{"id":4224,"date":"2012-12-21T20:52:55","date_gmt":"2012-12-22T01:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/?p=4224"},"modified":"2012-12-21T20:52:55","modified_gmt":"2012-12-22T01:52:55","slug":"making-presents-and-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/2012\/12\/making-presents-and-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"Making presents – and progress"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

Since we did Christmas yesterday, I can now show you my latest weaving efforts. I made everyone bookmarks, but not my ordinary bookmarks<\/a>, 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<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

\"10<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Now for some close ups.<\/p>\n

First I wove some snowflakes.
\n\"handwoven<\/a>
\nMy oldest sister, who used to knit lots of mittens, often using a traditional snowflake design, got the dark blue one of these.<\/p>\n

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.
\n\"handwoven<\/a>
\nThe new fiance got the light wedgewood blue bookmark.<\/p>\n

Next I wove some trees. I really like these lovely evergreens.
\n\"handwoven<\/a>
\nFor obvious reasons, I made them both a nice rich green. My brother-in-law, who spends hours outdoors each day, got one of these.<\/p>\n

Then I tried another tree. It’s okay, but in comparison to the first one, not a winner.
\n\"handwoven<\/a>
\nI’m using this as my extra.<\/p>\n

So I moved onto a more warm-weather design, weaving some butterflies.
\n\"handwoven<\/a>
\nMy niece, who lives in South Carolina and has more summer than the rest of us, got a butterfly.<\/p>\n

For my last design I made flowers.
\n\"handwoven<\/a>
\nMy other sister got the flowers. She’s got a lovely flower garden.<\/p>\n

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.
\n\"new<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Once all the cables were hooked to the levers, we tested it all out, and everything seems to work smoothly.
\n\"new<\/a><\/p>\n

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.
\n\"strapping<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Just a few more days & I’ll spend more time with family on Christmas Eve & Christmas day. Yippee!! Wishing you a wonderful Christmas, too!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[554,277,562],"class_list":["post-4224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-as-i-see-it","category-weaving","tag-bookmarks","tag-christmas","tag-missouri-loom","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4224"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4241,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4224\/revisions\/4241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}