Art Weaving

Prioritizing FTW (For the Win)

by CZeitler

I not only got the name of the contractor, I went to the quilt shop with my friend as well! This is the fabric I purchased, 1 yard each of 6 rainbow colors, 1/2 yard of a print that looks very Hungarian (Mom was Hungarian so my sister and I are 1/2 Hungarian), and an 1/8th yard of a cute purple that looks like it has black thistle plants on it. (One of my dad’s cousins married a very proud Scotsman, and they have been great so if I can make them a wall hanging I will). I will get into my crafting for the week after the **** but first an update on my prioritizing.

I called the mechanic recommended by a colleague and seconded by another colleague. They are going to do an oil change and look at my front bumper Tuesday morning. Yay! My friend that accompanied me to the quilt shop sent me the contact info for her contractor on Monday night, when I called him Tuesday he offered to come on Thursday to look into what I needed done. While talking with him on Thursday he kept saying, “Oh, that’ll take me a couple of hours and shouldn’t cost above 1k, no real reason to redo the entire bathroom I’ll see what’s going on underneath when I get there. Oh the flooring will cost X (less than the price that was quoted for finishing 1 room), we can get that done whenever. Your garage is under a $100 fix. The sliding glass door, I can get a door and get it installed and the house fixed up in a couple of hours. Your front porch, we’ll jack it up, figure out what is going on, and get it fixed.”

All of the fixes that I was planning on doling out over the course of the summer, because I thought the bathroom alone would be 5k, he is planning on having finished in 2 weeks, and for a lot less than I had planned. The flooring will take a little longer because I need to pull all of the staples out before he can put the flooring down. I think I have one room staple free but I’m working on my bedroom first because I would like that finished ASAP. So, he is fixing my toilet on Wednesday and maybe doing something else, this is my day off so I’ll be hanging around the house. Then on Friday I will let him in before I leave for work so he can take out the very drafty sliding glass door and install a working regular door. I am so excited because this, combined with a garage door, will allow me to actually use my backyard. This is all very exciting and a bit overwhelming. The overwhelm keeps going.

When I got home from work on Friday I had my garbage can on the sidewalk in front of my steps leading up to the house. To clarify, I did not put it there. Someone, likely a passive aggressive neighbor, did. Fine, the snow is likely done for a while, I’ll move my can back around the side of the house. This also prompted me to assemble my manual mower, just a huge cutting blade with a handle that rotates as you push it along, and mow my lawn. This is when I realized the damage the previous owners dogs left behind in the form of brown spots where no grass will grow. I bagged up the leaves left over from last year, realized I have a lovely flower bed in the back yard, and looked into disposing of the yard waste as well as how to repair my lawn. The city wants $3 per bag of yard waste and compost costs $7 a bag. With this in mind I looked into getting a rotating compost barrel, yes it cost me $80, however that is 8 bags of yard waste and compost. Considering how many plants I’m planning on growing this year the compost barrel will be paid off by the end of a season or two. Since I do not use most of my driveway, it is an old house and the driveway is at an angle to the garage, I am going to put the barrel near the garage. For repairing my lawn I discovered a Scotts brand product that claims it will repair and reseed my lawn. Last night, Saturday, after I was done with my day of shopping (more about that soon) I used a weed digger I purchased to aerate the brown spots. The product is supposed to be waiting for me at home so I hope to put that down tonight. Now, about shopping!

I’m going to go in reverse order since I went to the quilt shop first and I would like that to segue into the crafting portion of this post. So given that I’ll lead the shopping segment with: I found a living room chair! After going to three different furniture stores I finally found a chair that I don’t feel I have to heave myself out of and better yet it has both lumbar support and a separately adjustable headrest. I can recline, adjust my lumbar support for my lower back, and raise my head so that I can watch something on TV all at the same time! I didn’t even really know that is what I was looking for! Admittedly the gold/tan color is not my favorite but it might brighten up a bit against the background of my purple room, better than the dark chocolate color that was my other option. Before that I managed to find three dresses that I like and two shrugs that I can use (since I hate sleeveless I need something to cover my upper arms). This means that I have enough outfits that currently fit me to take me through until the winter when I can pull out my sweater dresses again. I plan on going to the laundromat on Wednesday so I can freshen my sheets, wash my quilt, and probably wash my wool dresses for storage. Before the dress and furniture shopping I hit a bookstore, I am a librarian (lol), and found a book I look forward to exploring titled: Sarah Payne’s Quilt School. This segues into the first part of the shopping on Saturday, the Quilt Shop!

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A friend of mine is moving, she wanted to make sure I could find the local quilt shop before she moved. We had a lovely trip and I purchased too much fabric. In the picture at the top of the post you can see a rainbow of 6 colors of fabric, I purchased a yard each. I’m not too sure what I am going to do with this fabric, however I could not resist them. The 6 yards cost me what 4 would have from other retailers, so when there was a full rainbow I had to try. I’m going to look in the Sarah Payne book I purchased from a bookstore later in the day to see if there is a pattern that would look good in these colors.

I did not get much crafting done however I did realize that if the only thing stopping me from knitting up the hat is that I hate doing the ribbing then 3″ of ribbing is going to have to be enough so I can move onto the next part. Speaking of moving on, I did make some progress on the tapestery I have been weaving since last July (I had to look at when I bought the loom since I had it in my mind I had been working on this for a couple of years).

As you can see the edges are not very even and there is a wide mish-mash of different types of weaving in there. This is my sampler piece and I could not love it any more! It is amazingly colorful and has a lot of movement to it.

Okay, that is about it for me this week, so much exciting news!

Remember to take time for yourself and Live Life a Little More Abstract!

Weaving On

by CZeitler

My new Saori WX60 Loom. I adore how it went together, though I do plan on posting the video I shot to YouTube at some point. People should see the flubs I made trying to put this thing together. That will have to wait until I have moved and regain the motivation to edit it.

The Saori Loom is, in essence, a general 2 shaft counterbalance loom. The only aspect of this loom that is special is the accessories readily available. With the pre-wound warps available for purchase a large step is taken out of the weaving equation. For me this takes away a very expensive and time consuming aspect of weaving. One of my major stumbling blocks has been the time needed to wind a warp, the expense needed in purchasing the yarn/thread for the warp as well as the time needed to calculate out how much warp might be needed. With this loom I can purchase pre-wound warps in everything from silk and cashmere to the standard cotton. I recently purchased a 33 yard 300 thread black cotton warp that should take advantage of the entire width of my loom. I also appreciate the bobbin winder available incorporated into the loom.

My first projects are off of the loom, I soaked them in warm in my top-loader washer then spun them out so I could hang them to dry. This is the warp that came with the loom.

As you can see there are quite a few projects woven into this single warp. Between the pouches I hope to create out of the hand spun, the yellow and green rug piece that I hope to put together with a piece woven from the wider warp, there is also a brown and pink piece my friend wove that we are going to try to turn into ears for a wolf hat based on the concept of a pussy hat. These pre-wound warps that are relatively easy for me to put onto the loom make it very easy for me to use my handspun yarn to create amazing fabric. I cannot wait until I have more time to experiment, I think that this is going to be a great use of my handspun yarn. I am not sure about how I can utilize these pieces of cloth to create clothing, I think for now I am going to concentrate on making pouches and accessories.

Until next time remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract!

November and Crafting Slump

by CZeitler

I’m sorry about not posting for a few weeks, November came on like a storm bringing with it quite a bit of uncertainty regarding college/university closings in New York. Between the stress of figuring out plans and back up plans the month simply slipped away from me.

I Hope that, if you celebrate, you had an amazing Thanksgiving or Indigenous Peoples Day or Friendsgiving (even if you could only see your family/friends through zoom). I had a great weekend, which means I was able to finally get back into the groove of crafting.

I did manage to finish weaving my four handspun panels a few weeks ago, now I am debating if they are going to be scarves for my cousins kids, panels for a piece of clothing, or pieces of a bag. I am leaning toward the idea of a bag, maybe bags, since the yarn is a bit rough for next to the skin.

Four multi-colored pieces of woven cloth lying next to each other, the loose threads still need clipped.

I have started another weaving project with yarn from HipStrings out of Pittsburgh, PA. When I ordered some mini’s they were kind enough to send whole skeins, which left me with more than enough to weave the scarf I was thinking of. The colors are supposed to be Steeler’s colors, I think they come close.

On the right is an Ashford Sample-It loom warped with Hipstrings yarn at 7.5 epi. ON the left is a section of woven cloth showing the tartan like motif of yellow intersecting with grey.

Weaving is not all that I have been doing. I recently found out about an event on Ravelry called the Independent Designers Gift Along, or GAL2020. For this you simply have to knit or crochet a single gift. They do have categories and if you do one project in each category then you have achieved a special level that they call Oopadoo (or something like that). To start this off I have cast on a “Dumpster Fire Ornament”; a Headband; as well as a Skirt.

Far Left; Dumpster Fire 2020 Ornament, 3 flames finished and the next orange on the needles. Center; the Winding Paths Headband in Knitpicks Worsted a purple/pink yarn knitted using an undulating cable pattern; Far Right; The Stepped Skirt, a very small piece of orange knitting on a needle curled around itself.

Before I started these projects, which I am supposed to have finished by December 31 to take a photo of all of them….if I were to give one as a present then I would not have it for the group photo…I’m not sure what I am supposed to do about that. Sorry for the digression, as I was saying: Before I started these projects I managed to unearth what I was working on prior to my wrist surgery, I am healing well and still gaining strength in my wrist. I decided to do some work on a slipper that I had gotten almost half way through before my surgery, there is a lot of progress. I am past the heel portion and working my way up the left side, once that is finished I do have a second sole so I can begin the second slipper right away.

Orange and blue slipper-ish thing.

Regarding another craft altogether, I have decided that I am going to spin for colorwork socks. I spun up the bumps of fiber left over from the month when Paradise Fibers sent us Scottish themed items, as well as a bump of the sari/tweed fibers we received. Unfortunately I did not take any photos of the colorful portions, so here is a bobbin of mostly white singles from one of the bags of fiber I purchased specifically for socks. Once I have the singles spun up I plan on transferring them to weaving bobbins so that I can mix them up and create 3 ply yarns of each color.

Yellow bobbin on a Schacht Ladybug with a Woolee Winder. The bobbin is filled with white singles, some pink is peeking through.

Those are my crafting adventures for November. With COVID Still going strong, and let’s be realistic it is going to get worse before it gets better, I plan on doing plenty of crafting over the course of December. Without any immediate family in the area I will send presents to my extended family and lose myself in the rhythms of creation.

Happy Crafting, stay healthy, and remember to live life A Little More Abstract.

Unfortunately Correct

by CZeitler

I was unfortunately correct in saying that I was being overly optimistic thinking that I would get my wheel varnished on Thursday.

Unfortuntaely, that seems to be theme here, I do not have any photos of my current projects, though I do have a photo of the Chenille Stem (Pipe Cleaner) holiday tree I made for a December Project at my public library.

Pipe Cleaner Christimas Tree, tiny. The branches stick out in all directions, with two round pieces as a base and a paperclip attached to make sure it actually stays upright.

In addition to my holiday crafting I have been working on weaving up the yarn I spun for the Spin Together 2020 contest. I am using my rigid heddle loom, which is 10″ across and weaving 2 yard increments. So far I am on my second panel, I hope to have enough yarn to weave off 4 panels for a 40″ across piece. That should be sufficient to make a nice looking poncho, admittedly I would prefer about 60″. I love how the colors are working together to create something bright and cheerful with a bit of sparkle here and there. I hope to be able to sew the panels together before winter break.

The second project, that I am kicking myself for forgetting in the car, is a knitted shawl from the 716 batt I managed to spin up. I love how the knitting is going, however I can see where I plied loosely and the yarn is splitting with my maneuvering. I believe that this will wind up being a very colorful shawl, it is also a great platform for my experimenting with yarnovers and double decreases. The results are neat, though not what I thought.

I do have a third project in mind. Once I have the red that I am spinning fairly fine finished I hope to spin up another wild batt (maybe I can do this on my new wheel instead of waiting for the ladybug to be free), to create a match to my Blue Moon Halloween 2020 skein. Once I have them both spun I hope to use some wool yarn to weave up a shawl collar/cowl to wear as a decorative piece. I might even hold off on seaming up my panels to see if I can turn them into some sort of shirt…the possibilities are endless!

Okay, so I also have a fourth project I’m actively working on..I know it is a bit much. The Discover Color event is ongoing and I still have not threaded my heddles. I found the perfect excuse to delay until Thursday, the Winter Weavealong will start pretty soon. This is run by Two Ewes Fiber Adventures podcast, and I hope to participate this year.

I was reminded that we only have about 4 more paychecks until Christmas, so that is frightening. I’d better get my presents purchased and shipped before it is too late!

Remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract!

Progress and Change

by CZeitler

This has been a really strange week. I have spent most of it thinking that I have not gotten a single thing done.  However, when I looked back  I have made a lot of progress on many different projects.  In the way of domestic chores, I have come to the realization that cooking for myself is just creating more dishes for me to deal with and I am not eating any healthier.  To combat this, I have started opening a can of green beans or carrots, heating them up, and using that as a snack.  I have also purchased some frozen food that I just need to throw in the oven and that will be food for at least a day if not more.  I also purchased salad mix, we will have to see what a difference these steps make in my overall eating/time spent cleaning up.  I managed to get the black plastic on my front bed, I’ve been meaning to do that for three years, but I think I mentioned that in my last post.

I live far enough out that I have a well, the heavy cement well cap is right beside my driveway.  This means that when big trucks come up my driveway, fedex, ups, oil delivery, repair trucks, they tend to run over that cap often knocking it askew.  To combat this I purchased 4 pieces of fencing that arrived a few days ago.  I promptly went out and managed to get them temporarily installed around the well cap.  I will use a rubber mallet to completely install them when it stops snowing.  Since I only needed 2 I will be using the other 2 to create a barrier between my garbage cans and the ditch so I don’t have to retrieve the cans from the ditch on garbage day.

The final home repair I have done is a patch job on a wall in the master bathroom.  Half of a toilet paper roll holder that was installed somehow got ripped out of the wall leaving a hole.  I honestly cannot remember how, it’s been years.  I purchased a repair kit a while back, but like many things, never found the time to fix it.  On to Crafty Stuff!

For my public library job I created a video on how to finger knitting for Monday April 13th.  This past Monday I created a video on how to weave on cardboard looms, the video turned out pretty well however the process was a mess of cable repairmen, upload times, and time restrictions on unverified Youtube accounts…I’m not dwelling on that.  I shot the video on finger knitting, have been requested to create an introduction with my face, and will edit and upload the results on Monday.  Until then, here is some finger knitting:

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This is Madelinetosh Home in Danger Will Robinson colorway.  The bulky yarn shows the stitches pretty well, I used  a worsted during the video this will be my intro piece.

I’m trying to organize my stash, during that process I found a shawl I was working on.   It’s a very simple shawl, however it is knitted with my handspun yarn on very large needles.  I’ve discovered that I can hold these without any real pain, so I am working on that.

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Finally we have my shawl.  As you could see last week, the weave seemed pretty loose.  I spent some time adjusting the yarns so that the structure would be tighter.  The results were interesting, I posted them on Instagram and was advised to felt the piece to keep the structure how it was.  I decided to stabilize the edges and some of the structures by weaving around them, the results are here:

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I am still not certain how well I like it, however I will finish with the edges and give it a wash. I already have two bulky yarns tied together so that I can try another tri-loom shawl once I have the loom cleared.

This is about it for me for the week (not including work stuff, I’m still doing academic library stuff for my other two libraries).  I hope that you live life A Little More Abstract, and if you are an introvert please check on your extroverts!

During Downtime

by CZeitler

Okay, so everyone that has been here before knows that I work at three very different libraries.  Well all three still have me working, even if it is from home.  So my public library has 13.5 hours, my private university has me working 24 hours, and my community college has me working between 14 and 20 hours a week.  This means that although I am working from home I am still working at least 50 hours a week, I’m probably going to be working more than that as I figure out how to video record me crafting, editing the video, and then closed captioning the video.  It is a fun, exciting prospect.

All of this to say that I am not getting as much crafting done as I thought I would, nor as much cleaning as I thought.  Last night I did manage to get some of my papers burned, though the lid on my new firepit did not contain things quite the way I thought they would, I have no idea why I thought it would contain the flames.  This was a good reminder that things need to be piled in a way other than flat on top of each other, just piling things in meant that I had to do a lot of poking and prodding.

I did get my rear-end moving today and I wound up getting the black cloth down on the raised bed in my front yard.  This project only took me…three years…to get done.  Unfortunately for my gardening career I came in, sat down to check my e-mail, had a bit of an itch and found some kind of bug on me.  I’m not sure if it was a tick or a mite, either way I’m not going to be spending a lot of time in the garden, although I do plan on creating a potted garden on top of the tarp.

Here is the fun stuff, I have been working on warping my rug loom, I have a couple clips of video that I hope to seam together to create a bit of tutorial on creating a rug loom.  I am going to be doing a couple of cardboard crafts, as well as some crewel embroidery videos.  I think that some finger knitting, finger crochet, and weaving on a cardboard loom to make a pouch or mug rug.

I have learned that while I am watching for chats/e-mails as well as watching professional development videos I can create bookmarks on my Blue Butterfly Pin Loom!  IMG_3428

Yes, I’m also drinking a ton of Diet Mountain Dew, it’s my drink of choice.  I have made about 4 of these little bookmarks, now all I need to do is wash them to set or bloom the weave and then trim the hidden tails.  Since I can use about a yard of 2 ply yarn to create crewel embroidery I am seriously thinking about taking some of my handspun singles to create embroidery thread.

The final project that I am working on is my 7 foot tri-loom.  I have created some continuous thread weavings in the past, presently I learned how to create a fringed shawl with single pieces of yarn.  I am going to create a fringed scrap shawl, most of my colors should go with a nice garden motif.

Until next time, remember to check on your extroverts!  Live Life A Little More Abstract!

Where There is a Will

by CZeitler

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I adore my mirrix weaving loom.  Due to my earlier sampling efforts with handspun yarn my mirrix tapestry loom was already warped and ready to go.  I created a line to keep my weft from slipping too far down my warp, and started weaving away.  My first few picks were created using a paperclip and my weft yarn, then I went looking for tapestry bobbins.  Unfortunately for me, and my budget, tapestry bobbins are about $20 for three wooden ones.  Balancing my desire to not purchase any more plastic than absolutely essential, and my want for several bobbins to create my multi-colored tapestry, I was concerned that my budget was going to go out the window.  One persistent search later and I discovered that some enterprising individuals discovered that they can use 4-inch golf tees as tapestry bobbins.  They work well, I have to be careful because the weft can slip off of the point creating a bit of a tangle.  It is with great shock that I discovered passing these bobbins back and forth under the warps does not seem to bother my wrist at all.  I firmly believe that this is due to the amazing shedding device on the mirrix.

The other major crafting that I am doing this week involves needle felting.  I have to admit I adore stabbing something a few hundred times with a piece of art or other useful object as a result.  IMG_2777

With less than an hour’s work I managed to create these two pouches, I believe that they will be useful for small objects such as tapestry bobbins on the go.  I will be teaching two needle felting classes in the next two weeks, one will involve creating coasters while the other focuses on sculptures.   I am really looking forward to both of these classes, I also hope to incorporate a very small amount of the slow fashion/slow cloth movement by mentioning that you can create your own decorative patches for repairing clothing using needle felting.

Have a great week and remember to Live Life A Little More Abstract.

November Already

by CZeitler

I cannot believe that November is here already, two more full weeks and it will be Thanksgiving week!  This year has both dragged and flown by.  This past week I received my November Paradise Fibers Box, the fibers look neat but the patterns for knitted ornaments are what has really caught my eye.

I received the more subdued colors of fiber, the white was what everyone received, my second color was a light pink rather than bright pinks and purples.  I enjoy the colors, especially since I have enough brighter fibers to use as pops of color for the ornaments.  I almost repurposed the spinning I was doing to be used as embroidery thread, however I decided to stick to my original plan.  I do still believe that I will use any left-over yarns as crewel embroidery rather than scrap projects (if they are not big enough to knit into hexipuffs).

Speaking of things that I learned from EGLFC I have decided to use the highly textured yarns that I created that weekend as a sort of commemorative scarf.  I managed to get my Ashford Sample It Loom threaded and tensioned using a 7.5dent heddle.

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I love how it is turning out, however this is going to be the very definition of ‘Slow Cloth’ Weaving.  Each time I open a new shed the yarns stick, since the textured yarns are in the slots they do not like to move up and down or separate from their neighbors.  Keeping the actual locks to the top, without interfering with the addition of new horizontal picks, and so many more problems.  The fascinating part of this is, I do not mind the problems at all.  Yes, I am not really happy that one of my warp threads had to be tied back together when it snapped, I’m a bit worried about advancing the warp and how much trouble beating is going to be (I think I’m going to use a fork or tapestry beater at times), however I believe that I am going to enjoy taking my time and letting this scarf become what it wants to be.  IMG_3095

There are several other projects going on in my life right now.  I am working on upping my bullet journaling game, not only because of the class at the end of the month, but because I am trying to be more organized.  As I hinted earlier I finished a small braid that I am going to use for embroidery thread, it was a sample from my Holi Spinning box earlier this year.  At present I am pulling off lengths, allowing them to ply back on themselves and tying them into bundles to be steamed when I have time.

For other projects, my handyman has finally gotten around to putting up the paneling in my ‘studio’, of course since it has snowed already I had to purchase a small heater that claims it will heat up a room twice as big as the one I am using.  Finger’s crossed, I hope so because I had to lay out a few home truths to him about the nature of working on a part time basis for a community college and private university, specifically that from my last paycheck in the middle of December I will not get another from those two until February.  Fortunately I have enough crafting supplies stocked up, and just enough pay coming to me in the next six weeks, that I should be able to handle all of the major bills for January relying on my public library pay for food and gas.

I am not certain about the holidays at present, there are some good sales on Turkeys and Hams, so I believe I will stock up a bit on major protein sources.  Life goes on and I am luckier than most.

For crafting, I also picked up the Charollais I received as a part of Holi, I was fascinated by the lock structure and hoped to use it as some texture in a new yarn.  When I picked it up, it felt a touch tacky.  Thinking that a bit of lanolin was left in the locks, I immersed it in some very hot tap water, that immediately turned brown.  I had been harboring unwashed wool!  There is nothing inherently wrong with unwashed wool, if you know it is there so you can keep an eye on it or make sure it is away from the rest of your stash.  Unwashed wool is what attracts Wool Moths and Mice, neither of which I want in my stash.  I gave this wool three really good rinses and hopefully this will be enough, it is almost half way dry as of this morning.

Remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract!

Trying Double Weave

by CZeitler

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Okay, so I decided to go for it and I warped up a loom with 16epi cottolin for 4 yards.  Now I have to figure out how to get it off of my rigid heddle loom and onto one of the tabletop looms, or if I will just use it for a weft for a future project.  I wound the warp, warped the loom, threaded the heddles, made sure I had good tension…still!  Every time I try to move a heddle to get a shed the entire thing starts going loosey-goosey.  I’m done with it.  I’m not really happy about this, however I tried and some days that is all you can do.  I’m going to finally finish weaving off the towel I have on my table loom and see about threading this on there.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get a better shed, I really would hate to waste all of this yarn, it wasn’t cheap, and I would love a table runner out of it.

On another note, I have also received my Strickpaner for 2020 and I am really enjoying getting to know it.  They have a particular company that they work with to create planner stickers, I hope to check them out very soon.  They have 7 pages in the front advertising their company and explaining about the planner.  This is followed by a page of conversion charts, a page of time zones then 8 pages covering 2 years (2020 and 2021) with slots for important events each day of those years.  This is followed by pages of goals, reflections, notes, lessons learned, then we get into quarterly overviews.  Seriously, if I use this properly I should be fairly well set for the year.  There are built in trackers, week spreads with inspiration and tips, this planner seriously rocks.  On page 142 the knitting aspect of the planner begins, Project overviews, ideas, project pages, a pattern for a cover for the planner, yarn purchases, wishlists (yarn, book, accessories separated out), festivals, podcasts, stores, each have their own lists to fill in.  There is so much more, spaces for the sizes and measurements of those that you love to knit for, indexed lists and notes.  The notes are separated into index card sized, graph paper, and dotted paper, before going into a contacts section.  After the contacts are schedules (quarterly which works really well with my work life), some more advertisements, and finally a page with a ruler and needle size conversion chart.  This should be an amazing way to keep track of everything.  They even had an option to purchase a huge set of stickers that contain knitting, spinning, crochet, etc. so that I can mark days when I was able to craft, or plan out days to craft.

I did make another purchase over the weekend, I finally bought a table for my 16 shaft floor loom.  I’m not going back to that store in a hurry so they lost a lot of potential sales, but I did get the table I wanted.  Story time: I went in and saw the table, as I was checking out the lavendar (for moths) and Goats Milk Soap, I need something other than Dial, I asked how much the table was.  The saleswoman was very eager to tell me it was 90, I made a comment about getting it in a couple of weeks.  She was all about, well I’m going to take it home if it doesn’t get bought, and such.  I was honest and told her that my paychecks would be sorted out in a couple of weeks and I could afford it then, she put more pressure on and I guess I caved.  Of course, I was honest, I’m going to be pretty flush in a couple of weeks but hey, if she wants to lose out on the purchases for a quick sale it saves me money in the long run.  So, I have a table that will work for my loom and a couple of extra chairs.  Right now I am in the middle of an 11 day straight stretch of work, however after that I hope to be able to begin setting up my studio.  There are a few days where I do not have to be to work super early, so I could do something in the morning.

I think that’s enough for right now, next time I will discuss my silk dyeing and other experiments.

Remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract!

I Am Infatuated

by CZeitler

For Black Friday weekend I decided to obtain a few things that I have been looking at for years.  One of them was the Blue Butterfly Originals 2″X6″ Pin Loom.  I am a librarian and had always wondered about making my own bookmarks.  I was not certain what type of yarn I would like to use with it so I started with a couple of bits of yarn that I had spun.  According to the directions, which I skimmed over, you can use any yarn up to a bulky yarn.  Within two days I had worked out that each bookmarks takes about 4 yards of yarn.  27 bookmarks later, IN TWO DAYS, I am still going strong.  IMG_2094If any of my relatives actually read this blog, you are probably going to get a bookmark.  One of my relatives is turning her old doll house into a car house for her two sons, and race car driving husband I am sure,  so I think that these would make great little blankets or rugs for the cars.

I have ten more balls of yarn measuring 4 yards each wound up and ready to be woven, alas I actually have to work today.  Since each of the bookmarks seems to take around 10-15 minutes to create I anticipate needing more yarn wound tomorrow morning.  At first this loom seemed a bit expensive, with shipping it wound up being around $29 (Which is why I took so long to buy it), but since in two days I have woven over 20 of the bookmarks, using smaller amounts of yarn that I wasn’t sure what project I made them for, I think that this is well worth it.  I think that this would be something that I would certainly consider adding to a craft show, though in order to justify the yardage of the yarn they would probably be about $3 each.  I might make it $5 each or 3/$12.  As the year winds down I am trying to figure out where I want things to go from here.

Right now I am balancing my books with some of the insurance money, and since my work is seasonal and two of my jobs have almost a month long break, January will be supplemented as well.  In February I am going to start seeing if I can live off of my three jobs and what changes I need to make to my current situation.  Starting in March I will be calling the Handyman that Mom and I have been hiring and seeing what he wants to put siding on the house and fix up the external garage.  Those will be my two major home improvements for the year, and hopefully for longer than that.  I do have someone currently working on getting rid of the mice in the house, I have high hopes for that situation.

That is what my life looks like now, though I think I’m going to give up on the food boxes, I do not think that they worked out how I wanted them to.  I do not like sour flavors and everything seemed to have lemon juice or vinegar in them.  I will see about using my instant pot to explore some other cultures with flavors I know I have a chance of liking.

Happy Crafting!