MVP!

Ah, finally, a chance to post. The resident Woodland Fairy has been hogging the computer today.


(She has wings, too, but we decided they were a little big to wear to preschool.)

Things are insane around here. Conall is croupy and teething, I'm sick and stressing out about the Guild sale, and Carlos is working (literally) around the clock (he's gotten about two hours of sleep since Saturday - seriously, two hours). Huge design review for him at work, yesterday (from 9am - 8pm) and today. Tape-out (when the chip schematics go to the fab to get built) is next Friday. Here's hoping he'll actually sleep tonight - I'll be the one pulling the all-nighter tonight!

The baby blanket is off the loom, I have a huge array of scarves, and I'm working on a quick bamboo shawl, which needs to be finished tonight. Then tomorrow night will be dedicated to tagging everything with care instructions, etc.

Oh - and the Red Sox won the World Series! :) And Mike Lowell, my favorite player, got the MVP award for the Series! Red Sox management, please, please, please sign him and stay miles and miles away from stupid-head A-Rod!

Front Page *Again*!

Eeks - oh my goodness, I'm on the Etsy front page *again*!

Thank goodness for Maple (North Star Alpacas), I'm terrible about checking to see if I'm in treasuries, so I probably wouldn't have even noticed that I'm there if she hadn't pointed it out...

Let's see if my screenshot worked:

OK, so that's kind of tiny, but there's my Earthy scarf that I wove for the EtsyFast October challenge!

Baseball, Pillows and More

Now *that* is what I call a baseball game! Heck of a game last night at Fenway - of course I'm happy the Sox smucked the Rockies in Game 1, but last night's game was a real classic pitching duel... Both starters were excellent and the final score was 2-1. That's the kind of game that is fun to watch!

OK, on to weaving matters... I managed to put together my inventory for the Weavers' Guild Sale. Phew. One task done. Now I just have to finish up the last few items that are on the list but are still on my looms, eeks!

I did finish what I thought would be a turned Ms and Os shawl last night... Twisted the fringe in front of the game and got it washed, etc. But, as I suspected while I was weaving it, I'm not wild about the stripe pattern that I put into the weft. Looks kind of table-clothy for a shawl, at least to my eye. So, I'm thinking of cutting it up and making bolster-shaped pillows from it, which should suit the pattern perfectly. And it's made from bamboo, so it should stand up to use as pillow fabric (though that will be interested to discover). I've never made a pillow from my handwoven fabric before - fun!

I would post a picture, but half the batteries are missing from my camera. Taken to put into some toy or another (a little flashlight, actually, I think, for Bella, who loves that sort of thing).

There are never enough rechargeable batteries in this house! :) And we don't even buy the munchkins very many electronic toys...

So, here's a picture of some bamboo from Wikipedia article about bamboo:




And I really wish I had batteries in my camera because the leaves are soooo much prettier than last week! The colors are really spectacular this fall... We had a pretty terrible drought in August and September, I wonder if that contributed to the colors (eeks!)?

Buy Handmade

I just signed a pledge to Buy Handmade for the holidays this year. A nice idea - etsy and various other groups of artists/artisans have gotten together to promote buying handmade items, and signing the pledge is a small part of that push.

Want to sign up? Go here. Fun! :)

I've already bought some really neato little presents from etsy seller Littleputbooks for my 10,000 female nieces, lol, and one for my daughter's preschool teacher, too. (Now, if you're one of those nieces, don't go peeking!)

Hooray for Etsy and unique gifts!

Earth Challenge

So, etsyFAST (Fiber Arts Street Team) has a challenge theme each month - and this month's theme is the element Earth. So, I wove this scarf (bamboo again):

And finally listed it yesterday. :) Brown tones, and for some reason the pattern reminds me of crops/fields. Here's a closeup:

The squares appeal to my structured side. I think I'm going to have to play with this structure and more colors at some point. Probably *after* the Weavers Guild Sale!!

Whooo-hooooo!

Go Sox!!

After coming back from a 3 games to 1 deficit in the ALCS, my much-beloved Red Sox are going to the World Series!

I chose this picture because that's my favorite player over there on the right - Mike Lowell (our third baseman) - with his arm around Josh Beckett's neck (Beckett is the guy in the red jacket - he's a pitcher and quite possibly the Cy Young winner for the AL this year, but we'll see - really like him too). Please, please, please, Red Sox management, extend Lowell's contract!!

We're facing the Colorado Rockies in the Series. They're 21 for their last 22 games. They've won something like 10 straight games. (For those of you that don't follow baseball - that's practically unheard of).

Gulp.

:)

It will be fun to watch!

Leaf Peeping

So, my Mum, the kids and I went on a little leaf-peeping drive on Friday - it was a rainy, misty sort of day, which makes the colors look even nicer in person. The leaves are prettier near home - I grew up in centralish Massachusetts, right along Route 2 where the Mohawk Trail starts (which is a *hugely* popular route for leaf-peepers). Just enough of a colder climate that the colors are really spectacular... My Mum's big old sugar maples included (we made maple syrup for years!). Still, they're still very pretty here in Eastern Mass., so I thought I'd post a few pictures.

Not sure if my meager photography skills have captured the colors, but I love this time of year!


Pretty little road in Dunstable, Mass. Muted colors, but I liked it anyway.


Really pretty tree/stone wall - too bad about the power lines. Stone walls meander all over the place in New England - a reminder than 150+ years ago the region was more or less clear-cut for farms, etc.





OK, I took a bunch more, but that's probably enough, right?

Weavers Guild Sale

I've been AWOL lately. Lots going on at home - and I'm also trying to get ready for the upcoming Weavers' Guild of Boston Textile Show and Sale.

Eeks.

This will be my first time participating, and I'm sitting on the jury as well. I'm really looking forward to jury service - how fun is it going to be to be able to see/handle all the fabulous items various guild members have been working on this year? Yup, definitely going to be fun. A little scary, but lots of fun. Most of these women have been weaving for a *lot* longer than me... I like to think that I can add a little something, just by using interesting fibers (hooray for bamboo!) and colors, but we'll see...

At any rate, if anyone out there lives in the Boston area and would like to come visit the show, here's the info:

Where: Josiah Smith Barn, 358 Boston Post Rd., Weston, Massachusetts

When: Thurs Nov. 1 (5pm - 9pm), Fri. Nov. 2 (10 am - 9 pm), Sat. Nov. 3 (10 am - 5 pm).

Directions: Take Route 128 (I-95) to Route 20W to Weston Center.

Let's see if I can manage to link to a google map of the location.


View Larger Map

Admission is free, and the Guild is also putting on an exhibit of Overshot textiles (neato!). My overshot table runner that I'm weaving in my picture is going to be in the exhibit, actually. And I'll be hoping to sell some of my work there, too! Best of all, a portion of the proceeds of the sale is used to support the study of weaving and textiles.

I hope to see you there!

How to Build a (Tapestry) Loom!

Well, how neat is this?

Archie Brennan's Copper Loom Design

How-to build your own tapestry loom!

And, while you're at it, check out some of his tapestries. Wow.


(This is one of his designs.) I am in awe of tapestry artists. I have a little tapestry loom. My efforts on it are laughable, at best! (Eeks.)

I probably need to read a bit more about tapestry technique and give it another try... Uh-oh. Now this has me thinking about design possibilities.

Happy October!

Hooray for October! I love fall. :)

And hooray for naps - I actually got a scarf finished, washed, the fringe trimmed and everything over the weekend, and today I managed to take some pictures of it during Conall's morning nap:

It's black, white and fuchsia (so that's how you spell it!) bamboo. You'd think bamboo would stop surprising me - I've worked with it enough now, I know it's going to turn out wonderfully soft and drapey, and yet, every time I'm amazed anew...

I love the graphic quality of this scarf - enough, actually, that I'm planning a baby blanket in black, white and various bright colors. Babies really do respond to high contrast items (my kids both loved staring at these black and white patterned soft blocks that their Tio Ernesto and Tia Lexi gave to them). Not quite sure why baby blankets are always insipid pastel colors. Probably to please the moms - so how about a blanket the kid will like to look at, and that's really easy to wash (hooray for bamboo again), to make Mom happy? Well, we'll see, I'm sure I'll like it, but who knows if anyone else will!

Must scoot to try to get this listed in my Etsy shop before he wakes up...