Month: August 2017

So, the library is now doubling as a craft room. Last weekend, we got this new cube storage unit, and rearranged some furniture, and now it looks like this!

The shelf on the left is holding most of my craft tools …not pictured are the four bins of fabric plus some extra sewing accessories. Also not pictured is a basket of leather. But yeah – I’m feeling pretty excited about everything having a home – and about this huge table that I can use as a work surface!

I finished this scarf for Stephen yesterday. It’s a grey linen yarn, with a cobalt blue cottolin yarn. Turned out very well, IMO – I love the look and feel of linen soooo much. It won’t be the warmest scarf ever, but it hangs well and Stephen said he likes it, so.

Started on another one last night – a wider warp – greyish blue with some cobalt and light peach stripes. I’m going to use a grey cashmere as the weft, with a couple of blue and peach horizontal stripes as well. Going for a sort of plaid look, I suppose. We’ll see how it turns out – am hoping it’ll look good! I ordered this cashmere yarn from an Etsy store and it shipped from France, so you know, trying not to waste it. Will post a picture once I finish this one…which might be a bit since I don’t have a whole weekend ahead of me to watch horror movies and weave. (sigh)

 

I went to bed around 9:30 last night, and was asleep before 10:30 – and omg I feel so much better this morning than any other mornings this week. I have such a love/hate relationship with going to bed early. I love sleeping, and love feeling rested. On the other hand, I don’t love hastening the next day (unless it’s before 5pm and the next day is Saturday) and I want to have as much time at home with my hobbies – and boyfriend – as possible.

Well, last night I finished the yellow scarf thing I was weaving (turned out fine, will probably use as a Christmas present for someone who really likes yellow), finished the episode of Grey’s Anatomy that I was on, and decided it was time for bed.

Lately I tend to be a little apprehensive of Thursdays. Today, for example, I’m meeting one of the sales reps and his customers for lunch, and then I have an appointment with my therapist, and then after work I’m tutoring. This puts me home around 7:30 or thereabouts, and basically eats up my entire day. It’s not all bad since the variety makes the work day much more interesting – but it also means that I’ll have catching up to do, and that I won’t get to see Stephen until tonight. Which is fine, but.

I also ordered some new yarn (one is a grey 100% linen, the other two are cotton/linen blends in light peach and cobalt blue) which should be delivering today – but that won’t do me any good since I won’t be home in time to use it. (I’m making Stephen a scarf in grey and blue, and making myself one using some combination of all three colors, probably. Or maybe just grey and light peach. Haven’t decided yet. AM very excited about it though.) Might end up weaving all weekend. This isn’t technically a new hobby, but it’s one that I haven’t practiced all that much, and I have new techniques that I want to try out (lace and the like). Exciting!! I need more friends who will do craft nights with me. Seems like it would be so much fun……..

 

Dear, lovely Stephen has said that it’s ok with him if I use the library as a craft room.

I forget how many hobbies I have until I try to fit them all into an organized space in one room. I need to find places for leather crafts, crocheting crafts, weaving crafts, drawing and painting, and sewing crafts. That might be it, but it’s a small room. And already houses several shelves of books.

So the biggest space killers are going to be fabric and yarn and leather. Raw materials, I suppose. Organizing tools should be fairly painless…lots of jars! I might mount a coat rack or something to hang the loom from – it definitely needs a home. And my leather tools/etcs (have lots of bottles of stuff) should probably have a shelf of some kind.

A shelf for fabric would be so nice, too – so that I can fold and stack everything and not have to feel like I’m exhuming a body every time I try to look through my fabric stash. The yarn ought to be able to go in a bin, though – don’t mind digging that up.

For right now though, I will probably just put everything into milk crates. That will be a step in the right direction, anyway.

I thought blogging about this might help me to brainstorm organization ideas, but doesn’t seem like that’s really working. I think I just need to get home and start doing it.

Sooo guys.

I decided to pick up my rigid heddle loom again and start a new woven project. To that end, I bought some yarn in cute fall colors and warped the loom. I had it all set up, and finally started trying to actually weave – and discovered that the yarn I bought was too heavy for the heddle reed I have.

So I got depressed and did nothing for a day or two. Funny how one failed project setback will make you think you can’t do anything right….

Then yesterday, I decided to try to make the best of the situation, and I ordered some new yarn for the warp, and planned to use the old yarn for the weft. This was going to be a pain in the ass AND the back because I’d have to UNwarp the loom and then REwarp it, which is hard on the spine. Or at least it’s hard on mine, maybe because I need to be using a taller work platform. At any rate, along with unwarping the loom, I’d need to salvage all the yarn I used, which is now cut into 6′ strands and would need to be tied together.

So you can understand how this salvaging job wouldn’t be filling me with glee.

BUT! I realized today that I’m using a 10 dent reed, which is definitely on the finer side. If I could use a 5 or 8 dent instead, this yarn should work! So, I just ordered an 8 dent reed to go with my loom. It was kinda expensive, so I should probably start planning to weave Christmas presents for everyone. (Don’t expect to get a woven Christmas present from me though – these things take time. I’ll see what I can do.)

Anyway, so I am excited about this weaving project again, having realized that I probably will not have to unwarp the whole damned loom. Very exciting. Unfortunately, I suspect that I’ll have to wait a bit to get the new reed since Amazon Prime does not sell them and I had to buy it from the loom manufacturer (better for the local economy anyway, I suppose…).

But anyway, wanted to share my excitement over realizing that I may not have to scrap this project. I would have taken pictures of my failed warp except I was too depressed, but I might take some of the salvage job. We’ll see!