FO: Twill Blanket

This is the blanket that I squeaked in before the end of the year.

This is the blanket that made me realize it is entirely possible to start and finish a blanket in 2.5 days.

This is also the blanket that made the cracks in my sanity a little wider.

The timeline sorta went like this:

Thursday evening: 

I made up my mind that R's mom absolutely had to have a woven blanket for Christmas. I chose my colours.

Friday evening:

I measured out the warp.

Saturday evening:

I threaded the loom



If I didn't have to eat, sleep, use the washroom, go to work, or do some last minute christmas shopping, it would have looked like this by Sunday evening. As it was, I didn't actually finish this until the Tuesday evening before Christmas.



Between the selvedges and the quality of the finished fabric, this is definitely the best one I've completed so far.


We almost kept it for ourselves.

(** Not sure if anybody is actually interested in all the weaving details like the draft or the tie-up. If you are, just let me know and I'll post those deets.)

Next!

Can't have a naked loom hanging about.



I'm not exactly sure what this blanket will look like. It's going to be a bit of an experiment.

In which we explore the equivalent of "tinking" while weaving

Dear Tan;

You're right. I did not credit you the lines of weaving you did on the log cabin. This is why. Make sure your BigGirlPanties are pulled up, 'k?


In the knitting world, there is a saying called "frogging". It often comes into play when you are:

a) knitting and drinking
b) knitting (at least, attempting to knit) and playing tug 'o war with Dayna
c) knitting and not paying attention to the documentary R is watching until you hear the words "radical lesbian nuns"
d) knitting and watching an episode of SYTYCD auditions
e) knitting and realize that you've completly arsed up what you were doing for the past two hours of your life.

So you call your rugged, good looking boyfriend over to take hold of one end of the yarn and tell him to pull. And he says "Pull?!" and you reassure him that you did indeed mean pull. Then you watch him enthusiastically rip out row after row of stitches that you've spent the last two hours of your life knitting. (Get it? "rip it rip it").

Alternately, the slower way of undoing your work in knitting is called "TINK-ing". It means to painstakingly undo your work stitch by stitch by stitch. I believe the term was coined by someone's clever husband who noticed that "tink" is "knit" spelled backwards. There's a popular stitch 'n bitch in Toronto who meet at the Spotted Dick and their awesome tagline is "Knit. Drink. Tink". As you can see, it's acceptable to knit & drink - with the understanding that you might have to tink as well.

On the evening of 13 May 2009, you were visiting R and I in London. It was a night of great company, fascinating conversation, a meal that I can't believe you put into your mouth due to the amount of honey & Sriracha sauce you put on it, and drinking. As you will recall, there was even a little weaving (not "looming") because you were curious about the loom.

I showed you the basics and you exuberantly wove a row or two. I believe you said "wow" more than once. Then we were distracted by more interesting topics like hair transplants, world travel and the fact that we now allow Nori & Dayna on the couch. I believe you and R even watched a documentary but not the one about the "radical lesbian nuns".

To sum up the evening, there was:
a) weaving
b) dogs
c) a documentary
d) interesting conversation
e) good company
f) drinking
e) drinking and weaving

There's no easy way to say this, my friend. There is also no redeeming social value for it either, but...

The rows that you did, you did with an enthusiasm that would make any teacher proud. You TAN'd it. Unfortunately,the rows were...um... Tan'd under the influence and you didn't actually weave the full length of the blanket in some spots and you caught threads that you weren't supposed to. It happens.

Because I'm OCD, I had to NAT it back. (Okay, I was trying to be clever, but it didn't quite work out)

But at least a good time was had by all. Ihopeyouaren'tsad.

Please visit us again soon once you're over being traumatized by this post.

Yours,
Natalie

P.S. Did your dad find the answers he was looking for from your most holy and respected Quach ancestors?

P.S. #2: Has his hair grown back yet?

I know it's July...but I finished another blanket.

Went from this:



To this:



It grew a bit longer than I initially intended it to be. I let it languish on the loom for awhile but once I got started, it didn't take me long to finish. I just like having the loom dressed and ready with an ongoing project.



It makes a cozy wrap to snuggle under when watching movies like: Anne of Green Gables or In Search of the Castaways or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers !!!

I've been making R watch all of my old childhood favourites. He really missed out as a kid.

Once I was able to coordinate the collective attention spans of my parents for them to focus on the loom, their reactions were typical. My mom can't wait for me to make her a blanket and is tempted to try a project for herself (but likely never will). My dad keeps telling me that there must be machines that do this and I really need to get it motorized. Doing it "this way" is too time consuming and slow.

Sometimes I think he wonders if I'm actually his child.

GRED

The beginning stages of my grey & red blanket.



Warp's done. It was starting to bother me that I had a nekkid loom.



I'm exploring a new-to-me weave pattern called Log Cabin. I'm dying to see how the colours play out.

Mexican Fiesta Baby Shower

Here are some highlights from the latest baby shower I worked on for the past few weeks.  

The mommy-to-be is R's sister and we're super excited to meet the new baby who is due sometime next month.  Wanna know a great way to give my parent's a simultaneous aneurism? Excitedly announce at the dinner table that R and I are going to be aunt and uncle. Deep silence ensued while my parents worked that one out in their heads.  For that long, agonizing moment, they forgot that R had a sister.

The theme was a Mexican Fiesta and I volunteered to take care of the favours and decorations for the party. No way was I going to be responsible for poisoning a guest list of 60 people. I work much better with glue and paper.   

Originally, we were going to do a jungle theme because the momma wants to decorate the baby room as such. However, I stupidly thought that I would find more stuff going with a fiesta theme.  Newp.  Michael's had jungle wall decals with parachuting monkeys, safari felt shapes, animal wood shapes, plastic animal figures - you name it. Monkeys everywhere. Do you think I could find a sombrero or chili pepper lights in London? Ha!  I bitched to everybody who would listen how much I missed having easy lunchtime access to Kensington Market and Chinatown. At times like these, I even miss IKEA.  As it turns out, a good friend of mine called a dozen places in Toronto trying to source out these tacky things only to find out that they no longer stock chili pepper lights because these are not CSA approved.  It was difficult, but I had to let go of the obsession. 

My first brainstorm was to buy a bunch of mini cactuses as favours. Unfortunately, they're not really in season and they cost at least $2.50 to $2.99 each. Totally not in my budget for the number of people coming. Then I thought of doing up packages of salsa/hot sauce, mojito mix or spicy popcorn mix... but I didn't want to go to all the trouble and expense if people were going to just let it sit in their cupboards.  I decided to go to a local nursery to check out their selection of cacti and succulents anyways and I ended up having the epiphany that I'd been waiting for. I love when I have these!

I knew that I wanted to make mini pinatas weeks ago, hence all the balloons that got blown up. So I spent (you really don't want to know how many) hours making tissue paper pinata bases.

 [Tip:: I used 2 parts glue to 1 part water. The thicker it was, the faster it dried. If it was too watery, it just ripped the tissue paper. Believe me, you don't have time for the tissue paper to rip and get stuck to everything except the balloon.]

Here's the packaged product. After 45 balloon pinatas, I realized I left the opening way too big to close up with tissue paper alone. But I needed it that big in order to get everything inside. You better believe that at three in the morning, I was not happy when I realized this. After a significant amount of stewing, I let go of my initial ideas and improvised. I'm really happy with the finished display.

I varied the colours based on the tissue paper I had on hand. There really wasn't a specific colour theme again. I've discovered that I can't pick one or three colours and go with it. At least, this time around I just wanted everything to be colourfull and it worked well with the theme of a fiesta.


Wanna see the goods inside? I know you do.

At the nursery, I picked up a few packages of seeds for tomato, jalapeno and sweet pepper plants. I used a ceramic baby foot mold I picked up at Michael's to create plantable seed papers. You can also find them :: here ::  I blended some paper in our blender with water, strained it and plopped the mess on top of the mold. I layered on about 7 or 8 seeds. Then plopped another layer of paper mess on top.  (Plopping is a very key technique. I'm not even kidding - if you don't plop it on the mold in one lump, it won't bind when it dries.) Then, I pressed the water out with a sponge and dried it with my embossing gun. Ideally, I should have just let it sit and dry before taking it out of the mold but I didn't have the time. I have no idea if the seeds will germinate now that they've been blasted with concentrated heat for two minutes. Oh well. I never said I had a green thumb.  

Lastly, I packaged up some potting soil and placed it in one of those biodegradable pots that can be planted when you're ready to transfer the plant outside. I included planting & harvesting instructions and a recipe for either a tomato salsa, jalapeno salsa or greek salad. While I was gluing the recipes to the card stock, I realized I should have typed up a recipe for some sort of sweet pepper mexican dish. Too late. Aish. Greek Salad...seriously, what was I thinking?

Other side projects included :  

Mexican Mustaches as an ice breaker for the party guests. I LOVE these.

*R and my dad indulging my whimsy*

Turning a Curious George pinata into Jorge the Curious Mexican.

Felt garland. 

Succulents wrapped in tissue paper for room accents.

A baby name banner.

Fake flowers on colourful tea towels for a more festive feel.

And I finished the blanket...

I can't wait to do another fiesta themed shower. Pinatas are awesome. They're especially awesome when you crush them with your hands and the glue-y paper crackles while it crunches. It's better than popping bubble wrap.

Weaving in Time.

I'm not a weaving machine. I take things slow and easy. I fuss and scrutinize over the selvedge edge. I don't even get into a rhythm. I just do a few rows and then wander away. Come back. Do another couple of rows. Wander away.



It's very therapeutic.



I was amazed when I realized this weekend that I"m almost done. (And also in time for this to be gifted to its recipient. When does that happen in knitting for me? Never.)



Is it bad that I'm already thinking about getting a second loom? A different, smaller one - a rigid heddle for those of you who are familiar with looms.

As soon as he reads that sentence, R's going to wave the property tax bill at me.

I can tell.

If you can't find something to worry about - Stress about this.

I've discovered my OCD. It's not cleaning (*insert pause for audible snort*- y'all know it'll never be cleaning), it's not popping bubble wrap, it's not even knitting "just one more row". Evidently, it's warping my loom.

Technically, it's threading heddles and sleying reeds. And yes... it is as violent as it sounds. To my eyes. They better invent a seeing-eye dog who can do this for me when I'm 80. However, this isn't the cause for concern. (I've spent hours squinting at ginormous budget spreadsheets at work and did more damage to my eyes in two years than in four years of undergrad. This is nothing.) After a few hours fussing with the warp; trying to get the tension even - simultaneously trying to figure out how this loom works - I was ready to thread the heddles.

It only took me a few hours to go from this:


To this:


Yessiree! That's over 400 threads! One through each of those little metal loops in a specific order according to pattern. After I was about halfway over, I realized I was left heavy. And nope, wasn't worried about that either. I just figured out how to remove the extra heddles on the left side of the loom on each of the harnesses. Probably wasn't supposed to do it that way, but oh well. Call me smug.

Once the threads were through the heddles, each and every one of them had to go through one of these little spaces in the reed. I had a special hook that would catch the thread and help me pull it through. My OCD? I couldn't just do one thread and leave it. Nope. I was compelled to sit there and keep going until my bladder was making major threats about emptying itself on the spot and my blood sugar dropped to the point where my hands were shaking and I couldn't effectively use them to thread anymore.

Seriously, I was so obsessed with doing this over the weekend, I completely neglected everything. If it weren't for R having people over, I probably wouldn't have bathed my person either. I stumbled into the netherworld of warping looms and I LOVED it. Thankfully, R understood and just let me WALLOW in it. He helped me when I needed another pair of hands. He walked Nori without me. He celebrated my successes and listened when I needed to think out loud. This couldn't have happened without him.

My beginner class was fantastic and everything she showed me how to do on a table loom, translated into how I would work a floor loom. But there are still significant differences that I needed to figure out by myself. All in all, I'm happy I didn't end up with the world's largest knot on my hands. But that wasn't the worrisome part either.


On Monday, my sister and I had this conversation over our blackberry's.

Mel: Mom and dad were SO worried that you bought yourself a loom. For some reason. They're so weird. haha

N: What? What did they say?

Mel: Nothing. They just asked about whether that loom was YOURS and if you bought one. In that stupid, panicked way of theirs.

N: I don't get it.

Mel: Yeah, maybe that's just their natural panicked faces.

Now really, what could they possibly come up with to freak out about? They already know I'm living in sin and they've got their coping mechanism in place for that. What else is there?

Just for fun - and to make sure my parents KNEW what a "loom" actually was and what it was FOR... I sent them a picture of it and all my dad said was:

"It is neat. Did you set it up?"

OY.

On an unrelated note, this is how the spinning went! My first skein!

Savouring

I've been trying to embrace the quiet moments. My days are busy with lots of noise and a constant stream of information flowing in and out.  The silence between the words is what I've been craving.  December should be enjoyed and not full to the brim of oppressing obligations. Lately, I've been trying to wrap up 2008 as much as possible and allowing myself to let go of things that I just won't have time to do.


We're adjusting well to Life in the new city. The snow is beautiful and we haven't tired of it. Even bought that shovel finally - notice the singularity in that.  I should probably get another one before R dumps a pile of snow down the back of my neck as retribution. The house is cold despite what our gas bill says so I've been gravitating towards warm blankets, thick socks and heavy sweaters.  I'm trying for a (mostly) handmade Christmas and to simplify the gifts this year. I don't know why I always feel like I have to get people more than one prezzie. Partly, it's fun for me because I usually have a few ideas of what people will like, but it's not necessary as R will remind me.

Nori is having an awesome time. She's still puppy-like whenever we go out to the park and there's snow for her to burrow into. She never minds the cold and is still going into the river no matter what the temperature is. Evidently, Elkhound paws are immune to frostbite. Just today, she found the remains of some small animal skull and decided that it would be good to roll on top of it. Repeatedly. Yum.


Nori has a new friend who lives across the street. This is Tango. So incredibly lovable and placid. Their favourite thing to do is taking toys away from each other. In this picture, Tango is practicing his highly effective "I'm taller than you" evasive maneuver.


I picked up a new hobby and now I'm in danger of falling down another dark path to complement it. (I've been bitten by the spinning bug! Good lord. I'm in trouble.) These are my beginner coasters and were woven on a LeClerc Dorothy Table Loom. I'm currently debating whether to purchase the table loom or to just go with a 36" floor loom which I can get at an incredible deal.


I've made six wonky coasters (unintentionally, of varying sizes) as my beginner project and now I'm working on a matching table runner. Learning how to weave has been a fantastic experience. I can't wait to explore this more in 2009 with different textiles, materials and projects.




I'm such a sucker for a new hobby.