I'm Warped!

And my loom is too, finally!

About a month ago when I had the flu, I had no energy for anything.  I did force myself to sit at the kitchen table and wind the spools that I use to put the warp threads on my loom.

Yesterday I got up feeling good and energetic.  I mixed up batch of dough for whole wheat bread and set it to rise.

Then I decided it was an excellent day to set up my loom.  I put my spools on the spool racks and was ready to crank it on.

There are several different ways to put a warp on the loom.  Since I am a semi-production weaver, I use the spool racks for ease of handling the 360 threads that I will be putting on for dish towels, placemats and napkins.

I will be setting my threads at 20 to the inch, since my sections on the back of the loom are two inches each, my spool racks have 40 spools on them.  I position them about eight feet from the loom so they unwind properly.

Next I thread the threads through my tension box.  This device helps keep all the threads at approximately the same tension so that there aren't threads that are too loose or too tight and cause problems in the weaving.

After I have the tension box threaded, I attach it to the back beam of the loom.

The threads are now coming off the spools and are ready to be cranked on to the sections of the warp beam on the back of the loom.

Then I start cranking and counting.  I looked all through my weaving notebooks for my calculations on how many turns of the crank equal how many yards, but couldn't find the information.  It's SOMEWHERE!

I wanted to put on at least 20 yards, so did 75 turns of the crank for each section.  Now I will only know how much I put on when the cloth comes off the loom.

The tension box is in place and I am working on the second section. 

Deiter was warned beforehand that there was to be No Touching of the threads.  He was a VERY GOOD boy!!!  He just sat quietly on a stool and watched the whole process.  I know he wanted to get involved!  He can be an amazingly sensible cat when he wants to.

All nine sections are finished and ready to be threaded through the heddles on the loom.  They are the little wires that you see in the background.  That will be a project for another day.

Today I have the dyepot on the stove again.  I'm dying the background for the Forest Secrets rug.  I am hoping for a nice dark blue green.  I pulled out some dark green from a previous project and am overdying it with dark blue. 

Tomorrow is the Blue and Gray hooking meeting.  I need something easy to work on so if I do more talking than thinking I won't mess up too bad!  LOL!!!

Hope you are having a great weekend.

Happy Hooking, etc!

Road Trip!!!

Early Friday morning Zip and I headed up the east side of the Susquehanna River to the Millersburg area.  The day started out being cloudy, but the sun came out shortly before lunch time.  It was still COLD and WINDY!

I just love the drive up the river on route 147!  It's a small quiet two-lane highway, with these beautiful old sycamore trees on each side of the road for miles.  They were planted after the Great War (WW1) to commemorate the men who were lost in battle.

The views of the river at this time of the year are rather dreary, because the hills on the opposite banks are still brown.  Once everything turns green, it's lovely.  The Susquehanna is a large flat river.  Many places it seems like you could almost wade across.  Yesterday the water was high and rapidly flowing.

We stopped in Halifax to have breakfast at Denny's Lennie's.  Corny name!!!  And from the outside it looks like a dive!  But the food is great and the portions are very generous.  And each time we have stopped there the waitresses are super nice.  I had a french toast panini which was stuffed with thin sliced ham, cream cheese and pineapple.  Delish!!!  Zip had the standard eggs over easy, bacon and really good homefries.  Then there are the desserts!  The have a list of the most scrumptious stuff ever.  We got those to go!  If you are in Halifax, check it out.

Then on to Millersburg.  This is the gazebo on the town square.

Oh, I forgot to mention WHY we are taking this road trip!  We're going to visit blogging friends!
All of whom live slightly north east of Millersburg in the Lykens Valley.  This is an area of lovely rolling hills and well-maintained farms, many are owned by Amish people.  And numerous churches.  It is sooo peaceful!

Our first stop was at the Brickhouse antique and craft shop, owned by PATTI from the 'Porch Sitting' blog.  What a delightful shop she has!  It is in their restored summer kitchen.

She has the nicest primitive handcrafted items.

Look at the stack of cute little boxes (Patti makes these).  There is now a stack of boxes living in my house!

She has a whole wall full of the neatest samplers.

Zip had a great time talking about the restoration of the building.  It has a nice old fireplace that I unfortunately did not get a picture of. 

And here is the porch of porch sitting fame.  We will be going back on a warmer day to enjoy that activity!  Thank you sooo much, Patti, for sharing your wonderful shop with us! 

Next we visited with BARB from the 'Fun With Fiber' blog.  She has a spinning, weaving, knitting shop in the lower level of her home.  What a nice cheerful studio it is!  So well-lit and everything neatly arranged!

Look at the rack of hand-dyed yarn.  Most of it is also hand-spun which makes it extra impressive!  Aren't those colors tempting?  And to the left are her handwoven shawls.  Plus she has both hand-knit and hand-woven scarves.

And these are just two of the looms she has set up.  And look how nicely her books and yarn are organized!

Here is Barb!  She is such an interesting person!  I could have spent hours talking about weaving and life in general.  I wish we lived nearer to each other.

Barb then followed us to TARRAH's house.  She has the "Pottery Shed' blog.  She lives in this lovely log home that I am sorry to say I did not get a picture of the outside.  Her husband creates this fantastic pottery.  She was having an open house Friday and over the weekend.  There's still time to visit!!!

And I love that rug under the table.  The colors are soft and muted and just right for the room!

Tarrah, as I said earlier, makes the painted boxes and lots of other prim creations.  I particularly liked these jars inside the holder made of wire fencing.

And here is Tarrah (to the right) and some of her friends who were attending the open house.

Thank you Tarrah for sharing your beautiful home with us!

If you have made it through this far, be warned that the day is not yet over!  I didn't plan to write an epic novel here, it just seemed to happen!

On the way back we decided to shop at Aschomb Greenhouses in Mechanicsburg.  We got to Harrisburg shortly after 3 p.m.  We were eying the bridges, saying to each other that traffic didn't seem too bad.  So decided to cross on the bridge and take Route 15.  As soon as we crossed to the other side OH DRAT!!, traffic backed up for MILES!  A string of cars, both lanes, as far as we could see!

We had stopped at Sheetz earlier and gotten coffee.  Zip reached in the back seat and got the dessert.  That sweet waitress from Denny/Lenny had provided plastic ware with the cake.  We had a picnic!

Zip chose the raspberry cake and it was the best!

We sat in traffic, inching along for about 45 minutes.  Finally we hit the open road and made it to Ashcombe. 

It's still too early for a lot of flower and vegetable plants, so it wasn't that exciting.  They do have pretty displays!

I loved these orchids!

They didn't have the haricot vert beans that I was looking for, so we came home with only kitty grass.

Ok!  That was our day out.  Thank you again, Patti, Barb, and Tarrah for allowing us to visit and enjoy your company!!!

I am so grateful to all the wonderful friends I have met through blogging!

New Hooks, More Yarn....Get a Life!

Monday was Kami's birthday so we took her out to eat last evening. She had injured her ankle over the weekend at the WW2 re-enactment by walking over frozen icy ground in high heels. Now she is hobbling around in pain! The doctor told her to stay off the foot and rest it. She needs a project so we went to Hobby Lobby after dinner.


We went in to get a ball of crochet cotton, a hook, and a book of patterns. You all know the story!!! She ended up with quite a few different colors of cotton thread and several skeins of yarn. I hadn't planned on buying ANYTHING! What is this box of sock yarn!!!

I LOVE SOCK YARN!!! Not that I knit that many socks. I just love the colors and those cute little skeins! OK! I'm gonna knit socks with this. Really I am!!!



We drove home from Brad and Kami's in a snowstorm! That groundhog should have stayed in his hole!

Then I got my new hooks in the mail. I saw the sponge handled hook on Cathy's blog Orange Sink. She said they seemed to work well so I decided to get one (or two). The wooden handled hook is my trusty old #3 Moshimer hook that I've used exclusively for twenty years.

If the new hooks suit me even half as well, I'll be happy.

This morning I've been working on my next weaving project. The loom is empty and looking lonely. I spent several hours with my weaving software, trying to get my draft entered and making sure everything is correct.

This is a wonderful tool for weavers! You enter your information and it simulates what your fabric will look like when it's woven. If there are parts that you don't like, you can change them. Or if a thread is placed wrong you can see the boo-boo before you thread the loom.

Next I will print a copy of my draft (I keep a notebook of them) and get ready to crank on the threads. I have a lot of spools to wind in the meantime! I'll show the next step in a future post.

Zip is working hard this morning cleaning the stovepipes for the woodstove and taking out the ashes. And here I am fiddling around on the computer like a lazy person.

Maybe I should do something USEFUL! LOL!!!

It Looks Like a Mess

And it is!


About five years ago I had a website for selling my weaving and thought I would like to do it again now that I'm back at the loom. I needed to do some inventory and see what I have left from the time when I was going to shows. That way I could decide what my next project should be.


I am primarily a weaver of table linens. Love those dishtowels, placemats, napkins and runners! Whew!!! Didn't realize I had so much stuff!




Since the last time I had a weaving website all my pictures were taken with my old Nikkon 35mm, I will have to do all the photography over with the new digital. That will probably take about a week to haul out all the props- the redware, yellow ware, the 1950's green stuff, etc.

Am I going to have to revise my colors??? What do you all think. I try to stick to rather traditional stuff. I'm not sure I can do the lime green and turquoise thing that younger people seem to like nowdays.

These white on white textured linens are some of my favorites. Not exactly prim though. I love the really nubby ones for bathroom hand towels.

Better get back to work before the little heathens get fur all over everything!

Speaking of which....

I got these lovely fake-o poinsettas on sale at Joann Fabrics yesterday for only a dollar! Real poinsettas are poisonous to cats (and probably dogs too). Every year I wish I could decorate with them but just know that Someone will just have to take a bite. These are the perfect answer!

Do I see your lips on the edge of the leaf, Deiter???

And here is Deiter saying 'Elvis! Eat your heart out!'
Or maybe he's learning new tricks from Joanne!

I want to thank all of you for the kind emails and comments on the passing of our dear Sophie. I so much appreciate your support. I can't believe that someone so small can rip such a hole in our lives.

When I finally get my weaving inventory sorted out you will find me here, in my little corner of the living room in my comfy chair thinking about hooking and throwing the shuttle. But probably taking a nap!!!

Until next time, keep on hookin'!

A Christmas Gift to Myself...

It's been a long time since I've done any weaving. Over a year, I think. And I've missed it!

I started weaving back in the 70's. I remember purchasing my first loom from California through the Whole Earth Catalog (remember that?) and bringing the huge box home from the freight station sticking out of the trunk of our '52 Chevy. Those were the days!!! I used that loom off and on for about ten years before I decided on an upgrade. I sold it to a good friend of mine and she's still using it.

My next loom was a Schacht Baby Wolf (the one in the pictures). There have been many looms in the meantime, but the Baby Wolf and my big Norwood are my favorites.

A few years ago I was lucky enough to find a used computer dobby for the Baby Wolf. That's the wooden lump on top of the loom.

There are three different things that determine the weaving pattern of the finished fabric.
The order that the threads are drawn through the heddles (those little wire things), How the harnesses (the wooden framses that hold the heddles) are tied to the treadles, and in what order you press the treadles with your feet. With the computer dobby, I program all these things into my computer weaving program and the machine does the selecting. All I then have to do is work the treadles.

The thinking is done beforehand so the weaving is easy!

The dusting off of the loom took some time. It needed a few minor adjustments due to the fact that a lot of the nuts and blots had loosened. And thank goodness the antique computer is still running (chugging) along. The Schacht loom company no longer makes the dobby mechanism so this one has to last for the rest of my lifetime. It still runs on Windows 98.

And here I am happily weaving away!

Even though I love the computer technology, I am a very traditional weaver. One of these days I want to weave an overshot coverlet. I at one time thought that spinning all the wool for it would be a wonderful project. Don't think I'm gonna live THAT long!!! hahaha!

These are some of the Christmasy fabrics I have woven in years past. The red and green striped runner has tiny gold threads running through it that did not show up well in the picture.

I'm heading back to the loom before I have to start cooking for our Christmas Eve party at Brad and Kami's.

Have a very Merry Christmas, everyone!