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Sometimes called ground pine, sometimes ground cedar, this is a hardy native plant. (At least I THINK it’s a native vs. a plant that was brought here.) This little lycopodium plant is actually protected in New York State, even though it’s common in my woods. So I can pick it on my own property for my personal use, but I can’t sell it, nor can I pick it on State land or other public lands. Folks around here often make wreaths out of it, because it stays green for a fairly long time, even after being picked.
We’d had lots of snow, but then it warmed up for a few days, and rained. A lot. Between the warmth and the rain, we lost most of the snow we had, so little plants that had been completely buried were now able to reach the sun again.
I certainly wasn’t surprised to see so much ground cedar in my short woods walk, but I was struck by the fact that this particular plant was taking full advantage of the weather opportunity. It’s made a reproduction stalk, full of spores that will disperse to make new plants. The fact that a stiff breeze was making me cold despite bright sunshine didn’t daunt this little guy. Its tenacity made me smile.
Your turn: what’s up with plant life near you early in the new year?
 my counterbalance loom To get me started weaving, I took a series of 6 classes from a wonderful teacher in his 80s at the McKean County Museum in Smethport, PA. I haven’t taken a class since; all my learning has been on my own, gleaning what I can from blogs, books, and online weaving communities. This is fine…….to a point.
My weaving guild belongs to MAFA – the Mid-Atlantic Fiber Association. Every other year, MAFA holds a 3-day conference in Gettysburg, PA, with intensive workshops on a wide range of topics. It’s a five-hour-plus drive for me, but sure sounds like a GREAT thing – well worth the time & money. So I’ve signed up for the conference in 2011.
 my Macomber loom All the workshops are completely hands-on. If you’re taking a weaving workshop, you’ll be weaving for three days, learning new techniques from the masters. Obviously, since you’ll be weaving the whole time, you need to have a loom there. Neither of my floor looms is portable at all, so I reached out to my fellow guild members to see if anyone had a multiple harness table loom they’d be willing to lend me; I had to know before I registered. Working on a table loom isn’t my favorite thing to do, but I’d be hard pressed to fit even a small, folding floor loom in my little Yaris.
I’m so fortunate — two fellow guild members will not only be GOING to MAFA, they’ll be TEACHING. Carol Wood & Deb MacCrea teach great classes on dyeing fibers with all-natural dyes. Anyway, Carol offered to lend me her 4-harness Harrisville loom, which she’d lent me before I bought my Macomber. AND to cart it down to Gettysburg for me!! It doesn’t get any better than that!
So I sent in my forms. When you register, you have to identify your top 3 choices for workshops, because class size in each is quite limited. I sent in my choices a few weeks ago. I haven’t heard anything back yet, so don’t know which I’ll be in, but all sound great. I’m looking forward to expanding my weaving repertoire!
Your turn: how do you improve your skills & knowledge?
It took longer than intended to get up this 2nd reveal, but better late than never.
I didn’t have anywhere near as much time as I would have liked to make Christmas presents, so made less than usual.
Amanda had admired the blue & silver mohair scarf, so I decided to weave her one that would go with two coats she wears most in winter – an off-white wool coat and a dark brown down vest. I didn’t want anything quite as “formal” as the blue & silver, so to me that meant a scarf that wasn’t symmetrical, one that had random stripes. Here’s what I ended up with.
The majority of the warp and all of the weft is a sandy color. Although I hadn’t noticed it before she pointed it out, Margaret‘s right when she says it has a pink cast to it. I used some silver, purple, blue, and a light tan in the warp as well. I’m happy with the look. Like the blue & silver, I wove this mohair scarf on my rigid heddle loom.
Again, I was a bit nervous about the fulling and brushing, although not as scared as I was the first time around. On the advice of one of my fellow members of the Southern Tier Fiber Arts Guild, I picked up a small bottle of Dawn dish detergent to put in the washer with the scarf. I still opened the washer frequently, and I still wasn’t sure what it should look like when it was sufficiently fulled. I waited a bit longer than the first time around, though, and was happier with the result. It could still take a bit more fulling — next time.
Then I decided to weave some kitchen towels for my two wonderful sisters. Same warp (dark teal), same two patterns for both threading and treadling, two different wefts — one light & one dark. I was surprised to see how much better the pattern showed up on the light weft. 
The pattern was more pronounced on the back of the dark weft, so why didn’t I hem them that way? Hindsight. Always better than foresight.
I wove the towels out of pearl cotton, so they probably won’t absorb much if used for a dish towel, but they have a fine hand and are attractive. I also like the twill pattern I designed – same threading with two different treadlings. I’m learning more and more about how to produce cotton linens with the results I’m looking for. That’s what life, at least weaving life, is all about.
I’m sure you’re dying to see what I was working on so feverishly for Christmas gifts. There are many, so I’m going to do the reveal in a few posts that are logically (to me, anyway) grouped.
The most exciting presents were made for Amanda & Ryan, who are expecting their first child next summer. I’ll be a grandma of an actual human (I only have grand-dogs at this point) in a short 7 months! I know that my spring & summer are usually quite busy with weaving, plus I wanted to get a baby-related Christmas gift in. After knitting all those (25) mug cozies, I was in a knitting mood, so decided to knit a baby blanket with a lovely mint-green color baby yarn I’ve had for years. (Why have I had acrylic baby yarn hanging around for years? Before I started my business, I used to make baby blankets for people I worked with — lots of young women. I enjoyed the creative outlet. So I picked up yarn on sale. Then I changed jobs, started a business, and time ran out.)
So here’s the blanket.
I must say, as I was knitting this blanket, I was AMAZED at how much longer it takes to knit than to weave! I hadn’t knit in a long enough time that I’d really forgotten the time commitment. It took me at least 5 times longer to knit that blanket than it would have taken to weave one of a similar size. Granted they’re very different processes that produce very different results, and knitting was what I wanted to do then, so it was all good, just quite surprising.
As you can probably now guess, the little things I figured I could whip out on Christmas eve were booties. I started with a little crocheted one. Much cuter with the buttons on than without. Crocheted the first one Christmas eve, made the second Christmas morning.
Since the first one wasn’t so cute sans button, I decided to try a knitted one.
 Cute, but would only fit Baby Huey. And took a lot of time. So I decided I’d only make 1 of these–Amanda & Ryan can simply appreciate it for a while and toss it, or can use it for a Baby’s first Christmas stocking next year.
While I was knitting the green blanket, I figured that since I have 7 months before Baby will be born, I can weave a nice blanket, too. Then I said, “Hey, you should go get that quilt out that your sister made for Amanda when she was a baby.” When I did, I was really surprised by what else was stored with that quilt — there were 2 receiving blankets, 2 blankets I’d crocheted, one my other sister knit, and one my mother-in-law crocheted. Wow, that’s a lot of blankets! I washed them all and hung them on the line for a few days to really air out. The MIL crocheted blanket is fraying in several places, and the sister knit blanket quite stained, so neither will go to Amanda. Here are the others on the line.
And a few close ups.
Yes, I sure do see all the stains on that animal blanket. I just had to bring it to Amanda, and let her toss it. It’s a blanket I crocheted and one that she used in pre-school as her nap blanket. I thought she might want to see it before it hit the trash bin.
In my next post, I’ll show you all the woven Christmas gifts.
Your turn: did you make or receive handmade gifts?
 Unlike most people, and myself most years, my grand Christmas gift exchange isn’t taking place this morning, but rather this evening and tomorrow. I therefore still can’t post any pictures of the gifts I’ve made. Just know that I didn’t finish making the last one till about 11:00AM today, December 25.
How did that happen? Well, yesterday afternoon I saw that I only had about 2 more hours work on what was to be the last gift I’d make, and so I said, “hey, you can make something else little!” God forbid I should simply sit and sip the last of my world-famous homemade eggnog and watch Christmas movies on TV. Heck, no! In Obsessive World, if there are hours left in the day, you’re not out of time yet!
So I made something little. It was pretty quick to make (probably 90 minutes) & looked ok, but didn’t knock my socks off. So I made a different something little. This one took probably twice as long, and was cute enough, but didn’t fit the bill for other reasons. By now it was after 8PM. Yikes! I still needed a few hours to finish that other thing! So back to that. I didn’t finish it until 11PM, and then I was off to bed.
Got up this morning and had a nice, long, lovely Christmas phone call with Margaret. Then I said to myself, “You don’t need to leave the house till 1 or 1:30, you have time to make another one of those little things.” So I did. When I finished I figured I had just enough time to shower, finish wrapping things (I was mostly done – primarily just those gifts I’d just finished), pack the car, and head out. I was right. Except for one thing…
I had just enough time left to write a blog post. I’ve been remarkably behind in posting this month, so figured I could get one more in before I headed to Amanda’s. I’ll have the Christmas phone call with Michael while I’m driving.
So since I can’t post any pix of what I’ve made, I included a photo of what my house looked like every Christmas while I was growing up. (This isn’t actually my house; I found the shot online.)
Merry Christmas one and all!
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