Monday, December 31, 2018

Loose Ends

I've been cleaning up loose ends.
I made a Chanukah hat with pom poms (as requested) for my grandbaby.
While his Mama read a page in her book, he decided to check out his new hat.

I took care of that "loose end" by making tassels. They should be harder to pull apart.

Footnote. I finally got the numbers right for a basic sock pattern that fits.
I wove this color and weave (the weaving is simple "over/under", the design appears in the cloth, because of the color order or the threads), chenille scarf with Julia. It's been sitting unfinished for a while. After a few washings, chenille fringe tends to lose its fluff and look like a rat's tail. So, I decided to go ahead and just hem it.
One of my spare time, knitting projects has been this shawl.
With the left-over yarn, I'm weaving a scarf on Julia.

I didn't realize how long ago I dressed Sophie for these blankets on her drawloom. It was back in December of 2017! Here they are, finally off, December 2018!
When I take cloth off my looms, I almost always use my serger to protect the raw edges before putting the cloth in the washing machine. This is the first time I've ever had that stitching fail to hold. 
But I was able to get them all hemmed and laid out to photograph:
At which point, my daughter's cat promptly walked across them all and sat on...
You guessed it!
I found a lot of the designs I used on Pinterest. I'd post them with links, but unfortunately many of them don't have active links for me to cite where they originated.
the cats

an optical illusion

  transportation

the bees (Craftsy.com)

stars
 and the roses.
The others are just standard designs I've seen or drawn.
zig zag

plaid ish

and shapes.
This one's already found a new home.
More loose ends:
After cutting the blankets off of Sophie and taking down the drawloom pattern heddles (that gave me about 12 inches more of usable warp), I had something like 36-42 inches (I should have measured) of yarn per end left on the loom. I didn't want to just toss it, so by using a weaver's knot, I'm hoping that I'll have extended each warp end enough to squeeze out one more baby blanket.

Let's see how far I get with it.

Monday, December 10, 2018

Help for a Bit of a Mess

Things have been a bit of a mess lately.

I got a load of free mulch for my garden. It was free, but not yet mulch. My husband and his friend have been spending Hours re-chipping it.



In reorganizing my sewing room closet, I pulled out some yarns and fibers for re-homing. I wound this handspun for making dryer balls.
A couple of them didn't stay in the prep stocking...or felt.

But, I've just kept putting one foot in front of the other
Knitting socks always helps.



I finished the yardage I was weaving on Julia and made up some requested grocery totes.



With help to do some of the Heavy Lifting, I've been getting things done.