A Basketful of Blooms

Marigold

I gathered more blooms today. Aren't they pretty?

Then I went to the guild and helped a couple of friends warp a loom. It was a very nice evening.

A Full Day

Little bit of sunshine today; some heavy rain and a lot of activity.

Andean Plying Tool

Toque, my spinner's project

Newly Baked Bread

Carding Romney fleece

Coreopsis, a dye plant

I did some heavy weeding in my side garden (the one I see everytime I arrive home from work), sewing for a customer, knitting on my spinner's project, baking bread, preparing cinnamon buns for tomorrow, vaccuuming the car and carding more Romney fleece.

Rearranged and Weeded

Marigold, a dye plant

I'm pleased with what I accomplished. I wish I could say it's all done so that I can get back to the weaving, but not quite yet. I must get this project finished and mailed away before I can allow myself to pursue my weaving.

Finally Weaving!!

Here is my very first weaving project: It is a denim rag rug in a twill pattern. This is being done on my Varpapuu Countermarche loom. The warp was already on it when I bought the loom, but I redid the warp (as a learning process).

I am using Laila Lundell's Big Book of Weaving to guide me through the process.

I really got very tired of crawling inside the loom to play with the treadle tie ups, so I changed it, with my hubby's help - he made what I needed and it works wonderfully. Now when I change the tie up, I just go around to the back of the loom and make the changes in the TexSolv cord on the tie up board at the back. It cost me a few dollars, but to take the hassle away made it worth it.

The following is showing the box at the back. Each group of 2 vertical rows represents a treadle. The left vertical row in each group of two vertical rows are for the top lamm adjustments and the right vertical row are for making changes to the lower lamms. The horizontal rows represent the harnesses. The wooden pegs just hold the unused cords so they don't slip out the back of the board. The sticks are old knitting needles being used to hold the treadle tie up for the rug I am doing.

I'm going to label the board and in another post I will show a different picture which should show things more clearly.

Another change I made to the loom is on the warping beam. It is a 1" sectional beam, but the sections are made up with sharp pointy nails. Everytime I crawled in the loom I was scratched & jabbed by the sharp nails. I kept looking at it and kept thinking about the problem and came up with the idea of vinyl tubing cut to bend over two nails. My hubby and I went off to the local farm store and bought ? metres of tubing. He kindly cut and installed it all for me over a couple of days when I was working. It works just perfectly.

Here is a view showing the treadles with the guides for the TexSolv cord as seen from the front of the loom.

Varpapuu Countermarche.
Denim Rag Rug.

Summertime - I've got it back

I have had all of my spare time zapped up by the workbook requirements of the Level 1 spinner's course I'm taking. I feel like celebrating because today, after two and a half months of having all of my spare time spoken for, I have the bulk of the work finished.

It feels so good. I just have to do my project & a few dye vats and submit it.

I was looking at my rock garden and the hens & chicks are very interesting. They are 12"-15" high and have an interesting flower head on the end of the stalk.

The small clump to the right is lavender. In the very corner is sage.

These little guys are new dye plants started from seeds. When they first started they were the tiniest little green dots.

The panseys give a very nice light green colour to wool from the purple flowers. I'm gathering & freezing the flowers so I have enough.

The coneflowers are looking so pretty since the heavy rain we had on Sunday.

This is the third year for this Liatris.

Tomorrow I don't know if I will get back to the Varpapuu or go on with my project. Wait and see what I feel like when I get up tomorrow. The Varpapuu is being transformed to a back of the loom treadle tie up so I don't have to crawl inside anymore. My hubby made the hardware changes for me on the loom and all the extra things I need for my weaving & spinning. Niddy noddy. Hackle & comb. Swift. Spindles. Lazy Kate. Warping reel. They're all beautiful & functional.