Second Loom Scarf - Stripes

I finished the scarf on the loom.




I'm very happy with the way it turned out. It's comfortable to wear and light enough for spring weather.




Pretty soon, I'll have made enough clothing and jewelry items to be able to wear something handmade everyday. I'm excited about embarking on a long-term project to connect the art of handmade with daily life.

WIP Wednesday - Loom Project 2

I am loving the weaving.

I decided to use Spunky Eclectic Panda Sock yarn in the color "Vampire Kisses." It's a self-striping yarn with short bursts of color going maroon to white to grey to charcoal to white and back to maroon.




This color way lead to a surprising effect in the pattern of my scarf once on the loom:




The warp is simply 220 Superwash merino yarn in a worsted weight. I added white stripes between the charcoal strands. The weft, which is the self-striping sock yarn creating the horizontal weave, has created these unexpected stripes of maroon, white, and charcoal in an almost uniform pattern.




Weaving continues to be a delight.




Happy Wednesday!

Harvest Monday - Feb 2014

It's February. All I can show you is the state of my garden beds:

Yeah, that's a whole lot of window screen. Sorry about that. But you can see my beds and trellis are just shrouded with show. It's beautiful. No good for planting and harvesting, though. We received one foot last week, 7 inches another week, 8 inches in the week before that, and 6.5 inches in the week before that. Tomorrow, we get three inches. 

Instead, I try to harvest other things in winter. Ongoing creative projects, my relationships with others, and probably even more importantly with all the hours indoors, my relationship with myself. 

Creative projects include crochet, knitting, jewelry making, embroidery, weaving, sketching, and writing.

I crocheted a set of fingerless gloves using soft, warm angora wool. 

I have another project on the loom. 

Let's not forget the bounty of food. This is a wheat berry and pinto bean soup made with the last of the potatoes from the garden, and a homemade peasant bread. Though I have started growing parsley indoors, this fresh bunch is purchased from my local Trader Joe's. 

This week I will start some onion and cole crop seedlings, and I am looking forward to it. Pretty soon, my Harvest Mondays will have more green.

The First Loom Project

I have a number of creative projects going on. Jewelry, drawings, writings, embroidery, crochet...

But today, I want to show off my tabletop loom. My husband Dave gave it to me for Xmas. It's called a Cricket Loom, which apparently is just a rigid heddle loom. I know next to nothing about looms and weaving, but I have been educating myself!




Set up was pretty easy. I put the loom together quickly.




Warping the loom (stringing the blue yarn) became a somewhat meditative practice. It took a while, but it wasn't at all boring.




I used the self-striping yarn Dave gave me. It lends itself to a subtle effect in changing hues of the scarf. Creating the weft had its challenges. The edges are a little uneven, and there are gaps here and there from missing the warp on occasion. The thickness of the weft improved as I got into the swing of it.




The finished product! It's by no means perfect, but what a fulfilling practice! I can't wait to start a new one!

Meanwhile, I've been collecting seeds and seed catalogs. I prefer heirloom varieties from organic suppliers, but I recently got a box of mixed heirlooms and hybrids:




Anyone else excited for the coming gardening season?!