Rug warp

I spent some time today and put on a rug warp on the Hammett. Of course I had some trouble with the warp, I wonder if I will ever be able to put on a warp without any problems? Is that possible? I love the way the Hammett has a back beam that comes off and the back roller and it  allows me to put a small stool inside the loom, in order to thread the heddles. I would never be able to thread without this because it would just be too far to reach. On the Gilmore the back beam pivots up and allows me to thread, but it isn't as deep as the Hammett. For the weft I am going to be using some cotton that I bought on E-bay. It is already cut, I think it was material that was used for sheets and these are the unused ends. Hopefully I will have some of it woven by tomorrow.

I just take a couple of pins off and this just lifts off, easy
to take off and replace.

This is showing my little stool that I use when
I thread the heddles, it was another find
at a thrift shop.

Amy

Finished Warp

This is my second try to publish this post. I tried yesterday and when I went to add a picture, it said that there was an error. I purchased a new IMac and I have been using a pc, so even tho I used Mac's when I was working, I haven't used one for 7 years.  Change is hard! I finally got my warp off of my Gilmore. I looked back in the blog to where I talked about getting the warp on  and it took we over a month to get one warp off! I really need to speed up my weaving. I have been working on the Hammett and I am hopeful that I will get started on some rag rugs soon. I hope to do some scarves on the Gilmore for my next warp. I have to cut the napkins that I finished and hem and wash them before they are actually done.  Today in the mail I got one of Gail's cute Halloween cards, thank you Gail.

My fabric just off the loom, what a stack!

Amy

Every Day Cards for Kids

Here are the last three cards I've made recently, all for kids:

Yes, these are a few of my favorite things that kids would like, too. This is all one stamp stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored with Copics. It is mounted on foam tape and the other pieces are attached with my Scotch Advanced Tape Glider (ATG) which is what I use mostly for adhesieve. The ribbon is tied to the left side to finish the card.

As I said before, cats are one of my fav things. So here are two cats playing with each other in a First Impressions stamp. They are colored with Copics and colored pencils, mounted on foam tape with CAT stickers stuck up above.

This is the last card for today. The bike is stamped and die cut from a Sizzix/Hero Arts Framibilites  and stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink. The grass and banner are die cut from Taylored Expressions. The ribbon is 1/4" wide checked grosgrain tied in a bow. The little "road trip" stamp company is unknown. The white corregated card behind the bike is from a light bulb package and distressed with Walnut Stain Distress Ink by Tim Holtz for Ranger.

Birthday cards

Gail here again. I have two granddaughters who have birthdays this month so here are the cards I'm sending:

The image and phrase are both on one rubber stamp but I don't know who made the stamp. The green lacy border is by a Martha Stewart all-around punch set. The image is colored with Copics and is stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink. The ribbon is a silky feeling one with wired sides.

Here is a big 6" square card with a lacy border from a Martha Stewart all-around punch set. The center image is applied with foam tape to make it stand out. It is one stamp that is stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and the green border is sticky back paper ribbon.

Halloween

Gail here.  I've been busy making Halloween cards.  Here they are, hope you like a long post.

The pumpkins, phrase and  the word, "tricks" are all rubber stamps that I've purchased over the years. The wonky square papers were cut with Spellbinder's Nestabilities on the Cuttle Bug. The arrow is from Sizzix/Hero Arts die/rubber stamps combination called Framabilities. the leaf is a wooden piece and the buttons I've had a long time, probably from JoAnn's.  I can't tell you the maker of the papers, cardstocks.

Edgar Allen Poe, don't you just love him? Especially at Halloween time. There are many rubber stamped images on this card, including Edgar. The birds are all various stamps as are the two haunted houses with the bats flying around, the phrase, too is a stamp. The feather is one I made with aluminum foil, tag board and black distress ink by Tim Holtz for Ranger. I don't know if you can see it, but the raven on the feather has a red eye with some Plaid Royal Coat Dimensional Magic on it so it pops out a little. The grass was cut with a die from The Cat's Pajamas.

 This is a dark card, kinda hard to photograph. The houses are from a die by Tim Holtz for Ranger. The words, "Trick or Treat" and the Pumpkins with a cat on the left side are rubber stamps. I don't know the manufacturer. The three black spots above the houses are brads with a slight shine on them. The words are cut out with a die from another Framabilities set from Sizzix/Hero Arts.

I'm not really into witches unless they are as cute as this one. The rubber stamps are: the web, the spider, the witch and the words, all stamped in Memento tuxedo black ink. The sign is attached with orange jump rings and it was cut out with an oval die and decorated with marmalade Distress Ink. The image is colored with Copics, the three orange dots are just sticky backed dots stuck on. The fence is a die from Taylored Expressions.

The rubber stamps are: the corn stalks, both pumpkins, the frog and the "Hey there Pumpkin!" They are colored with Copics markers and three square brads were added to the right of the frog as was the tiny picket fence from Taylored Expressions.

This is one big, cute witch in her bloomers that was colored with Copics markers and then hand cut and attached to the card with foam tape so she stands out. The Happy Halloween is a stamp, stamped on a card, trimmed and added to her hands. The yellow strip along the left side is a sticky back braided thread.
That's all the Halloween cards I have.

collections

Gail here with a pic of a table in my dining room. It is mainly of two chairs, the one on the right belonged to my granddaughter and she gave it to me when she decided she didn't want to play with her American Girl doll any longer. The one on the left came from my sister, Diana. She gave it to me because I collect little chairs. Thanks, Diana, I love it.

nice Amy

the sweater and how lucky that you won two things.....maybe you should buy a lottery ticket.......and yes, of course I love that garden art....very country which suits me just fine.....Gail I love the pumpkin swag and know it took quite awhile to create.........where is the purchase you got at Goodwill last week, Amy...you have not shared it with us....

Harvest Time, Squash that is

I have harvested my Delicata and Dumpling squash and I am rich in the stuff.   I loaded most of them into my truck this morning and tried to donate them to our local food bank but they were closed until Monday...so I brought some into the house to sample...I have one of the Delicata, (some people call them peanut squash) in the oven and if I really like it I might bring a few more in the house.   Even though they are a winter squash, their skins are a little tender so not sure they would keep too well.   The Dumpling have a tougher skin and are very heavy though small....I am sure if I threw one at someone they would get a big injury.   I also harvested most of the beets and a big cabbage yesterday and made pickled beets.   I am saving the big red cabbage for a giant cole slaw for my daughter's birthday dinner.   The garden is about done though and it is always bittersweet for me...I do get tired and need a respite, but the winter time here is long and bleak.

Another Win/Garden Art

Every year the RSVP volunteers are given a luncheon. This year because of budget cuts, the luncheon downsized to a dessert bar. They also have tickets for door prizes and this year I won 2 of them. First was a folder with all fifty new quarters on a map and the second was a hand knitted sweater. The sweater is wool and was knitted by one of the ladies in the Project Warm-Up group. Project Warm-Up is a group of ladies that knit or crochet and make hats, scarves, lap robes, afghans, etc. for the many agencies that provide for people in need. Every year they knit or crochet about 6,000 things. The sweater has fish buttons and little fish swimming on the bottom which looks like waves. Also on the back of the sweater is a knitted anchor. And it fits too.
I am including a picture of some more garden art. I thought my sister might like this idea. It is a shovel with a birdhouse on the top of it.

 Sweater front with fish buttons-it is on Millie the Mannequin. I
rescued Millie from Goodwill, but she didn't have a stand.
The next time I went to Goodwill I found an IV stand that just
fit her, perfect.

Sweater back-see the fish swimming at the bottom.

 Close-up of the anchor-this sweater is really a blue color

 Birdhouse on a shovel-you can see some
beds in the back that we grew some little
pumpkins on-ignore the weeds, that's
what I do

Amy

Road Trip

Nordic Hertiage Museum

 My buys at Weaving Works-those are cones of bamboo

We are back from Seattle and yes it did rain, but not very hard. The first thing we did was pick up our son and take him to the Nordic Museum http://www.nordicmuseum.org/, It is located in the Ballard section of Seattle which is where many nordic people settled. It is located in an old school building and is three stories tall. Very interesting, check out their website. I was interested in seeing Margaret Bergman's weaving work. They had an area with her loom and on the wall behind it were her textiles. She had a coverlet that was made in two pieces and sewed together with everything matching and the seam just barely visible, wonderful. If you don't know about Margaret Bergman, just google her name and you will find a little bit about her history as a weaver.  Our mother was a Norweign and I found the info about when many Norweigns came to the United States. I know that our family came when the United States offered free land in the midwest and my mother's grandfather came at that time and stayed in the Midwest. Many Norweigns came to Seattle instead of staying in the Midwest because it reminded them of Norway. Now this is terrible to say but I figured that my mother's family came here because they were as poor as church mice but the museum said that the people who came at that time were landowners in Norway, in other words the middle class. Because of the cost of coming, the poor were not the ones who came, interesting, Sorry mom for all those things I thought about our ancestors.
We also visited Weaving Works.http://www.weavingworks.com/. It was stuffed with yarn and more yarn. I bought a little bit home with me. I also got a new temple and fabric wash. I really needed more money.
Of course we had to stop at Goodwill in Seattle, Trader Joes and the Asian market. We found things to buy everywhere we went! Later I will show you my buy from Goodwill.
Amy

Good Day/Bad Day

Diana, I love the caterpillar, The edging you gave to me is out in the weather and I haven't done anything to it! And Gail, I love the Halloween garland, so cute.
Today was one of those days that got better later in the day. This morning my husband and I took my son's dog to the Humane Society because they were offering shots and microchipping for a very low price. Of course everyone else in town thought it was a very good price too. We waited in line for 3 hours! When we got there and the line was clear out the door and down the sidewalk, I thought about turning to my husband and saying "let's go to the vet."But we stayed. Later when I told him I thought about just leaving and getting the shots elsewhere, he told me he had thought the same thing. Our son was in Seattle and they had hired a dog sitter but when we went to their house, the sitter was gone, she only worked until 1:00 and my son didn't come home until about 4:00. So we had Henry longer than we thought we were going to today. But this afternoon I answered an ad on Craiglist for some weaving wool. I went and bought about 28 partial cones of rug wool. It had belonged to tapestry weaver, I got to see some of her tapestries and got some wool too. Her daughter, who was selling the wool, was settling her mother's estate and she told me a couple of names of people who were starting a weaving guild in my town, so I need to get in touch with them. Also I won a weaving book from http://www.eweniquelyewe.blogspot.com/ called, "Weaving As An Art Form"by Theo Moorman. When I bought the wool, the seller showed me a tapestry done in the Theo Moorman technique. How cool is that!
Tomorrow we are going to Seattle to visit the Nordic Museum, http://www.nordicmuseum.org/. Hopefully I will have some pictures to share about it.

My big buy

My big win

Amy

Halloween

Hey, Gail here finally after a long dry time of creating anything. This is a banner I made for my grandchildren who live about 5 hours from me and who I don't get to see very often :(  I started with a 6" piece of cardboard, trimming it to a point half way down the sides then covered with colored cardstock which was glued directly to the face of the cardboard. Some of the symmetrical shapes were cut using Spellbinder's Nestabilities dies using my Cuttlebug. I punched holes with the Crop-A-Dile and strung them together with a type of yarn of undetermined content I purchased at a yard sale for $.12 a skein. Have a wonderful Halloween.

musings from me

Amy, sometimes you speak a different language with your weaving and not sure where you learned all that stuff, but we are all impressed for sure.   Your work is beautiful!   And what a good idea to volunteer where you like to shop...helping others, and getting good deals too.   Here is a photo of the caterpiller that I painted from one of the edgings like I gave to you.

Temple

I ordered a new temple from http://www.paradisefibers.net/ yesterday. I like to order from them because they are in my state and their things always arrive so quickly. I don't have a temple now and have been using the bottles of water with an aligator clip but with 2 looms in a small bedroom,  I just do not have the room for that. I have been warping for the little counterbalanced loom for my husband,  I am hoping to see some dishtowells come off of it. He thinks it will give him something to do when his gardening is all over.  My husband took the reed that came with it in and had it cleaned with a blasting of plastic pellets and it cleaned up really nice. It is a 15 dent reed and I am just using a 15 sett, hopefully that is enough for this fiber. Yesterday I went and volunteered at a local thrift shop that helps pay for our local mission. I straightened up areas and hung up clothes. I found a piece of four yards of wool fabric that I think will make a nice rug. I found a picture, the fabric, some yarn and a book and only paid a little over 3 dollars. I got a 30% discount for spending a couple of hours helping. Sometimes it pays to volunteer.
Amy