Back and Berries!

I know, I've been gone a very long time!  I oversaw a massive move at work and was so exhausted every night that I didn't make anything at all for four months... going a bit crazy by then... and I've only just now begun picking things back up.  Made two inkle belts for the boss and a coworker, since part of the move involved a spreadsheet, the use of which threw out my wrist, leaving me with only weaving or stitching as craft opportunities.

We spent this past weekend at my grandparents' place in the country.

Picking dewberries.

They tend to make your hands red. (That's Himself's hand over by mine.) They have nasty prickly thorns -- my right arm still looks like I've got measles, with little red welts all over it -- but they're worth it.

They lead to great preserves.

Recipe:
1 cup sugar
1 cup berries
put them in a pot over medium heat and stir until it starts to look like syrup
put them in a jar and process as normal.

No pectin, no added water, no anything else.  Just goodness!

(Other options: jelly, jam, cobbler, pie, or straight up and fresh off the bush.)

Rigid Heddle Mats

I made these two mats a while back on my rigid heddle loom.  I used the Sugar and Cream yarn, which I love -- it's the same yarn as in the star blanket I made a while back.   It was just a simple weave, not trying to get any fancy patterns at all (although I did have fun with my graph paper plotting out how to warp it to get fancy patterns in plain weave).  Overall, I'm pretty pleased.  I didn't weave in the ends when changing colors, as it really bulked up where it duplicated (the yarn's so thick), and I figured I'd have to do something with the edges anyhow, as I'm not yet overly steady on the tension at the edges. 

You can't really tell from these pictures, but this one (that I made first) is longer than the other.  They were intended to be placemats, but I didn't measure properly when warping on, so one's placemat-shaped, and the other's squarish.  I realized when switching that there wasn't enough yarn, so left only a very small gap for fringing in between the two.  I think I may just zigzag over it on the machine to hold the fringe in place, rather than knotting ... any opinions on that?

Not bad for functionally a beginner, though, right?

(I did do several pieces 15 years or so ago, all with some sort of scratchy earth-toned stuff that I've seen in weaving shops since ... I prefer non-scratchy finished products, so I prefer working with things like this.)

New Fiber Arts Shops on Hwy 290

Hello all!

We went to Austin earlier this weekend, stopping by my grandparents' place in the little town of Carmine halfway there (claim to fame: the bank was robbed by Bonnie and Clyde -- they even have a plaque commemorating it). Along with gingerbread pancakes at the Magnolia Cafe, I wanted to try out a new weaving shop in Brenham I'd heard about at Winedale a while back.

Driving up to Austin, passing through Paige, I as always looked left and saw the little sign for the Paige Historical Museum and thought it might be nice to look in... and then I looked right and for the first time ever saw a sign for a business! On the way back I had to stop, and I easily found what may be the only business in Paige:Yarnorama! I wish I had an interior picture, but had no camera this weekend (the above is from their website). It's a lovely and exciting store, with roving, weaving materials, spinning wheels, masses of sock yarn and handpainted yarn and silk yarn and anything fancy you could ever want. Friendly people, too.

Having spent all my extra money at Half Price Books in Austin, I couldn't buy anything, so I went on down to Brenham.

There, into Fibers (sorry, no picture at all). My 6th grade art teacher, Mrs. Fowler (who it turns out is nationally known as an inkle weaver and has written articles on the subject), had us all use inkle looms to make belts. I bought the loom afterwards and loved it. When I saw someone at one of the Winedale historical events with an inkle loom, I told them about Mrs. Fowler, and the weaver knew of her and told me to come to the new shop in Brenham. It's a lovely shop, very big and open. It's certainly central Texas -- there were people in there with the same accent as my grandparents' German (actually Wendish, but who's telling?) farmhand, who's been in this country for generations, so the German modified itself beyond easy recognition but left its traces in the accent. It has tons of weaving, spinning, knitting, crochet, and probably other stuff as well. (I think I saw some scrapbook supplies.) The help desk/check-out counter is made from display cases showing lovely antique tatted and other fiber arts items.

Both certainly worth a repeat visit; both like nothing we have in Houston (If we do, Houston people, please tell me -- I've heard that the nearest weaving shop is in La Porte, and I never go that direction).

Backlog!

I still exist, I really do. Things have been a bit hectic at work (I'm on a break at the moment), as we're moving everything to a new wing. So I come home and cook dinner and fall asleep. But I've taken a few pictures of fun things, so I'm going to queue up a few posts (so there's not a glut all at once) about:
- The Beard Hat I made for my kid brother
- The sweet little sundress I made for myself
- The scarf the knitting group at work made for me
- The team of rogue road repairmen (when called, the City says they're not doing work in the area) that make it difficult to get out in the morning and think my yard's a tip
- The cable-heavy sweater I'm making Himself with scratchy yarn, and the Aran-style sweater I'm making myself with excellent yarn (not that I don't like him, I just don't trust him to actually wear it, and don't want to waste excellent yarn on something that's not getting worn!)
- The placemats I wove on the rigid heddle loom (yay!)
- The flash-drive cover for my boss
- The baby-girl-camo sweater that's nearly on its way to my hunter friend's new daughter

See you soon!

Projects

Finally the camera card is back! Here are two of the projects I'm currently working on:

I like this little Roma tomato plant. The lovely tomato you see in the middle has been that size and that color for some time now, and the internet suggested that perhaps cooler temperatures might encourage it, as it's been over 85 every day; it hasn't changed much in three days inside, but we'll see. It was a dollar at the grocery store as a little 4" seedling, and it's done pretty well so far!

My other plants aren't doing as well... the City was doing water main work, and tearing up our street, and roped off all trees and shrubs along their way, including a little pear tree I've been loving and nourishing for several months. I come home one day and they've torn out my little tree (but none of the neighbors' roped-off shrubs, just my little tree and a scrubby bush next to it) and put it in a pile of dirt off to the side. I asked a fellow about it the next day, and he said, "we'll put it back." A week later, they still hadn't put it back, and the bush had been thrown away, so I gave up and put my little tree in a pot my mother brought around... it really doesn't look too good, and I don't think it'll make it. Very sad. I'll put in a complaint with the City if it dies, asking them to replace my tree (and my bush, and my grass, etc.), but I don't have much hope -- I'm still fighting them for charging me $400 for a leak they caused and didn't report, when we had no water for two days while their nicked water line was flooding the street. Meh.

In other news, though, I've finally got back out my rigid heddle loom -- hadn't touched it since high school. Thanks to Linda S. for helping me refresh my memory of how to warp it up! You can vaguely see my attempts at a plaid, but, as I've now learned, my warp threads are too thin for it to show well, so I'd either need to make this a very loose weave (which I can't manage, especially around the edges), or try again with thicker warp. This shadow-plaid will be a runner for the guest bedroom / craft room, which is in a blue-pink-purple color scheme (Himself doesn't go in there, so he doesn't mind!). It's been fun, and I'm getting better -- what you can't see rolled up on the beam at the front (besides the ripped-up plastic bags I used as waste strips) is all the wobbly-edged-ness and failed attempts at a twill weave from the beginning part. But onward and upward!

In more "other news," the pigeons are gone -- up and left one day -- I know it's probably wishful thinking, but I'm pretending the mother took the babies to a nest nearer the ground. There aren't any cats or other predators that can get into our yard, so far as I know, so I'm telling myself they're safe somewhere.