More looms

I bought myself an early Christmas present: a Swedish band loom. I wanted one four years ago when I first heard of them, but I started small with an inkle loom to see if I'd like weaving bands. And I do! So when I saw one on a Thanksgiving-Black Friday-Early Christmas 10% off sale, I decided to go for it. 

It's kind of hard to see with my messy background, but it's a really simple loom. You sit in front of it, as it's pictured, with the warp running from left to right. The cloth beam is on the left and the warp beam is on the right - both have metal ratchets and pawls to advance the warp. There's a pulley on top of the tall post in the middle (just out of the picture) that is used with the foot treadles to raise and lower the two sets of heddles. You weave perpendicular to the warp, passing the warp from front to back and back to front, which takes a bit of getting used to since most other weaving you sit in front of and pass the weft from side to side. What makes this loom better, in my opinion, than an inkle loom is that you can have a much longer warp and you don't have to raise and lower the heddles by hand, leaving your hands free to keep weaving, which makes it go very fast. 

I started another Christmas ribbon to try it out. The warp is 6 or 7 yards, so it's going to take a while! The shiny knife at the bottom of the picture is a weaving knife - beveled but not sharp and used to beat the weft as I weave. 

I also recently acquired my tiniest looms: they're about 2 1/2 inches square. I bought them at Cost Plus World Market and thought they'd be a fun little loom to try out some color or texture combinations or make a little tiny weaving. The instruction book is actually pretty good - I flipped through it and it explains weaving in correct terms and shows how to do both tapestry and plain weave on this little loom. The box says "not intended for children", but I think it might be fine for a 10-12 year old, though a larger simple frame loom might be easier for a child to work with.

Finished the Christmas band and made some yarn

Here's the finished Christmas band I wove on my inkle loom. It's 3 yards long and 5/8" wide. I'm not sure what I'll do with it. I might dress up some glass jars with candles in them - I made some candles last weekend but didn't have the right dye (gel food coloring does not work with soy was, despite what I read online) and my green candles look more like key lime pie. I have proper candle dye on order. But right now I just like looking at it. Maybe it's too soon after weaving it to think about cutting it up.

I also finished plying some fiber I spun last year. It's chain-plied Targhee/bamboo blend. I waited to ply it until I learned how to chain ply - if you ply two different colored fibers together you get a barber pole effect when the two colors combine. When you chain ply you are combining one long twisted fiber with itself serially, so the colors mix more evenly. That's the look I wanted for this yarn. 

The wheel didn't stay empty for long. I received the fiber at my spinning guild Christmas party gift exchange last year. It's very pink and not my color, but I thought I should spin it anyway and perhaps use it to knit up a baby item as a future gift for someone, or perhaps something else for a pink-loving friend.

Now I am faced with project paralysis. Which of my many, many projects to work on next? I think right now I'm going to do a bit of sewing. My husband asked me to make him some hops bags for his home beer brewing. Here's a picture of what costs $7 from a homebrew company (ok, the one that costs 7 bucks is 1 inch larger than this one, but still) Correction - he's since told me they actually cost $2 each. Yes, it's a muslin bag with a drawstring and the inside seam allowances aren't even finished. So glad I sew. 

A year of projects and a recently completed UFO

It's been almost a year since I posted on this blog. If you follow me on my Instagram account: lori_sews, then you have seen my projects over the last year. If not, then here's a round up of projects and some related crafty purchases, from most recent to oldest.

First, a finished UFO. I started these pumpkins probably 15 years ago (actually 2 pumpkins and 1 gourd). I got as far as stuffing them and had all the leaves and stems cut out and interfaced the leaves. I carefully had stored all the pieces with the pattern (McCalls 4189) in a ziplock bag. Why didn't I finish them sooner? I don't know. They sat on the top of my sewing bookcase for almost all those years and then went into storage while I was in Germany. After moving back and unpacking they again went to the top of a bookcase. I saw them the other day and thought it was time to finish them and enjoy them! 

I made the small and medium pumpkins - the large size must be huge!

I tried out some tapestry weaving. This is sort of a sampler, designed as I wove, just to try out some different shapes and techniques. I used a Hokett loom - handmade looms by Jim Hokett, who unfortunately no longer makes them. I have a small (7x8) and medium (9x10) size; I used the small one for this project. 

 

Small and medium Hokett looms

I finished knitting some socks. These were my "work" socks because I knit them during Tuesday lunchtime knitting meetups with other knitting employees at work. But since the pandemic, I've been working from home, so these became my Webex socks - I knit them during reviews and other meetings I attend remotely when I need to listen but don't need to present or take notes. As other knitters may find, knitting actually helps me focus and listen to meetings and keeps me from wandering off to check email or do other work. As long as it's easy knitting and not lace or complicated patterns. Now these will become my work-from-home-socks during the winter.

Regia sock yarn, just a simple stockinette

I've started on a new pair of work-socks, which I am also calling "Webex Socks" I'm knitting these for my husband.

More Regia sock yarn. I have a lot, but it's the best for socks in my opinion.

Weaving in progress - I'm working on a Christmas-themed band on my inkle loom.

I bought a new spinning wheel last summer. It's a Daedalus Starling XL electric wheel, made of carbon fiber and 3D printed plastic. I absolutely love it!

Wool/silk blend 

First yarn made on the new wheel - it was a freebie fiber they sent with the wheel

I also bought two new looms this summer! My weaving guild was thinning out their rental looms and selling them to members at a great price. I couldn't resist. They're table looms from the Mountain loom company (now since closed). The large one is a 28" 12-shaft and the small one is an 18" 8-shaft. I cleaned them up and now they're ready to be warped. 

A thorough cleaning!

Fleece prep. I'd resisted buying a whole fleece for a while because of the work involved in washing and combing, but I gave in and started with a 1 lb fleece from the Deboulliet breed. I washed half of it and then combed it and discovered that it's actually quite fun - well, the combing part at least. When you comb, you pull align the longest fibers and then use a "dizz" to pull them into a long roving. The shorter fibers that are left behind can then be carded into batts.

Drying the washed fleece

A big decorative button I bought in Latvia came in handy

A basket of roving and batts of the shorter staples

I did a lot of spinning in July when we had "Tour de Fleece" - it's when spinners around the world get together to spin during the Tour de France bicycle race (usually virtually and this year definitely virtually). The race was postponed but we spun anyway. Here's what I spun:

Merino/silk blend on my drop spindle

I liked this action shot!

Alpaca - I actually just finished spinning this today

Some finished wool yarn.

Machine embroidery. I finally tried out the embroidery on my Pfaff Creative 3.0 by embroidering a muslin bag to store some of my Blue Face Leicester fiber.

Sewing! I made some pajamas. And some more pajamas. I do hope to make something other than pajamas but I needed them.

My "go-to" pattern for pajamas: KwikSew 2811 

My other "go-to" pattern for pajamas: KwikSew 2821

A new serger! This is the Babylock Triumph - a combo coverstitch/overlock. I have used my Evolve coverstitch/overlock for 18 years and it's still great but showing its age. I'm keeping both though.

So much bigger...and whiter. 

I'm knitting a sweater. It does have sleeves and they are done. I "just" have to pick up and knit the border along the front and neck edge, then block the pieces and sew everything up. My least favorite parts of knitting! But I do need to finish so I can wear it this winter. 

More spinning. I tried to make thicker yarn than I usually spin. 

More sewing. His and hers NASA-themed sleep pants. Yes, more pajamas!

I sewed the pajamas because I wanted to use the fabric remnants to make masks:

Some sock knitting:

Regia sock yarn

Outdoor chair covers. The last sewing project I showed on this blog was the large cover I made for our outdoor couch. I finished the chair covers a few months later - yay. 

I almost forgot my other big purchase last year (I did make a few, didn't I?). I bought a Sailrite sewing machine. I didn't take any photos of it though, and it's put away in its storage case and very heavy, so I'm not going to get it out now to take a picture. It's a great heavy duty sewing machine. I bought it because sewing the cover for the couch pushed my Pfaff Creative 3.0 to its max - at one point it stopped and I got a message saying it had to rest! Now if I have anything heavy weight, I'm using the Sailrite. Here's a picture from the Sailrite company website:

And finally, here's a weaving project I completed during a course I took at Stitches SoCal last year. It's called "clasped warp" weaving.

That's it! Just a few projects this last year. I have so many more project lined up, of course. I had to make a list because my head spins when I think about what to work on next. Do I warp the loom to weave some towels? Sew a top (NOT pajamas!!)? Finish my mini quilt? I did work more on it, but I haven't sewn on the binding yet. I have a Christmas-themed embroidery project queued up. I want to finish prepping the other 1/2 pound of fleece because I bought two full fleeces this summer (yup, I did). I have some singles to ply into yarn. I'd like to make some Christmas candles using some empty yogurt pots and maybe use the band I'm weaving to decorate them. 

Fiber arts

Last month the Huntington Library and Gardens had a Fiber Arts Day and members from the weaving and spinning guilds from the Los Angeles area gathered in the rose garden to demonstrate. 

It was a beautiful day and the roses smelled so good too!

The spinners and weavers were eager to chat.

When I got home, I was inspired to get out my spinning wheel.

At the Fiber Arts Day I learned there's a weaving guild that meets on the second Saturday of the month and a spinning guild that meets on the fourth Saturday (and the American Sewing Guild meets on the third Saturday of the month - convenient that they all meet on different Saturdays but I don't know that I can devote nearly every Saturday to fiber arts!). I did attend the spinning guild meeting last month and made a few new friends. Tomorrow I'm going to the weaving guild meeting - my first time attending.  I haven't done any weaving since I've moved here but I think I'll start a project soon. I have an idea for a band I want to weave on my inkle loom.

I also found out about the Weaving and Fiber Festival, held every year in May, and was just in time to go to it this year. I may have made a few purchases at the festival...

Fiber to spin, yarn and yarn kits to weave, and new tools for weaving and spinning.

 Add this to the haul from the LA Country Yarn Crawl in April:

The yarn stores in the area offer free patterns and 10% off the yarn for it.
Of course they choose the luxurious yarns that are too tempting to pass up!

I have to juggle my interests, doing one for a little bit of time and then moving to another, but I still manage to do work on a little bit of everything.

The little quilt has turned from pieces...

into an almost completed project.

I'm learning to crochet granny squares using some cotton yarn I purchased in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Not sure what I'll make with it - maybe a bag or something.

I finished knitting some scarves, from the pattern book Curls by Hunter Hammersen. I'm working on a third one using some of the yarn I bought from the LA Yarn Crawl. 

Full shape while being blocked

A lot of orange!

I also have a sock knitting project, but I keep it at work for my Tuesday lunch time knitting meetups with co-workers.

And today I did some more sewing. A coworker wanted to make a costume for an upcoming Cosplay convention and I offered to help her. So she came over today and we found a pattern in one of my sewing magazines, traced it, made a muslin, made some changes to the pattern to match the character, and sewed up this vest:

She wants to be this character from a video game (it's Barbarian Armor from Zelda - I had to look it up!)

I think that brings my project tally up to date!