Spring!

Today, I’m dying my handspun, hand prepped, rambouillet lace – just over 2000 yards. I admit, I was afraid!

The good news? It turned out beautiful! It makes me think of spring flowers, perfect for today since it’s pouring rain outside.

The second batch is ‘cooking’ in the pot on the stove as I type. I’m quite certain it’s going to be a perfect match for the first.

My recipe?

1/4 teaspoon of delphinium blue wiltons icing colour, dissolved in one cup of boiling water

Just a bit more than 3/4 cup of vinegar mixed with boiling water on the stove in my dye pot and stirred

–add the dye solution to the pot and IMMEDIATELY add the dry, loosely skeined yarn. Push down with a wooden spoon, keeping agitation to a minimum.

–allow pot to simmer for 20 minutes, remove from stove, cool to a comfortable temperature and place in rinse water (same temp as yarn) again without agitating.

–roll in towel to remove excess moisture and lay flat or hang to dry.

–admire the beautiful yarn you made yourself

I repeated this exactly for the second skein, in order to minimize differences in the two skeins. I suppose I could have done both together in a larger pot – we’ll see

I really like this

Fishie

Yay! The top is pieced!

The process…

Started!

I’ve started the quilt and LOVE how it’s turning out…

Doing The Math

This is my working diagram for a baby quilt I’m making. It’s up next because I must have it finished by June – well, actually some time in June but I’ll feel better if it’s done by the beginning of the month!

Off to hunt down some appropriate fabrics and find that acrylic ruler…

I’ll be posting pictures as I go

I Like It!

The kids tell me it’s not really done until I decorate the underside BUT here is the shed stick, so far.

The shuttle is waiting for me to finish weaving and then I’m planning to decorate it to match. The loom is waiting too, a bit.

I’ve also got to get moving on a baby quilt that needs to be done by sometime in june!

Another New Craft, Or Two…

I really, really love making stuff. As I’m sure you can tell!

I’ve wanted to try wool dying for a while now. I read (on ravelry) about how icing colours can be used to dye and about how the colours often ‘slip’, giving unexpected depth and variation.

I had juniper green and a hank of my handspun singles yarn to work with. It’s the mystery white wool that I’ve been processing – approximately 180 metres. I also had a bottle of blue liquid food colour that I ended up using with the juniper green.

I dissolved a little of the paste in boiling water.

I poured the remaining boiling water into my dye pot (an excellent pot because the white lining lets me see the amount of colour remaining, clearly), added about 3/4 cup of vinegar, about half the dissolved dye, 9 or so drops of blue, scattered around. Without stirring, I placed the DRY yarn into the bath and simmered it for about 20 minutes on the stove.

Absolutely one of the EASIEST crafts I’ve tried.

Most of the colour took though a little of the red gathered along the edge of the water line in the dye pot. It’s red #3, known to not take, but a little of it did and the finished yarn is beautiful!

In other crafty-news…

I got a woodburning tool!!! I’ve never used one, until last night, but have always wanted to learn. Fun, fun, fun

For cheap, at the hock shop. It’s a dremel and has interchangeable tips.

My first attempt…(I’m decorating the inkle loom nice and pretty)

Here’s what I’m doing to decorate the shed stick that I made…

Now I’ve got about a milliong things on the go, lol, but I’m having fun.

Enjoy your day!

A Little Shetland Lace Cardigan

Using my handspun!

Remember the shetland fleece I bought earlier this year?

I washed it, combed it – seperated the down coat from the coarse outer coat, and spun the down into a nice, lofty two ply.

I wanted a little sweater – it’s really soft and I’m not overly sensitive to wool anyways. The Sylph Cardigan by Robin Melanson (Interweave Knits) was perfect. Or at least close to perfect! I downsized it, one size. I also continued the lace pattern throughout and knitted on the neckband rather than sewing it on later. I reshaped the sleeves a bit when downsizing. I like them well fitted.

I love how it turned out!

Combing Wool

I decided to do this post to try and show ‘how’ I comb my wool with my diy combs. I find it’s easier to comb sideways. It keeps my fibre on the combs and it seems to do a nice job too!

After a little comb with my dog rake, I place a bunch of locks onto the comb, so the tips are farthest from the tines. I then comb them off, onto the moving comb.

Since I HATE waste, I save all these bits in another pillowcase. I suppose I could use them in lots of ways…carding (if I ever try that), felting, needle felting, stuffing…

Then I comb back onto the stationary comb…

I usually give the last bits a bit of a pull…to get as much of the fibre as possible…

You can continue this ‘off, on’ as many times as you like. I usually just do two passes (one off, one on). The more passes, the more perfect the fibre becomes but the more waste as well. It depends what you like.

Next, I pull off the combed top, as evenly as possible. I don’t have a diz and frankly, am not planning on getting one. I have no trouble pulling off the top and then drafting it out evenly to spin.

Give it a little twist and move my hand up to the comb again…

When I’ve pulled all I can from the comb, the rest goes into the waste bag…

The finished combed top….

I’m spinning some of this right now, for lace…

I hope this post was at least a little helpful Have a great day!

Inkle Weaving

I love how it’s coming and I’ve only just begun! I’m thinking I’ll make placemats with this…they’ll go nicely in our kitchen

Not perfect, but pretty…

I also made a ‘shed stick’ (or so I’m calling it, lol) with knife edges to open the shed and to push down the weft as I weave. It’s hard to see but I sanded it just like the shuttle for the edge and it’s just a little longer than the working area of my loom so I can use it for any project. I MAY end up making it into a dual purpose item by adding open areas so I can also use it as a longer shuttle. We’ll see

DIY – Shuttles

Good morning

Remember I said I needed to create some shuttles? I worked on one yesterday and I think it turned out great!

Please be advised, lol, I have no proper tools for cutting out shapes. I DO have a drill though, and a good imagination.

I began with a piece of poplar (1/4″ x 3″ x 4 feet). Poplar was a great choice. It’s a hardwood which is soft enough to work with easily and it is incredibly lightweight! Oh yes, and cheaper than the other hardwoods I saw by about a dollar a piece.

I cut the length I wanted – match this to what you plan to weave/the size of the loom. In my case, I cut the shuttle about 17 1/2″ long.

I then used a cardboard template (which I first drew and cut out) to mark the shapes on each end. I tapped small screw indents very close together along the line.

I drilled each hole with my smallest drill bit and then progressively drilled each hole bigger. Eventually it becomes easy to remove the shape – like perforated paper. I used a sharp kitchen knife to cut through the last bits when I was ready to remove the shape. I didn’t want the wood to splinter.

I used coarse sandpaper, wrapped around a film case and attached with a rubber band. LOL. Not fancy but very functional! If you want to sand a curve, use something curved – made sense to me.

The pencil worked well in all the smaller areas like the mouth of the open space.

I’ve read that inkle shuttles have a knife edge on one side so I sanded each side edge (1″ in from each end to prevent thinning the wood there) to a nice fine edge. Most of the edge was created from the top side but I turned the piece and created the last bit of the edge from the other side. It looked so nice that I decided to sand both long edges this way!

Today I get to try weaving!

Warped!

It took a while and 15 balls of handicrafter cotton yarn! I’ve gotton the string heddles all tied and am going to work on creating shuttles later today…

I can’t wait to begin weaving

DIY Wide Inkle Loom

Good morning!

I wanted to make an inke loom – or at least an inkle-ish loom. I read that inkles are narrow bands of fabric and I’m NOT going to end up with any of those, lol.

Waste not, want not. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Great ideas!

I used an old, ripped apart maple dresser from the pile by the fire pit.

Out of it, I ended up cutting;

4 – 15″ lengths (7/8″ x 3″)
2 – existing lengths 33″ (7/8″ x 3″)
2 – 10″ sliders from the slider sections inside the dresser.

They looked like this…

I hollowed out the slider part (it was only partially clear)…

We sanded the cut wood to make it new again!

SO cool how beautiful the wood comes up after sanding Very satisfying turning old into new

We bought 5 60″ (15/16″ diameter) hardwood broom handles from the local hardware store. Just under 5 dollars each but much better than hardwood dowels! We cut them to size;

6 – 29″ length
4 – 27.25″ length

I used size #6, 1.5″ long wood screws (countersunk about 1/4″) and glue to put together the loom.

Purchase;
#6 wood screws, 1.5″ long
#8 wood screws (2), 3″ long (for tension dowel)

Each upward support piece (the 15″ lengths) I marked with a line where it should line up with the base (check for square), painted the surface with glue where it would be against the base, clamped and drilled and screwed on from the OUTSIDE of the base. The base is inside and the uprights and sliders are on the outside in my design.

Here’s a little diagram…

Be careful doing the other side, that the base is on the inside

Only one side is complete in the picture, the other is just sitting up against it…

After completing the sides, let them dry for a few hours, ideally overnight. I’m way too impatient for that even though I know it’s best!

Drill your holes in each base/side peice for the dowels, as follows…

Again, drill a little countersink with a bigger bit to allow the screws to imbed into the wood. I sanded and drilled the ends of the dowels. You’ll notice some of the dowels are not perfectly straight. I found this didn’t have a big effect on the project.

Then, beginning with the shorter (bottom) dowels, paint each screw with glue and attach the dowels between the bases. I began with one side and then attached all four on the other side.

Next, attach the longer (29″) dowels – I stuck one of each into the top dowel position to keep the uprights from pulling together more than I wanted as I attached them from the lowest to the highest.

Finally, screw your longer (3″) screws into the tension dowel. Don’t forget to drill the holes a little larger first!! We don’t want to split any dowels. The screws need to be screwed with the dowel in place or you won’t get it in later. I’m planning to sink the heads of the screws into the rounded tops I cut off the broomsticks for a clean/knob type look – using 5 minute epoxy – on a day I don’t want to weave

To create the tension device, drill holes periodically along your slider section. I’m using screws as ‘blockers’ but you could use small nails too. You need two blockers for each side so as you remove one the whole dowel doesn’t sort of ‘jump’ too far.

A picture of it partially warped…

I have yet to create shuttles and I have to finish warping and tie the string heddles in place.

If you have any questions – just ask! Hopefully you’ll enjoy this project as much as I have