do this to yourself, if you go to Rhinebeck. Buy what you love, and buy it when you see it because someone WILL buy it (it happened to me! Not with this skein, but another):

This nice lady taught me to use a drop spindle and taught me a lot about spinning. We got instructions to make a CD drop spindle but haven't done it yet:


I'll have a report on this years festival next week. For now, only two more days!!!!!