Posted by: Mare F | January 19, 2012

Clicking my needles…

The shawl that isn't.

This has been an unproductive few days for me. I began a shawl on New Year’s Day in a white flecked Red Heart yarn. I picked up again on Sunday night and had to start again as I’d lost my row count paper. I’m sure I’ll find it now, but it was no where to be seen on Sunday. I worked about 15 rows on Sunday into Monday in between doing household chores and decided that I really like the pattern. Then I checked the yarn. One of the skeins had several cuts in it and I was getting an end about every 12 – 15 feet. Apparently my cats had a good time one day while I wasn’t home. I ripped that out and put the two skeins that I do have intact aside for another project.

Next up I took some of the Dazzleaire yarn that I knitted my last triangular shawl out of and started the pattern again. I have about 4 skeins of that and I loved the colors. I worked on that on Tuesday and Wednesday while watching TV and it was coming along nicely until I realized that it would still be shorter than I wanted when it was finished. I don’t think that they make this color Dazzleaire any longer so here I go again….ripping it apart.

I think perhaps I’ll just call it a day on this shawl and start another project, one that I plan out a little better. What do you have planned for the weekend?

The yarn I used on my second attempt.

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Posted in Crocheting, General, Knitting, Organizing

Posted by: Mare F | January 15, 2012

The rug loom…

My goal today is to warp my rug loom. I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. It would have been done before now if I’d had a clue as to where I am attaching the back half of my warp threads, but I suspect that YouTube will play a big role in today’s adventure. I have my copy of The Rag Rug Handbook, the directions for my warping board, and my spools of warp cotton. I know that I can do this, but my mind is just not wrapping around the process so I’m dragging my feet. This is a serious failing of mine and one I need to work on changing. I can’t wait to make the rugs, I’m just not sure of myself to be fearless about warping. Rather silly overall.

 

 

It’s a perfect day for staying inside and working with wool. The wind is howling around the house and the temp is a bone chilling 1 degree F. Some hot tea, my handbook, a scratch pad, and I should be golden. The pictures will tell the tale.

I’ve hit my first snag. After finally figuring out (I think) the right number of epi and the correct sequence on the warping board, I find that my back is screaming after about 25 rounds. I need 384 if my calculations are correct so it would appear that you won’t see a picture of the loom warped today. I will however continue to return to the warping board to continue my wrapping so that with any kind of luck and a good breeze I will have much more interesting news to share with you on Thursday.

 

Commonsense has finally prevailed. I am going to order the Warping Your Loom DVD from Interweave. Sometimes  I can be so dense it amazes even me. I’ve been beating my head against a wall on this for 4 months. Should have just ordered the video earlier! I guess I’ll head off to work on a rug that I can make now. Thanks for your patience on this one.

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Posted by: Mare F | January 13, 2012

Inspiration and creation

Where do you get your inspiration? I’ve been giving this some serious thought since I would really like to make some truly unique items for my studio and I can’t think of what has inspired me in the past. There hasn’t been a conscious moment when I’ve seen or heard something that has sent me to my yarn stash, yet I’ve designed quite a few of my own things. What made me do it?

When you do get that flash that shoots wonderful ideas into your brain do you write them down? Draw a picture of the idea? Keep a notepad handy? Just get your fiber and start working? Isn’t is interesting what a complex thing creativity is? I can see a pattern and know immediately what yarn I would like to see it made up in, but on the flip side I can look at yarns and they don’t talk to me very much. Oh, I love touching them, and looking at the bright colors, and finally watching how they work up into the pattern that it’s taken far too long to decide upon, but I don’t see a yarn and hear, “Sweater, hat, scarf, mitts.” I feel I might just be lacking in something here. I like the things that I make, I just wish I knew how I decided on the manner in which they are made.

So after lots of thoughts on this matter I’ve made little progress.Since I don’t know what inspires me I don’t know what to do or where to go in an attempt to jumpstart my creativity while the craft fair season is slow and I have the time to play. Any ideas?

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Posted in General, Organization

Posted by: Mare F | January 9, 2012

The command center

I believe that part of the reason I was as disorganized as I was in the past is because I didn’t have all of my stuff in one place. Granted it was all in the same house, but it was spread throughout 4 locations. The looms, spinning wheel, swifts, and my favorite work space were in the livingroom. My dyeing and felting stuff is stored in the mudroom. This is not likely to change, but I did move the raw fleece from the diningroom (it’s in totes) to the upstairs spare room where my yarn stash lives. The yarn stash will remain where it is until it gets smaller.  I have a big livingroom, but not that big. The fourth room was my library upstairs. That is where half of my knit/crochet books were stored. Oh, and my magazine holder full of  Magic Crochet, Decorative Crochet, Quick & Easy Crochet, Vogue Knitting, etc. was in the library. In order to pick a new project it was a bit of a scavenger hunt. AND I could never seem to find either the yarn and/or the pattern that I was looking for at the time.

Saturday I began the correction of this situation. Christmas made the trip upstairs to the attic and the other shifting began. The desk – which I love because it’s small and has bookshelves built into the sides – came down out of the library into the livingroom where it becomes much more useful. It still needs to be refinished, but now I see it daily and it will happen much sooner. I’ve placed all of the notebooks that I organized over winter break into the side shelves as well as the print pattern books that I have left from my clean-out last fall.  Inside the desk top are vintage relish dishes I use for drawer organizers. So much more charming than the modern plastic counterpart plus I get to buy – and use – cool glass pieces of history. They have a lovely feel to them.

I suspect that the inside will not stay this tidy for long, but I’m certainly enjoying the nice feeling of accomplishment that I got this weekend. Another thing that I did was to log into Ravelry and start cataloguing my books and magazines. The books that are on the shelf are in my library there, but I still have the rack of magazines to go. Next up will be my stash and my needles/hooks. It will be so good to have the information in a place I can access from anywhere so I will stop buying the same things over and over again or not buying something because I’m convinced that I already have it. Why did this take me so long to do? Do you have a system or area for your crafting and if so, how long did it take you to get you command center going? It still amazes me how one relatively small piece of furniture can make such a difference in the right place.

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Posted in General, Organization

Posted by: Mare F | January 5, 2012

Current WIPs

I hadn’t realized until a conversation today that I had made it into the new year with no Works In Progress from last year! This, I believe, is a new record for me.  If you are anything like me you have several projects going at once and I suppose that makes sense. Sometimes you just have to change the item you are working on whether it’s because of yarn color (dark is very tiring on the eyes), stitch (complicated takes so much more brain power), or boredom (once in a while you just have to do something different – yarn, stitch, craft.) Now since the first of the year, and yes I know it’s only been 4 days since the first of the month, I have an assortment of things going on. I’ve started a crocheted rag rug out of the left over bits of Sugar ‘n’ Cream cotton yarn I’ve amassed. I’m just tying it all together and crocheting ’til I run out. Then it will find a basket to live in until I make more things in cotton thereby creating more bits and pieces. Believe it or not, this actually makes me feel somewhat organized.

I also have a knitted shawl  that I’m making decent progress on. This is meant to live in my car when it’s done so I’m making it out of an acrylic yarn. One never knows what will happen to things in the car if the carpet in there is anything to judge by. I’m also getting to use the new stitch markers that I bought at the Vo-Ag craft fair that I attended last fall. They are lovely, only one size which is rather large. I couldn’t use them when I was knitting the fingerless mitts because they were too big for the size 2 dp needles I was using. Now I get to look at the pretty beads as I knit. I am very easily amused on occasion.

There is a white flecked crocheted scarf/shawl that I began on Sunday as well. It think that it will be very nice when it’s done, but I’m not sure about the size. I may have to modify the end result a bit, but that won’t be a first. Do you find yourself changing patterns to suit your wants? Oh, and I started weaving a scarf on my Rigid Heddle loom out of crocheting cotton. I’m not sure at all about this project, but it’s an experiment that I will run with until it looks like one of us will get hurt. How many projects do you have going?

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Posted in Crocheting, Knitting, Uncategorized, Weaving

Posted by: Mare F | January 2, 2012

New Year’s Day

In an effort to comply with my desire to focus myself this year I made up a list yesterday morning of tasks I wanted to accomplish today to promote my “new” regime. The list contained tasks such as crocheting an item, knitting an item, warping my loom, chopping up my lichen, setting up my warping board, measuring my garden beds, eating a piece of fruit, working on a cross stitch piece, listening to an audio book, reading a book in print and on my Kindle, going for a walk, and going to a party. This is all in an attempt to be a little bit of everything I would like to be doing this year on it’s first day. I would not recommend this as an exercise in focus! I found myself wandering around the house in an even more scattered manner than usual, but  I had accomplished half of the list in just over a couple of hours. I figured a few cups of really good coffee or Prince of Wales tea and I’d be good to finish the list before I turned in. I was wrong, but not by many items and I finished those this morning.

On the reverse side I was trying not to do some things that I don’t want to do a lot of in the next year. Ironing, dishes, dusting, and laundry are just a few. I know that I will have to address each of these chores, but I’m trying not to make them the core activities of my daily routine. We shall see how this works out.

I’d mislaid the crocheted shawl pattern I wanted to start , or rather the fates had decided that this is not the project for me right now so it was interesting to see which item leapt from the files as my first crocheting project of the year. There will be pictures of it soon, once it actually becomes longer than 2 inches. It rather makes it an adventure, don’t you think? The knitted triangular shawl I’ve started is out of a Dazzleaire yarn – the autumn jewel-tone colors – in a straight garter stitch increasing each row. I’m looking forward to making this big enough to wrap around my substantial self for my walks. Not wearing items I have made is another failing I have noticed in myself so I plan to correct that this year as well. While I’m cleaning out my mountainous stash of yarns the main objective will be to make myself a few items for comfort, usefulness, and beauty. I’m tired of treating myself in the bottom of the list of things to do. What do you plan to do differently this year?

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Posted in Crocheting, Dyes, Gardening, Holidays, Knitting, Spinning, Uncategorized, Weaving

Posted by: Mare F | December 31, 2011

Hopes for the coming New Year.

In looking over the past year and the place where  I am now, there is really only one thing I would like to change in the coming year and this is something about myself I’m going to work very hard at changing. In all honesty I’ve spent the last year like an unsupervised child in a toy shop and I don’t think that I could have possibly been less focussed. This past week of winter break has been spent looking at my collection of tools – my looms, spinning wheel, brushes and swifts –  all acquired in the past 12 months, and planning my future with them. There are so many great things to do with fiber and I feel like I’ve just lost a year because I couldn’t make a decision. This is why my one working resolution for this coming new year is to become more disciplined. I will still be able to use all of my cool stuff, learn more wonderful things to do with fiber, be able to make items for my online studio, and maybe get to enjoy all of what I’m doing without losing track of time or deadlines. This sounds so simple now…

A couple of days ago I pulled all of my loose notes, patterns, booklets, and notebooks out to the kitchen to organize. YIKES! What I thought was to be an hour spent shuffling papers turned into almost 4 hours of hole-punching, paper shifting work. At one point I wanted nothing more than to go my couch and read The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras. When one spends a year accumulating information for not one, not two, not three, but four crafts that they want to pursue one really should be much tidier about the collections. On my hearth proudly sit notebooks for the following: dyeing, gardening, processing fleece, sheep, weaving, knitting, crocheting, spinning, and FUTURE PROJECTS! Have I lost my mind? I’m planning MORE projects? Is there an intervention for this? The good thing about this is that the future projects are in a separate notebook so what will be will be with them. I may or may not get there.

So what are your resolutions, if any, for the New Year? Will they involve fiber of some sort? In any event I would like to wish everyone a happy, healthy, and safe New Year. I’ll chat with you then and I hope that with your assistance I will be in a more comfortable place next year at this time. Oh, and on a lighter note, there is more snow on my blog than my on my yard.

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Posted in Crocheting, Dyes, Gardening, Knitting, Plants, Spinning, Weaving

Posted by: Mare F | December 14, 2011

Gathering supplies for the winter.

There are a lot of amazing people in my life and most of them have a great sense of humor. In a conversation over Labor Day Weekend I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to find some lichen and asked if he knew of a good spot. He hunts and fishes quite a bit so I knew that he would know some good foraging grounds. Within 48 hours he was at my house, in the dark, with a quart jar’s worth of lichen that he found that night. How can I hate this? On Thanksgiving morning I mentioned to another friend that I was going out the next day to get some birch bark and to look for black walnuts and he told me that he had just raked up his yard full of black walnuts, but that I was welcome to come and see what was still there. Doug, my SO, went the following morning and came home with a couple of walnuts, some husks, and 3 fallen birch trees. Two days later Doug came home with a small bucket full of black walnuts that our friend went into the woods and collected for me. I truly do know some marvelous people  AND no one has batted an eye when I told them why I want these goodies.

One of the science teachers at school came in with peeled birch bark and I believe I have another convert. We are making plans to get together over the winter and play with the various things that we’ve amassed. It will work well with her students and I wonder if I would have been interested in this when I was in middle school.

Now in an effort to be efficient, I’ve started a list for locations of the various flora is located so when next fall comes around I’m not scratching my head and wondering where I saw, heard, or picked up supplies for my winter dyeing this year. I can see it happening. I should probably list dates found, but that won’t apply to this year as I’ve started so late and my friends have started my winter stash for me. I have lots of mittens and hats to make for these great people as well as a loaf of pumpkin bread or two.

I’ve finally managed to get the rest of the mulch spread in gardens and I’m looking forward to mapping out the different flowers for dye sources next fall. I know I can plant marigolds in between my tomatoes, but I’m really not sure what else to plant where and I really am looking forward to charting it all out. I have direct sun bed, partial sun beds, and a spot I could place a plain old shade bed. Now I just have to sort out the plants. I think it will be perfect way to spend a cold, snowy January day with a pot of spiced tea. What do you think?

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Posted in Dyes, Gardening, Harvesting, Plants, winter

Posted by: Mare F | November 30, 2011

A day at the craft fair.

The past week has flashed past me in an alarming way. I do hope that everyone had a safe, happy, and healthy Thanksgiving. Were you brave enough to venture forth on Black Friday? I was not, but I’ve heard of some amazing savings that were had so bless you if you did go shopping.

November 19th was the annual Vo-Ag Craft Fair at Regional School 7 in Winsted, CT. I believe that this was my fourth year attending and it just keeps getting better and better every year. There is a huge assortment of vendors and talent filling both gyms and part of the cafe so beginning one’s Christmas shopping is not a hardship at all. I tend to run out of money before I run out of delightful items to buy.

The past few weeks have been spend knitting and felting hats for this show. Last year I ran out of felted hats about half way through the day, but this year I managed to make more than I needed which is lovely for my online studio at ArtFire: http://www.artfire.com/users/InquisitiveFelines . Updating the studio will be this afternoon’s project once the pot of chowder is on the stove simmering. Scarves woven of novelty yarns were a big hit and so were ribbed hats made from Lion’s Brand Homespun yarn. Keeping warm and fashionable this winter seemed to be the theme which makes perfect sense as our first nor’easter was in October.

As usual I met some wonderful people. My spinning wheel accompanied me since I thought with 6 hours of show I would be able to get some practice time. This brought  my first new acquaintance, a local woman who spins and loves to help others learn. It was a very informative 15 minutes and I look forward to seeing her again soon.

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Posted in Craft fairs/shows, Donations, Festivals, Holidays, Knitting, Spinning, Weaving, winter

Posted by: Mare F | November 16, 2011

The show, the show

In less than 72 hours I will be set up and ready to go at our Ag-Ed department’s annual craft fair. This will be my fifth year and I’ve loved doing it every single year. It also clues me in as to my own Christmas shopping as it always takes place on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  Actually the date is another thing I appreciate about it. If it were Thanksgiving weekend I would be a crazy woman all through the holiday trying to get ready for the show (as evidenced in the past few weeks), but since it’s the Saturday before I can relax and truly enjoy my long weekend with good food and good friends.

This is also my expiration date for some of the items that I sell. I take a long hard look at my products when I pack and when I set up my booth. I make the decision then which items become donations if they are still in my booth at the end of the day. The Ag-Ed fair acts as my annual alarm clock. I may forget which other shows I attend or when they are scheduled, but not this one so it makes a perfect time to do some “cleaning” of the ranks. I suspect that this tradition for me began years ago when my son was very young. Every year, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, we would sort through our things – he his toys, me my clothes – and donate what we felt we could pass on. It helped cut down on keeping things past their need and making us both think about people less fortunate than ourselves.  It’s a great memory for me.

So I will go home this afternoon and pull down the wicker suitcases that I store my scarves, hats, and sundries in, work up a mental table arrangement, and begin to let go of some of the older items in the process. It’s a good feeling to stop at the shelter on my way home from the show with my donations and it really does get me into the holiday spirit.  What do you do to start your holiday season?

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Posted in Craft fairs/shows, Donations, General, Holidays | Tags: , , , , ,

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