knit 1 girl 1

That light bulb moment

knit1girl1 — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:44:25 +0000

I’m shattered after a busy week of being here, there and everywhere.
The good news is that I have been able to get some things made, including a cowl that will be for sale in the very near future once it’s had it’s photo taken.
I have been keeping up with my aims from my previous post and am now on my third sample for my CoA. It’s proving to be really beneficial to do go back to doing samples as it’s getting my head to finally click into place as to how to construct weaving drafts and then how to merge drafts together to create patterns. It’s even more of a good idea to actually read through the weaving books I’ve got instead of flicking through them as I can actually learn something from them. Who’d've thought that would be possible. The book I keep going back to at the moment is Janet Philips’ Designing Woven Fabrics. I spent a good chunk of last year humming and hawing over whether to buy this book as it’s a bit pricey, but eventually caved in. I’m so glad I did as it’s really well set out as the first section of the book goes through the basics of designing for weaving and sets you up for weaving a sample blanket which has different threaded sections and then changes the treadling for each block. It’s one of those things that’s easier to read than describe. However, it did click a big light bulb in my head as to how to start merging different blocks of patterns together to then get my own designs. Very cunning.
The second thing that clinked the design bulb on in my head was playing around with weaving software. I’ve had the demo for Pixeloom for a while on my mac and hadn’t really played with it too much. So, I started to tinker with it last week and then discovered that Fiberworks PCW was available for the mac as well now. So I downloaded the demo for that was well as I wasn’t quite gelling as quickly with Pixeloom as I wanted to. Don’t get me wrong, both programs are great and they both do very similar things in the process of designing, but Fiberworks was just feeling a bit easier to use for me. It has got me finally realising now how this whole weaving thing works now and I finally feel that I am getting the hang of this fully in my head. I just now need to make some more cash so I can get the full version of the software.
Anyway, apart from my brain finally getting back to working again I’ve been starting to get myself set-up for doing classes and demos locally in the village as the knitting lessons I’ve been doing with my friend and her army of helpers has seemed to developed an interest amongst the girls to start knitting. Fingers crossed I can get something sorted in the next couple of weeks to get a class up and running to keep the momentum going, and also hopefully get a class going for grown-ups as there’s been a few interested in learning as well.
I’ve also been busy with Clyde Coast Guild stuff as it was Dunoon’s turn to host the meeting this month, so a hardy band of us sailed over on the Western Ferry to Anne’s house (via Sandy’s house) and myself and Karen got warped up on the tapestry looms to see what we could do. Karen went for a tapestry based on a photo her daughter took of a sunset over the Clyde. While I went for a beach scene which turned into something trying to resemble Portencross Castle.

Ok, so it does look like my 5 year old did it, but it’s not bad for a first attempt, and it was great fun to do. I can definitely see myself doing more of this stuff.
Finally, the last bit of Guild stuff that I’ve been involved with was a demo this morning with the Ripe Bunch in Greenock. This was a group of lovely ladies who were so enthusiastic to see myself, Innes, Sandy, Kirsty, and Moira come along with our wheels, looms, and knitting that they all came up to have a chat and had a go themselves. I’m really enjoying being able to get out and about and show people how much fun this weaving and spinning lark can be.
Hopefully, my next post will have some pics of my new designs and hopefully of some stuff that will be going up on Etsy for sale.
Until then, keep calm and weave on:)

Trying to overcome procrastination

knit1girl1 — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:08:41 +0000

Ok, so it’s February and my ideas of trying to blog regularly have gotten a tad waylaid yet again. But I have been busy procrastinating and creating various things in the meantime.

First of all, 3 sheep decided to come into my workroom.

These sheep were quite demanding and asked for shawls as it was a bit nippy outside. Being the kind person that I am I obliged.

3 wee sheep wi' shawls

One has now found a new home, but the other 2 are waiting for new homes and can be found in my Etsy shop.
I have been continuing with my weaving and wee Doris came to help out one day whilst I was weaving my new bathroom blinds on Vicky the Viking.

This is the first time I’ve woven with linen, and as usual with my weaving I’ve learned a few things along the way, like linen really loves to slip in the warp under tension. Also, the sett wasn’t quite right as the washed fabric didn’t pucker up as much as it was meant to (it’s meant to be and M’s and O’s pattern) as I should have done more weft picks between each repeat. However, it’s done and the blind is now up in my bathroom and looks much better than the blind it has replaced.

Being a true believer in children being put to work I made Thom help me make his moebius scarf that he’s been wanting since he saw the one I made for myself. He chose the colours and helped with measuring the warp, and he even wove a few bits himself. How the children of the 21st century are going to survive when they’re older I don’t know as he got fed up with it fairly quickly and left me to do most of it.

It looks fab and just fits over his big head. I really need to make some more of these soon, especially for selling as I’ve also managed to get my head back into business mode and hoping that I can finally get Knit 1 Girl 1 off the ground this year.

My main achievement over this past month has been to finally get my first sample woven for the Certificate of Achievement in Handweaving through the Guild of Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers.
I decided to use a merino/alpaca warp that came from the stash of yarn the my lovely gran gave me years ago (the main reason why I got into knitting and weaving was to get through it all). I wanted to see how the warp held up to weaving as I wanted to use the grey I had in it with the shiny sparkly handspun that I’ve done from the lovely batt I got at Christmas. It all was going so well until I decided to try and add some more warp ends whilst drinking one Friday night. It took me a week to look at my table loom again as I was frightened of the mess I had made, but it was amazingly fine. Again, drinking wine/cider whilst doing yarn/fibre things can be achieved.
So here is my first sample.

I’ve still to wash it but I’m quite chuffed with how it turned out. I just need to do lots more but I’m now ready to plough on with it all.

Finally, I came across an awesome shawl pattern – Ovate.
I frogged back a shrug I had made in Rowan’s Alpaca Chunky as it was too big and decided to make this shawl with it.

It knits up easily in 2 evenings and is a really nice and simple pattern. And it looks fab on. Think there may be another of these in handspun at some point.

This month my aim is to get some more samples done and make some handwoven items for selling.

Oh, and I forgot, I just bought a Tapestry loom which needs played with as I’m going to be showing people how to use one soon. It’s a hard life:)

Happy 2012

knit1girl1 — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:27:46 +0000

Happy New Year everyone and hope it’s a good one for you.

I’m hoping that 2012 is going to be the year that I really do get my act together and just get on with things. It’s got to happen at some point in my life.

To help me with this I’ve started a fibre journal which I’m going to use to write down everything that I make each day so I can track how long it takes me to do things, and also so I can remember when I did each project. I’m not that great at keeping these type of things going, but I’m going to try.

I managed to get my weather scarf cast on last night.

I used a different blue handspun for the cast on and I’ve got the rest of the colours going in the following order: Maximum Temperature, Minimum Temperature, Wind Speed, Daylight hours, Rainfall.

I spent a fair bit of time last night trying to figure out the best way of doing this and have decided to take a rough average between weather obs at Prestwick, Saltcoats, and Dalry and fudge it from there. Not amazingly scientific and I’m sure my lecturer for weather instrument accuracy at Reading Uni would have a heart attack, but who cares. I decided against doing sunshine as it’d end up being a thin line for the year at the rate the weather is going, so opted for the number of hours between sunrise and sunset instead as that will gradually grow and shrink over the year. I’m sure more adjustments will be made over the year, but at least it’s started.

Weather fun

knit1girl1 — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:18:28 +0000

Living on the West Coast of Scotland you get used to expecting it to be windy, but recently it’s been getting a bit too windy for my liking.

I’m currently stuck in the house as we’ve another storm blowing through outside and there’s no point in attempting to take my car out. It has meant though that I’ve had time to get the house a tiny bit sorted after the Christmas madness and start to organise my projects for the New Year.

Of course, I’ve got weaving that needs done. My poor blinds are still on Vicky and I really need to warp up my table loom for the samples for the Certificate of Achievement (one day I’ll get started). But in the mean time I’ve got lots of money from Santa, I’ve been good, so I can make the Debbie Bliss Cowl Neck Sweater I’ve been dreaming about for a couple of months.

Santa also delivered 2 bags of shiny fluff from FeltStudio UK, one of my favourite indy dyers/fibre sellers.

I can’t wait to spin this stuff and see what it turns into.

I also got a couple of Martin Storey pattern books and a Mason Dixon knitting book that has got my creative juices rumbling.

The big project that I’ve been sorting out as I need to start it on the 1st January is the Weather Scarf KAL that I’m doing through a group on Ravelry. This is completely and utterly keeping my dormant weather forecasting/meteorology inner geek going as I have to knit a row every day to show what the weather is doing. This was a bit tough to try and figure out how to do it as the weather can change so rapidly here on a constant basis. So, I’ve decided I’m going to knit a certain number of stitches to show the value for different criteria in different handpsun yarn (not all spun by me as one is from the incredibly talented Breagha Yarns, aka Innes Carmichael).

From left to right I’ll be knitting:

Orange – Maximum Temperature in degrees Centigrade (1 stitch per degree)

Green – Maximum Wind Speed (1 stitch per knot)

Blue – Total Rainfall in 24 hours (1 stitch per 1 mm)

Yellow Mix – Total hours of sunshine (1 stitch per hour)

Dark blue/red – Minimum Temperature (1 stitch per degree)

Grey (not in photo) – 1 row to separate months

Obviously, this is likely to change as depends on how it turns out and I want it to be a fairly organic thing. But I’m hoping it’ll turn into an interesting shape and if I run out of yarn I’ll spin more to make it more fun.

I’ll post up progress updates as this goes along, and I am going to do this KAL and get it finished, oh yes I am:)

Weaving again:)

knit1girl1 — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 20:53:23 +0000

Hello and welcome to my blog.

It’s been a while (well over a year) since I last blogged. Life kept on getting in the way and then lots of procrastination at the same time too. However, I am now back in the mind-set to blog about my random yarn-related fun.

I’ll start off with the happy news that Viking – my big Norwegian floor loom is warped again and weaving away. It’s been nearly a year since poor VIcky has had a new project on her as a double weave runner got stuck on there for far too long. So now she has linen blinds for the bathroom getting woven on her.

I’m loving weaving with linen as it’s so crisp and non-fluffy and looks nice and ordered. Strange that I like things ordered since the rest of my life is so chaotic.

Talking about chaotic, Christmas is coming and I’m trying my hardest to be organised this year and not end up making things till very late on Christmas Eve. This year I’ve cut back on who I’m making things for which has massively taken the pressure off and there’s actual hope I can do stuff for me in the run up to the big day. Of course, the chances of my plans going horribly wrong are also high.

I’ve been working on a few things recently, hats for me to wear as the West Coast of Scotland has kicked into it’s usual wintry windiness. Thom, my 5 year old bundle of fun, is wanting a woven mobius cowl so hoping to get that done in the next couple of days. And I’d better get some Christmas decorations done.

The main thing I’m procrastinating over is getting started on the Certificate of Achievement in Hand-weaving that I’m going to attempt and do. It’s set up by the Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers, and it’s aim is to make you try every aspect of one of the crafts so that you can learn and improve your skills.

My new table loom is sitting in the corner going “warp me, warp me, I want to do samples” so I’d better get a warp would soon and crack on with it.

Finally, I’m trying to regenerate my web-site and I’m wanting to get back into trying to make things to sell, as well as spreading the love about weaving, knitting, spinning, and all other fibrey-fun.

I promise my next post will be a lot sooner than my last one:)