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Today is Christmas Eve Eve. A wonderful preparatory day. I always feel good on this day. Any anxiety about the holidays is gone, all that’s left is happiness, looking forward to seeing my sister, son, daughter, son-in-law, and grandson over the next two days.
Yesterday the wind blew wildly and coldly all day long. It was very biting, so I cut my usual 2 mile walk quite short – I only did about 3/4 of a mile in the morning, and couldn’t make myself go back out later. There was some snow on the ground – probably 4-5″ although with so much blowing it was hard to know for sure.
This morning I decided to wait till the sun came out to take my walk. It was GORGEOUS! There were lots of ice diamonds on all the little branches of shrubs & tall weeds. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, and when I came home and took some pictures none of them showed the real magic of it all — you’ll just have to trust me.
Then I decided to put the first warp on the Missouri loom. Although I have not given my other looms names (I’m not one of those people – I don’t name my cars, either), when I’m making myself notes about what I need to do or buy to get this loom functional I don’t write out the entire name, I abbreviate it MO, so I guess I need to just call the loom Mo for short.
Anyway, I wanted to see how she handled, if the reed or heddles would damage my warp threads. But I didn’t want to ruin any yarn that I really liked, so I chose some Bambu 7 – not my fav as it’s got such a low twist that it catches on everything in a finished garment. That feature, however, would be sure to show me if the reed or heddles had snags on them. I threaded the loom in a varied twill pattern & threaded the reed.
After that I went to tie on to the front apron.
DOH! I made the new strapping WAY too short! It struck me as odd on the back beam, but when I got to the front beam I realized why. That webbing should reach at least an inch or two over the breast beam. Since I don’t have enough of the webbing left I decided I’d just deal with it for this trial warp, but I’ll have to buy more webbing and redo both front & rear.
So I got tied on and started weaving.
This is so not my favorite color. It is less ugly than I thought it would be – maybe someone will like it. It’ll be priced to move, assuming the reed doesn’t eat it before I’m done.
Anyway, I learned quickly that the cord I’d used to tie up the levers was inappropriate. The knots slipped too easily, so as a result the levers couldn’t lift the harnesses high enough to give me a good shed.
I stopped the process early on and hooked up the lamms using Texsolv cord. In order to make this work, I’d already purchased eye hooks for the treadles and had to drill out holes larger to accommodate the smallest eye hooks I could find. So today hooking up lamms & treadles was pretty easy.
Once I did that, Mo gives me a nice, clean shed. The treadles are short-ish, and therefore I think they require more effort to lift the harnesses than my lovely counterbalance, and Mo sure makes more noise, but function is the most important thing, after all.
After I’d woven a bit I realized that I probably did have enough Texsolv left to replace the cords to the levers, so I did that and now the levers give me a good shed, too.
Mo will be quite useful, I can see that.
Now, sitting in my living room with just the Christmas lights, my laptop screen, and Melissa Etheridge giving a Christmas concert on my TV, life is sweet.
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!
We had our first Christmas celebration yesterday. Included were my two kids, son-in-law, grandson, both sisters, brother-in-law, niece, nephew, my nephew’s new fiance. It was a wonderful afternoon. The only thing that could have made it better was several more hours. I most certainly did not have enough time to visit with my niece, nephew, or to-be niece-in-law. And it will unfortunately be many months before we’re all together again.
Since we did Christmas yesterday, I can now show you my latest weaving efforts. I made everyone bookmarks, but not my ordinary bookmarks, which are woven using a 5/2 cotton warp and similar sized wefts, all woven on four shafts. I like them, but wanted something more special for Christmas gifts. So I went to Carol Strickler’s A Weaver’s Book of 8 Shaft Patterns and decided on several of the border patterns on pages 31-33. I made a few minor modifications to make sure that the back wouldn’t have floats more than 7 threads long, preferably 5, since the purpose was bookmarks. I needed to make 9 in all; 6 for yesterday and 3 for presents yet-to-be-given (to people who don’t read my blog, so no present-spoilers here), plus 1 extra just in case. First a shot of all 10.
 I threaded the Mac in a simple rosepath design – 4 repeats – using 12/2 cotton sett at 36 ends per inch. Each of the designs used a different tie-up, so several trips under the loom.
Now for some close ups.
First I wove some snowflakes.
My oldest sister, who used to knit lots of mittens, often using a traditional snowflake design, got the dark blue one of these.
Then I wove a design that looked to me like a Star of David while in draft form, but more like a flower in real life.
The new fiance got the light wedgewood blue bookmark.
Next I wove some trees. I really like these lovely evergreens.
For obvious reasons, I made them both a nice rich green. My brother-in-law, who spends hours outdoors each day, got one of these.
Then I tried another tree. It’s okay, but in comparison to the first one, not a winner.
I’m using this as my extra.
So I moved onto a more warm-weather design, weaving some butterflies.
My niece, who lives in South Carolina and has more summer than the rest of us, got a butterfly.
For my last design I made flowers.
My other sister got the flowers. She’s got a lovely flower garden.
While I was weaving the bookmarks my son stopped by for a few hours (his purpose is still a secret). Being ever helpful, he graciously assisted me in replacing the cords on my Missouri loom.
I am SO glad I had his help. It took the two of us about an hour and a half, and would have taken me more than twice that long alone.
Once all the cables were hooked to the levers, we tested it all out, and everything seems to work smoothly.
The next day I stopped at JoAnn Fabrics and bought some webbing to make the missing apron straps. Today I got them sewn to length and stapled in place on both the front & back beams.
Over the next few days I hope to have the time to put on a short warp and test it out. Will the reed, which my son sandblasted to remove the rust and I subsequently sprayed with clear rustoleum in an attempt to make smoother, be sufficient or will it abrade the threads? Have I sufficiently cleaned the heddles (not rusty) by blowing them with compressed air, or do I need to individually wipe each one? Will the brakes hold, the levers work smoothly, the shed be clean? Only time will tell.
I’m still working on needed modifications to be able to hook up the treadles. I need the loom to be functioning, at least as a table loom, by mid-January, when I’ll be away from home for a week.
Just a few more days & I’ll spend more time with family on Christmas Eve & Christmas day. Yippee!! Wishing you a wonderful Christmas, too!!
I do love Christmas. The best part is, of course, getting together with family & friends. What’s not to love about that?! Followed closely by eating terrific food.
Christmas lights also make me happy. Here’s one of the windows in my house. I’ve just begun hanging the cards I receive in this window, and that’s a little ceramic tree my Mom made years ago. I don’t put up a tree anymore, and in fact was really happy to give my gently-used artificial tree to someone who needed it via Freecycle.
The presents are the smallest part of this season for me. I’m glad that I’ve managed to stay within a reasonable budget and feel good about it this year. Some years I spend way too much, or feel bad about not spending way too much. I guess being real about it and feeling good is one of the benefits of age/maturity.
This year unfortunately too many people’s lives are filled with sorrow. Parents in Connecticut. Families of men & women in the service who are in danger, or worse. People whose loved ones are facing serious illnesses, homelessness, or trauma.
I hope it helps those of us not in these immediate situations remember how lucky we are, and understand that much of this is truly is luck, beyond our control. We can use that knowledge to extend our support, in whatever form it may take, to others. To give gifts of ourselves, our time, our energy, or our finances to those who need it. To pass on feelings of hope, of courage, of we’re-all-in-this-together. More love, less fear.
Every little bit counts. It’s part of my It’s A Wonderful Life belief – that we never know much of the impact we have on others, so it’s important to pass on whatever kindnesses we can.
See that amber/orange light on that white box? The box is my wireless router, the amber light is a visual signal that it’s not working. With help from the internet satellite guy and my daughter I’ve tried a variety of methods to reset its brain and get it functioning again. All to no avail.
So now, in order to get online, I have to carry my laptop to this cramped, crowded, uncomfortable corner and plug it directly into the satellite modem.
Needless to say, it’s not someplace I want to spend a long time sitting. As a result I’m checking/responding to emails more slowly, blog posts get written first in Word & then copied/pasted, and surfing the web is pretty much out of the question.
Amazing how easily we become accustomed to our technology functioning exactly as we want it to. Yes, my laptop is still great. Yes, I can still connect to the rest of the world from home. Yes, I can bring my laptop elsewhere, like my local public library, and connect in a comfortable setting. Still………I’m whining internally several times a day because “It’s not as nice as it was!†Can you see my lower lip stick out and hear my toddler-aged foot stamping? I feel like a pouty child but haven’t managed to change my attitude about it all yet.
I’m hoping that today’s lovely, light snowfall will help change that. Plus, my stress level is declining daily with a multitude of ‘must do’s crossed of my list. The shows are over and all went well. My last weaving order will go in today’s mail. I’ll finish the Victorian Christmas ornament today and can mail that out in the next day or two. I’ve made the presents for my board of directors at Pfeiffer Nature Center – jam from blueberries I picked and froze this summer…
…and miniature loaves of my Grandma Troiano’s date nut bread.
(Ignore the mess – I never claimed to be a good housekeeper.)
Most of my gifts are purchased, I’ve begun decorating the house, and life is settling down. I will get over the inconvenience of getting on the ‘net – at least until I’ve resolved the problem with a new wireless router.
I had 2 days to get a warp measured, beamed, threaded, and woven, cut off the loom, fringed, wet finished, pressed, & tagged if I was to meet my self-imposed deadline. Could I do it?
It was easy enough to measure out a warp for log cabin, holding one black thread & one white thread together to cut the amount of time in half. After I had my 8.5 yards of 160 threads measured out, I put on the choke ties & chained them, as always. (Not a weaver and unfamiliar with the jargon? Stick with me — there’s not much more.)
When I took it off the warping board I really liked the way it looked, so I laid it on the floor and took a photo. Somehow in the picture the colors show up as more distinctly black & white – to my eye they were a lovely silvery gray.
Log cabin isn’t a speedy weave since it requires two shuttles, so I wove and wove and wove. In the afternoon the sun was coming in the window and hitting the loom and I really liked the way it looked. Everything was very angular. And like an old black & white movie.
My string heddles blended into the white rayon of the warp threads. The play of sun and thread made the weaving all the more enjoyable.
Fighting fatigue and aching hands I finished the fringe and wet finished. I don’t know why I was tired or why my hands hurt, but I took some aspirin & echinacea and a nap to counteract it all. I felt much better when I woke up & trimmed the fringe on the 2 shawls and 6 scarves I’ve woven in the last 11 days. I think I’ll even have time to wash the dishes, vacuum & mop before I leave for the show.
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