All the things?

Well, a lot anyway. I’m in a decluttering kinda mood, and beware who tries to stand in my way!

singer01I totally tidied the spare room, so that it’s now kitten safe to leave the door open again. I’ve also persuaded G to finally get rid of three old computers that are just sitting there in a pile of his stuff. I’ve been having a whack at an ancient clothes repair pile for two days and it’s GONE, although it was tough going. My new plastic sewing machine isn’t nearly as good or strong as my old sturdy Pfaff, so it nearly got permanently attached to a pair of jeans. I’ll be doing jackets and jeans on my old treadle Singer from now on (1927 model), the driveband was slipping, so I haven’t been using it. But now I’ve made a new one, couldn’t be bothered waiting for a bit of leather, so it’s now a nice, blue polycord. I didn’t succeed melting the ends together, so had to stitch is using grizzly thread, but so far it seems to run ok!drawer

Mind you, I don’t actually enjoy sewing. I just think it’s a waste to throw out a jacket only because some large dog stood on your pocket until it ripped.

reolI’ve rearranged the linen closet to also include the tablecloths I rarely use, giving me a huge drawer downstairs for paper rolls that were getting squished on a shelf. Leaving me with a shelf for??! Incidentally the sewing pile gave me another two shelves for storing weaving yarns.

office3My desk is the tidiest I’ve seen it this year, bills are paid (well, I do tend to do that on a regular basis), all sorts of little notes have been transferred to my bullet journal and next up is a system for storing my paintings in progress – I’ll show you when that’s done!

A long time ago, last week to be precise, I finished my meditation blanket, I just haven’t had the time or weather to take a nice photo. It isn’t what I dreamed in my head, but it’s been a great learning experience. And it’s absolutely useful and shiny. I will have to do some projects where my handpainted yarns come into their own, though, because they are mostly hidden here.

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When I was done taking blanket pix in the wind, the sun decided to peek through for a brief moment – gone by the time I made it back to the clothes line.

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And that’s all for me in a while – things to do! I think it’s about time I got back to the paints and the yarns, I feel all motivated now that I’ve been so efficient. I know if I keep up the house thing for too long I’ll just keel over (may be a tad too late in fact – but then I still have books to read, even if I ALSO finished all my library loans!)

Chain-dyeing

Instead of cutting mini skeins to dye, when I knew I’d be using at least some of it for weft, I decided to try to dye the unbroken yarn. I wound up small loops, tied, wound another etc. until the whole ball of yarn was used up, and then painted them side by side. I then use steaming so the colours don’t run too much, but having soaked the yarn in vinegar water first and also having vinegar in the dye solutions makes this superwash yarn absorb and hold most of the dye anyway.

The process from soak to dye layout to steaming and then tossed into the hot water to cool after steaming (with more vinegar to prevent bleeding) did cause some tangling obviously, that’s the nature of yarn, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. And now we’re ready to weave again.

According to my calculations

…since my shuttle is empty, I must be round about halfway through my rainbow blanket. Perhaps more?

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I do have more mini skeins, they are all twins or triplets however, so I think I shall have to dye some new ones. What fun! The variegated yarns don’t show all their glory with the uniform warp, especially since I also decided to try out a closer sett (more threads per inch/cm) – probably not the project to do that, but I’ve been told to think less and just do, right? 😉

I can’t remember the blanket as it disappears around the cloth beam, so it will be interesting when I get to cut off and unroll.

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As I was hemstitching I noticed I’d missed a thread in one hole, so I thought it would be fun to try a little fix. Then much later I saw that I’d also threaded two into one slot, but by then I couldn’t care less, I’d already woven a fair bit. I make mistakes anyway, weaving in too dark without reading glasses = sticky warp threads go unnoticed and suddenly you’ve skipped a couple.

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5 meter warp thread in the canister and nuts to add tension

Where’s my weft?

All warped up and no yarn to weave. Can you believe my weft has gone missing? Meant to wind it on a shuttle while – well never mind why, the thing is, I can’t find the darn thing. I can find a multitude of other cakes, but that’s not my weft…

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Usually as soon as I complain about such matters, they have a tendency to turn up, so it’s now official. Any psychics out there are welcome to chime in however….

FOUND AND WOUND!

I just knew that whining was good for something.

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