Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Busy Day

Busy Day today ~ Tracy came by and showed me how to dress the loom. It was so much easier for me since I was able to watch someone physically do and explain while doing and I took helpful notes. I also learned that I did the warp correctly except I counted wrong and ended up with 30 in each counting group so I will have a shawl and not a scarf for my first project. So I am presently taking a break from threading and figured I'd do a blog entry. I am just about finished with my 2nd batch of stitch markers. Then this weekend I will start pulling some yarn that I spun out and lable it so that come the 1st I can start posting my items online. So excited, last night Michael and I looked at property in MO online and we saw some very nice places. One had 40 acres with 2 creeks one tht was spring feed year-round and the other was seasonal. Plus 2 pounds. It was fenced and cross-fenced had several out building a workshop that was 40x75 and had a kitchen and bath in it. @ barns for animals and one for hay, gardens galore some of which were for flowers and it was about 1.5 miles off of the main road, so that means peace and quiet lol. I tell you I can almost taste those farm fresh eggs, plus it will be great to hang clothes out to dry in good weahter. This plae also had a wood furnish which is awesome and there is plenty of room to put up solar panel grids as well. Plus a stocked pond, which means Michael could fish till his hearts content lol. Yes MO get cold in the winter but nothing like NEW Englad cold and I am looking forward to having the 4 seasons again. A friend already said that she would set us up with some sheep!! How cool it that so we are just waiting to get VA crap cleared up. I am praying that the Lord will mak things right so we can move before Christmas. Well I need to get back to the loom and will have pictures to show later tonight or tomorrow. I hope y'all are having a good week!

CW

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Crazy Busy Month!!

Ok,
This month has been a somewhat crazy month and I did get some things accomplished. Finally got the loom in a good spot in the livingroom. I have spent 2 days straight working on stich markers and different color set-ups and this is the end results. I think I will use Artfire.com as my store since they only charge a monthly fee versus what other online selling avenue offer.

The tins I am using are the wilton favor tins. I thought this would offer a little more protection in shipping them along with padded envelopes!
I sat an I just cranked them out an then I put them in their little "shipping" disks.

I did another warp for the loom (a SHORT one), the first one was just way to long and it got tangled up. This one is only 3 yds. and not 11 yds. I will make one scarf at a time to start out. My friend Margaret was right when she said you might want to go with a smaller project to get used to weaving at first. Now I just have to link up with Tracy so I can actually see and do what the next steps require.

I have spun on bobbin for the weft and I hope that I have spun it correctly. I will use 3 colors, at the ends of the scarf there will be a lavender and hummingbird ( beautiful sort of metallic purple) stripes on each end and the middle will be the same color as the warp which is Carribean, a pretty blue color. Below is the Carribean and Hummingbird colors I just don't have a picture of the Lavender though.

I have been coming up with ideas for the other weaving projects. I have been coming up with color combinations and I have been logging them into my "weaver" sketch and color book. I did start the process of cleaning my office and did make a little headway, but I think once I get my other shelves in I will be able to get things in order. I have been feeling like crap for several weeks now and I eat when I feel hungry only to end up feeling like I have to hurl. I have been cramping up something fierce, Friday night wa the worst!! I kept having charlie horse cramps in my stomach, ribs and in my neck. The ones in my neck would go from the bottom of my neck right to the base of my skull.
So I walked around smelling like a mint stick lol. I used the absorbine linament and that seemed to help a bit. Plus I feel like I have a lump in my through, ya like when you swollow the wrong way and you get that lump in your throat until it goes down. So Monday I place a call to my doc to make an appointment to see what going on. Thing on the home front are good, getting ready to lock horns with the VA regional office yet again, somtimes I can understand why some veteerans would rather not use the services we have, cause they sometimes cause more problems than they're worth! Right now we are gettin estimates on what it would cost to get the outside of the house done. Since now that the home owners association has sent out a list of new fines. We need gutter work and the water damaged wood has to be replaced all stuff not covered by the insurance. This is damage from Ike. So now once we get all the estimates in we have to submit them to the FD depatment to get approval. Then I think once all this work gets done we will look to move.
We are done with TX, it may have some advantages for it's veterans, but the "personal" cost is not worth the headaches that follow. Plus they are building 2 hospitals less than 10 minutes away from where we live and the traffic is already a bear at certain times so this will only get worse. So we are looking to move to one of these areas MO, FL , Northern Arizona and Northern New Mexico. So anyone in these areas know of any 5+ acre hobby farms for sale? Have an awesome week all and I will be posting more pictures later this week of stuff. Right now I am going to put dinner on the table. I made Michael's favorite Liver smothered in onions & mushrooms with gravy, mash potatoes & corn. I'll have small piec of live with onions and shrooms corn and a salad. The question is will I be able to eat, so far I have only had a small slice of strawberry cake and that was at 6:30 this morning with my coffee. I got sick and went back to bed. Oh well, I am losing weight but this is not a healthy way to do so.
Y'all have a blessed week,
CW

















Monday, May 11, 2009

Wow this month is flying by wicked fast!!

Well things have been moving along at a pretty good pace. We have finally gotten the loom in it's some what permanent place until I think it will look better somewhere else in the front room lol. For awhile I thought I was out in the Amazon. For several night we had a Toad serenade, it was mating time and let me tell you I wanted to go and spray sleeping gas in the damn yarn. They maybe be small but sweet Lord in heaven they are wicked loud especially when you have 25+ in your back yard and they are all looking for a potential mate. I mean even with the bedroom windows closed they were loud. Every few hours Michael would have to do toad rescue and fish them out of the swimming pool. Then there was the "Big Bopper", yes the big bopper was about the size of a silver dollar and that was the green tree frog. I swore that our neighbor had a duckling in his yard until Michael caught the little guy. Man they are loud little ones as well, but the mating season seems to have finished. Thank you Jesus now I can listen to nice instrumental music at night to sleep by. This here is the "Big Bopper":

I have been busy doing my reading and what not for weaving. I have already done my warp on the warping board and Michael will help me tranfer that to the loom. I am for ever grateful to Clare for allowing us to get this loom on installments. I purchased a 288 pg. sketchbook that is now my Weaving book, and in it I have pictures of ideas for colorways for weaving and also will have the picture of the color(s) I want to reproduce, the way I want to warp the colors and also samples of the thread/yarn used to weave the project. So I am really excited about this I also have to finish up the yarn that I am using as the weft for my second project. I am also still working on yarn for my mom as well. Then I have my swap that I am doing this month and I am looking forward to doing another Fiber swap with the Fibre Swap group from ravelry. I just love being part of the ravelry community. I have meet some awesome creative women and men there. It is just wonderful, I am hoping to go to maybe 2 Fiber festivals this year. I will be going to the one in Boerne, TX in November hubby already let it be know at last years that this was going to be a yearly thing for us to do. I would love to go to the one in Taos. I know that we can't do the Estes Park one in CO this year because it is next month and finalcially we can't do it. Well I am off to get some things done before going to bed. Have an early day tomorrow I want to hang the drapes in the front room and then finish the warping.

Have a great night all,Ciao,
CW

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Here she is in here new home

Cinco Dancer Hi Y'all Happy Cinco de Mayo,
Finally the loom is set up though not warped yet lol. After wiping her down and getting the dust off I rubbed on/in Matco's refurbishing oil and let it set for about 40 minutes and then wiped it off. The wood has a beautiful Carmel color and I named her "Carmelita". Here are some pic's of her and the accessories:





She is not warped yet I am doing my home work reading an then watch a video on how that is done first. Have moved things around in the office to now accommodate Mr. PK now. He has been partially groomed, tomorrow after church I will groom him a little bit more. I figure if I do this with him say 30 minutes for the next 4 days he should be matt free and his new coat will have a
better chance of producing a good fiber harvest. Well I am dog tired did the flea market walk then Wally world for a few things and we got a nice sized charcoal grill. This year I will have a cover for it and when not in use it will be in the Gazebo. Well time for me to lay down for a few before getting dinner ready. Weekend 1 ,
CW