Do and Re-do

How many socks do you see? There are three.

 

The thing is, I always find some reason to rip out the first sock in a pair. Three socks here, too.

By the time I was done trying different patterns, I didn't have enough left of the braid to use for its original purpose. Back to the drawing board...the braiding loom.

I noticed something like black ash all over myself every time I wore this hat. After 14 years, the hat was still fine, but the band was eroding. Now, I have a one of a kind hatband that I made!

I showed this fiber in my last post.

As I started spinning it, I realized that if I wasn't careful, the bits of color got buried in the core of the yarn. Once I got the hang of it, it was an interesting and quick spin. 

There's no before picture, but how pretty is the after? It's a silk/yak blend I picked up at Weff this year.

I've never spun with this kind of preparation (how it was handled between cocoon and my getting it).

Now that it's spun, my standard question applies, what will it be? I guess it'll go into the drawer for now.

I had planned on turning the hems under for these rugs, but I didn't like the way they looked. So, I picked out all the machine sewing before I could tie knots with all the warp ends.

Finished rug of three.

Leftover yarn from another project became this knit, child's sweater. There was no specific pattern, so I started with a diagram of standard measurements. My design process is to knit up and rip out until I like what I see. It's lucky I enjoy knitting. The back took three tries, the collar about six.

Currently on my Suzie wheel. Usually, I spin just like you would braid, from one end of the fiber to the next. This time, I've been practicing spinning "from the fold". Just like it sounds, bend a piece in half and start twisting from the fold. It's supposed to make a shiny fiber shinier. And even though it's a fine yarn, instead of being dense, like thread, it should be a little squishier.

Here's the rug I showed you earlier. It started out with me thinking stripes and use up remnants and just do it. It's just a rag rug, so I didn't bother doing the math ahead of time. The problem is, remnants is "what's left".  I didn't have enough of the darker fabric, so to get it done, I just pulled strips out of the basket without looking . Clearly, I'm doing some serious pendulum swinging. My normal is to over plan (2-3 months being standard for designing a project). Now, if I could just find a happy medium! 

We were debating which picture to put up and decided not to decide. The rug's okay, but our doggies are just too cute. As soon as I put the rug on the floor, they claimed the space.

After I had taken the rug off of the loom, my hubby and I took her apart and moved Julia out of the dining room and into our bedroom. She's lovely, but I can't let her stand naked. I'm thinking that some nice cloth napkins might be a good 4 shaft project. I saw some lovely linen ones on Hey Dawn's blog. It reminded me that the only napkins I have are almost 30 yrs old and absorb Nothing. What's the point? And I have plenty of 10/2 pearl cotton in need of de-stashing. Hmmm.  Oh. And the picture on the wall is another of my mom's pastels.

 

 

The pattern said to use four strands of mop cotton. Yeah. No. After weaving about five inches, I could see that the rug would be way too Short. Unweave. Then, I started again with two strands. Looking back on it, I should have played with one strand, as well. I ran out of mop cotton before I ran out of warp.

Here's the tabby for the hem.

And since I had some warp left, I pulled twelve cones of blues and greens to use as weft in place of the mop cotton.

Finished!

And the sample done, too. I liked the feel of them both. I'd like to play with the warp rep some more. Next time, I won't use all of the colors for weft. And one of these days, I'm going to learn to sample in small bites, not big projects...or not.