Weaver's Weekend

My husband said he wanted to skip his bike ride to take me down to Vista, California, in northern San Diego county. If the traffic's light, it's a two hour drive. He wanted to take me to the Antique Gas and Steam Museum. The idea of any kind of engines is not very motivating for me. I would say that trying to get me out of the house resembled fighting the inertia you push against in prying a rock from it's bed. But he had seen an ad in one of my magazines for the Vista Fiber Arts Fiesta. Luckily, my hubby was willing to push. It was WONDERFUL!!! This one building held about 50 looms!  

Look at the works on top of this loom!

It fascinated me!

Punch cards.

Each of the individual heddles hanging behind the shafts had it's own weight hanging from it.

And the yellow strings went one to each of those heddles.

I wanted to have a visual record of the way this Glimakra countermarch was tied up. It's upside down from the way I learned.

Such pretty colors and work on this dobby loom. But I wanted to take note of the temple. She used bent j-hooks from knitting...

then added a pulley and a bottle of sand.

I know I don't have room for a great wheel, but...                                                      Then, on the way home, we stopped in San Pedro at Crafted. My eyes, followed by my feet, went straight to the giant countermarch loom. It's 10 feet in the reed.  

Dana, it's owner, is a textile artist. We spent a delightful hour visiting both under and in front of the loom. I look forward to seeing what she produces on it.                                   The day after all this fun, I had a visitor, Robin, who's contemplating purchasing a Glimakra loom. She wanted to have the opportunity for a little hands on before she made her decision. It was perfect timing. I have a sample on Sophia (the countermarch Standard) and napkins on Julia (counterbalance), so I didn't mind someone else weaving on them. Besides, I was so full of excitement about the previous day's and week's activities, I wanted to share!                                                                      The week before all of this, I spent watching and learning from the dvd, Dress Your Loom the Swedish Way. I hope both ladies will forgive me for babbling on about everything I learned from the dvd. Because I learned to weave on a jack loom, tie up and set-up on my countermarch has been a struggle. And I don't learn by reading. So, to finally get Sophia dressed with ease was a pleasure. And now she's weaving as comfortably and smoothly as I knew she could. I can't stop grinning!  

Zero to 60 in...

Well, it seems like I've gone from zero to sixty. Being ill this summer brought my activity to a screeching halt. As soon as I had a little energy, I started back on my needlepoint seen here. It's already about two thirds done. But I had to slow down, because my hands were starting to hurt from too many hours working on it. I did get to work on a few other projects:

I finally finished weaving those !#@$% mohair scarves and took them off of Sophia. I'm not at all impressed. The light blue is not as washed out as it looks here, but they're still "eh". I sent them to my daughter and suggested she either claim them, find a friend in need or donate them to the first homeless person she comes across. 

 

I finished spinning up two ounces of this supima cotton from Chasing Rainbows that I bought at my favorite candy store, Village Spinning and Weaving. The colorway is called Morning Glory. As usual for me, I didn't quite get an accurate picture of the colors. The pinks and purples get all the way to almost an orange. Exquisite! I'm spinning it on the stylus on my Susie Professional and getting a nice fine yarn. I'd love to be able to use this as singles on the loom, but I'm not brave enough. I have another two ounces that I'll spin up next to ply with this. 

A couple three years ago, I gifted a chenille scarf to a friend. I had it back to repair some of the twisted fringe that was coming undone.

Since I was lucky enough to have it in my possession, I took the opportunity to photograph it.

No, it's not your eyes. The picture's blurry. This is one of the sweaters I knitted that I actually finished. It's from a denim cotton. I got the pattern from a book, but I can't remember where I put the book after I copied the pattern into my Kindle. If I find it, or someone really wants to know, I'll go looking. The other sweater is just a shell. No pictures until I finish the edges. I'll get there.

And then there's Big Foot or Yeti. I bought the pattern as an e-book, Cryptozoology, from KnitPicks. Because I do Nothing the easy way, I knit up one and a half slippers before I decided to do a test swatch and wash it to make sure it would shrink and felt enough. ...Um. No. ...Sigh. I had to go to the yarn store and buy another yarn that Would felt. I made two pair of these to gift to both my daughter and her sweetie. They are under orders to photograph the feet once they are nicely shrunken.