Back at the Loom

After visiting Convergence and seeing Shelly with a new loom compelled me back to weaving on my floor loom.


I already had a towel warp on the loom so all I needed to do was to tie it on the front apron and start weaving.

I got the first towel woven in the off white color and you can sort of see the pattern in the black strips.

For the next towel, I decided to use the black as the weft and the pattern is so much more discernible.  I like the look very much.  Good thing I have a cone of this yarn.

I'm not sure how many towels are on the warp, but I'm going to continue on until it is done.

Supperclub for July

Supperclub was hosted for the first time by Debbie and she grilled some awesome swordfish - two ways.  She marinated and then grilled on the barbie.

Grilled Swordfish Steaks with Basil-Caper Butter

Swordfish Steaks with Smoky Tomato Ketchup

She bypassed the original main dish item of Grilled Halibut with Herb Pistou and Walnut Butter because she forgot to bring the recipe to the fish monger and bought the wrong fish.


The rest of the menu consisted of:


Cold Watermelon Soup - Kim altered the recipe some by adding some tomatoes and siracha.

Farmhand Salad with Goat Cheese - New member Kristy tackled the salad and she cut everything by hand.  This salad was amazingly delicious.

Roasted Broccoli with Lemon and Pine Nuts

Peaches and Plums with Sesame Crumble - Janet changed up the topping by going to the old standard of almonds and brown sugar.  Before baking.

After baking.

The last menu item was Red Miso Glazed Carrots but Amy cancelled and we had plenty of food.


Everything on this menu was great and so was the company.

Newly Felted Bag

A while back, I knitted up a felted knitting basket with some knit picks yarn.  It has been sitting around waiting for felting but I can't do any felting in my front loading washing machine.


A couple of weeks ago at knit nite, I was talking to Nancy and she felts routinely due to her mini hat business.  I asked if she could felt my bag for me and I left it up to her discretion as to the doneness of the job.  All I wanted was for the stitches not to be defined.


This week, she brought the felted basket and it is awesome.

Side view.

Top view - she said she used a plastic pasta holder to make the bottom perfectly round.

So cute and ready for use.

Cedar Wood Yarn Holder

My enabler, Jude, sent me a bunch of photos of her yarn holder orders from Willysman Woodworks and I was able to see one of her holders the last time I visited.


Late at night is the worst time to be surfing the net for kicks and I ended up chatting with Maurice about a low profile yarn holder.

Maurice worked on a special holder for me in some awesome grained cedar wood and it arrived in the mail.

The coolest thing about this holder as opposed to others I have seen at fiber festivals and shops is that the shaft can be unscrewed so transporting is much easier.

Lovely!

New Sewing Machine

At Convergence - a weaving convention, I purchased a sewing machine!  It is like that time I was at a quilting convention and purchased an iron....


Janome and Sew Vac of Long Beach were providing machines for the classes and they had super show specials.  I had to have my pals enable me to the right machine and the best deal was delivery for free.


My new Janome 4120QDC arrived at the homestead and here it is....

It came with a hard cover

And an extension table.

This machine has all kinds of cool functions like automatic sewing, tons of memory and cool stitches, and a thread cutter (a must have).  I have watched the instructional DVD that came with and I can't wait for some time to sew on this new baby.


My sick Janome Sew-Precise got some attention from the District Sales Manager at Convergence and I'm finally getting some resolution after being in the shop since mid-November.


Sew Hut called and offered sincere apologies and will be sending my machine back to the factory for repair or replacement.  I hope to hear soon.

Me and My Dream Loom

At Convergence, Shelly was with me doing loom research when we hit the Glimakra booth.  She forwarded a picture of me and my dream loom - the Ideal Loom.

Batts from Inglenook Fibers

At the last spin group, Lori brought a bunch of batts for show and tell from Inglenook Fibers.  I was so enchanted that I came home and checked out their shop and found some batts that had to come over to my house.


A huge box came in the mail and the batts were all individually wrapped in their own draw string bags.  All of them are so lovely and soft.  I can't wait to get started on the spinning.

Pashmina - merino, silk, wool, alpaca, bamboo, silk noil, angelina

Scarlet Cape - merino, silk, wool, alpaca, bamboo, milk fiber, silk noil, angelina

Blue Lightning - merino, wool, bamboo, silk, silk noil, sari silk, firestar, angelina

Kites - merino, romney, silk, polworth, rambouillet, bamboo

Riddles in the Dark - merino, silk, alpaca, bamboo, cormo, flax, angelina, firestar

Emerald Isle - merino, romney, silk, alpaca, bamboo, silk noil, firestar, angelina

Snapdragons - merino, silk, alpaca, bamboo, silk noil, sari silk, angelina

Color Affection and Miss Babs

I have been seeing quite a bit of the Color Affection on the interwebs and finally succumbed and purchased the pattern.  It should be a very interesting knit and Jan was working on one at the last spin group meeting.


While listening to one of the many podcasts I subscribe to, there was a mention that Miss Babs had a "kit" in which she picks up three colors of yarn to knit this pattern.  I hit her site and scrolled down dozens of combinations and settled on this one in the Yet lace weight which is 65/35 merino/silk in the colors of Oyster, Envy Me!, and Timberline.

This is now in my queue to knit this year.

Fractal Spun Yarn

I posted here about the Hansencrafts mSpinner Tour de Fleece challenge of fractal spinning.


I dutifully spun the singles in the method described and here are the bobbins.

You can tell that the bobbin on the left has the longer color repeats where the bobbin on the right has shorter color repeats.


The 2 plied yarn ended up looking like this.  I was able to get 476 yards of a lace weight yarn.

I think I'm going to knit the Ruby Slippers Shawlette with this yarn to see the color striping.

Convergence 2012

Our little spin group headed up to Long Beach for Convergence 2012.  It was to be all about loom research and reconnaissance. 


We arrived bright and early.

And saw these woven pieces displayed from the second floor.

But it was really all about the looms.  First we hit LeClerc and found out that I cannot really upgrade my current 4 shaft Artistat without converting it to the hinged treadles like this.

That upgrade would cost more than half of a new loom.


Next we stopped at Glimakra and saw Joanne again.  I'm still on the fence about this loom.

Next came the Harrisville booth with Jason Collingwood weaving a rug.

Jeri was super impressed by this loom and the weaver.

AVL had their looms set up with electronics.

We also saw this monstrosity.

Shelly found a home with Macomber.

And ended up taking this loom home for a super discount.

It folds up into almost nothing.

I also found this great vendor with Micronesian Ivory Nut items.

Bob Benson takes these nuts and transforms them into beautiful spindle bowls.

We also hit a few other vendors for bags, spindles, temples, and weaving supplies.  Morgaine at Carolina Homespun gave us free admission tickets into the venue and we hung out at her booth for a while.