WeaveCast and an Unhappy Project...

So, I've been working on a really pretty 8-shaft shadow weave scarf on my big loom. It's made of 18/2 Jaggerspun wool, in teal and silvery grey - quite a nice combination, it has turned out, for a men's scarf. BUT. Sigh. Partway through, I snapped a warp thread. Phooey. Repairable, but I don't like to sell anything with an error like that in it. So, I thought, ok, I'll give it to Carlos for Christmas, he'll like it, he's already looked at it and said he likes it. And then, partway through, my pattern starts getting all out of whack. What on earth?? My treadling hasn't changed, I haven't got the shuttle order backwards (you use two shuttles and to weave shadow weave). Weirdness.

Turns out on of the cords that tie-up my one of my treadles (the 8th one, actually) had come undone, so whenever I opened the shed with that 8th treadle, the first shaft wasn't rising. Hmph. My big loom lives in the basement (poor thing) and the lighting isn't spectacular (poor me, lol), or I might have spotted it earlier, there's a definite weft float in the pattern for about half of the scarf. Argh!

So much for my powers of observation.

I'm going to blame it on Syne Mitchell.

Syne has a wonderful (free) podcast all about weaving - WeaveCast. It's great! Go check it out now!

At any rate, I've been listening to it while weaving this scarf (weaving with 18/2 wool is a slooooow process) and was having such fun listening - and laughing - that I wasn't paying enough attention to my project.

Does this mean I'll leave the iPod behind while weaving this evening?

Nope. :) I'm only through episode 2 of 18!

Mobile Baby

Hey, guess who has really started to crawl?

Yup, Carlos. (Just kidding - Conall, of course.) It's great to see, of course, but at the same time... Yikes! This kid already manages to get into *everything* it's going to be insane keeping up with him once he really gets going. I have no idea if this is early/late/average to be crawling (he's about 8 1/2 months and quite the pudge)... Bella didn't crawl until she was almost ready to walk (she walked late - talked insanely early, but walked very late) - she scooted around on her bum instead! Very funny, if you've never seen a kid do it, it's hilarious. It also has the side benefit of being quite a bit slower than crawling (i.e. easier to run block...) Conall has also started saying "Ta-Da!" once in a while when he picks up something like a Cheerio, while holding it up victoriously. Probably doesn't count as a first word, but it's very cute. Funny little man.

Color Forecasts

I love color forecasts. Handwoven magazine has their color forecast for Spring/Summer 2008 in the current issue - always fun to look at and get ideas from...

There was just a post in the Etsy Forums about Pantone's color forecast for this fall, too. What a great resource! Don't know why I didn't think to look on their website before, I had certainly heard of Pantone (they set color standards for the fashion and interior design industries - among others, I'm sure!).

Let's see if I can manage to post a copy of the fall forecast from Pantone.com:



Hey, there it is! If you want to read the whole report, go here. It's really inspirational! I'm itching to trot right out and buy a bunch of yarn... I really need to get back to dying yarn!

Apple Cider Tendel

Another productive morning! Ms. B was at preschool again (for two hours this time, wowzers), and I managed to photograph and post another scarf in my etsy shop:

And here's a close up of the structure (it's a turned twill, I used six colors of Tencel, ranging from deep brown to lemongrass green, olive and purple - a lot of fun to weave!):


(And, no, my selvedges aren't uneven - that's just a fold in the scarf near the bottom.)

I listed this one as part of the EtsyFAST September challenge - looks like apple cider to me!

Going, going...

... Gone!

Well, that was fast, somebody bought my little grey bamboo scarflette! How fun, what a great experience to be on the front page of Etsy, too bad it didn't last a little longer. I think it's because people bought four items from the treasury - that used up all of Maple's alternates, so they changed to a new Treasury. That's good that fiber art sells that quickly!

Etsy Front Page!

Oh my gosh, I am beyond excited, one of my items is on the front page of Etsy!!



OK, that's probably too tiny to see very well. But my little grey and white scarflette is in the upper right hand corner... Maple, of North Star Alpacas (check out her etsy shop!) chose items for a Treasury, and her treasury was chosen for the front page of Etsy. Very exciting! My views and hearts are going through the roof, lol, it's actually a lot of fun to watch.

Here's another pic of the scarflette if you'd like to see it:



It's actually from the same warp that I posted about below - the one with the drafting error that I fixed before weaving - just using a different treadling than I showed in that post.

Hooray for Maple! Thank you so much!!

Productive Thursday

So, Ms. B had her first drop-off for preschool yesterday. Just for an hour and a half - she had a great time. *I* had butterflies the whole way there! Very odd to leave her there, it's the first time she's done something like that on her own... Harder for me than her.

But, on the bright side, Mr. Conall had a good nap while she was gone (after some running around bringing Papi to work - we only have one car, but we'll have to break down and get another soon, sigh, goes against my earth-friendly attitude, but what can you do when you need to be in two places at once and neither is on public transit?).

Anyway, I digress - he napped, I managed to get a bamboo scarf photographed and listed in my etsy shop:

Hooray for sunny fall days that make photography easy!

Speaking of which - it has been *gorgeous* here lately. We've been taking lots of walks - it's been in the 70s (F) and clear for a lot of the week, just beautiful. And we even finally got some rain after the driest August on record in this area (awful, my garden is brown and crunchy). The leaves will be starting to change soon (a few are jumping the gun, the younger maples seem to do that sometimes), and before we know it our backyard will be awash in fall color.

I love fall, it may be my favorite season, though I do love winter, too (obviously)... Fall and winter just feel cozy to me. Time to gather people close, bake pie (I made an apple pie last night with apples from one of my brother Mark's apple trees, yum) and bread, work on projects, go for walks and eventually get out there to ski on the weekends. I do love spring, too, with all the new flowers coming up and lots of plans for gardening (that generally never come to fruition).

About the only season I get sick of after a couple weeks is summer - I don't do well in hot weather and spend most of my time hiding from the sun (fair skin). Thank goodness Carlos loves cooler weather, too, despite having spent his first 8 years in a tropical climate. (And the next ten in Arizona and California.)

Hooray for fall!

Big Girl

Oh my goodness. Ms. B had her first day of preschool today (just a twenty minute orientation, but still...):

(Please kindly ignore the really messy kitchen in the background, just remembered to snap this photo on our way out the door!)

Two Cute Men

Conall turned 8 months old on Saturday (when I took this photo):

Twisting Madness

Wow, I've actually managed to finish two more scarves in record time. Twisted fringe during Red Sox games, got them washed, and managed to take photos during Conall's 30-second nap this afternoon (sigh) (my kids don't sleep). Nothing like a sale to light a fire under one's rear...

The first is a lime/white twill woven from zephyr (50/50 wool/silk) and 50/50 alpaca wool:

The pattern is called "gothic cross" and is from Marguerite Davison's A Handweaver's Pattern Book. If you're a weaver with a four-shaft (or more) loom and don't already own this book, run, don't walk to Amazon and get yourself one. (It's an old book, out of print, but you can still find it!)

Here's a closer view of the pattern:

I like it. :) The reverse side is predominantly green, but I think of this as the front side.

I looooove how this second scarf turned out, though!



This is a turned Ms and Os pattern - and it's made from three shades of pink bamboo (love that bamboo) - ranging from light shell pink to burgundy to outline the cells. Would make a nice gift for a breast cancer survivor...

Bamboo, it turns out, loves Ms and Os. Who knew?! It shrinks up just enough during finishing, I think, to really take to a structure that requires the yarn to move. Which means the finer version of the yarn would probably make gorgeous lace, too. Hmmm....

I'm thinking I might have to make another one of these, and a little headband/scarflette, too, for myself. Now if I can just get around to choosing the best pictures and getting these two listed in my etsy store...

That was fast!

Wowzers - my lime/fuscia/black bamboo/alpaca/silk scarf that I talked about a couple posts ago sold today. And I never did figure out how to spell fuscia/fusia/fucia...


The yarn is actually called "dahlia" but I didn't think that was particularly helpful in describing the color.

At any rate, it's off to its new home first thing in the morning! Bye, sweetie!

WOW

Holy Macaroni - Clay Buchholz just pitched a NO-HITTER for the Red Sox.

He's a rookie.

It was his *second* major league start ever!!

Fenway Park was going crazy... When I was in college, I lived off-campus very close to Kenmore Square and we could hear the crowd at Fenway (went to quite a few games, too, when bleacher seats were $8 - not any more!). That sort of reaction would have everyone around the tv, hearing the crowd in stereo over it and through the window.