Crocheted Rainbow Hat and Cowl

  Project Dates:  10/13/2024 - 11/2/2024

     This was a fast-food project. Its purpose was to break an old habit that cropped up last year.

     I magnanimously proclaimed the year 2024 to be the year that all old projects would be swept up and finished. My “waiting to be done” bins had numbered to be six. Each bin held on average six projects and they totaled over thirty. An embarrassingly large number.

     In my defense, they have been accumulating through two decades, over six house moves, residing in packed boxes that were sometimes housed for years at a time in storage facilities.

     When I finally put together the current fiber room, the third one in my lifetime thus far, I unpacked a basement full of boxes, and repacked all fiber supplies, and projects, in one location.

     

            The bins were used to segregate projects in process. The discovery of how many there were resulted from this effort. Yikes!

            It’s embarrassing because one of my early life lessons, that I worked really hard on, and succeeded for a while, was to finish what I started. I loved the flavor of the month in whatever realm we are discussing including fiber art. As soon as I start something, it becomes boring, tedious, and off I was imagining and starting the next new thing. Over and over again. I had it under control for a couple decades, but somehow, it escaped my attention in my fiber hobbies.

            So, I proclaimed the year 2024 to be the year I finish. The plan was to tackle them one-by-one. A year is a long time, right! A game was devised, each project numbered, and a whimsical throw of the die picked the next project. It was a red sweater, knit from the neck down, with the first six inches completed. The fiber is a beautifully soft alpaca in watermelon red. 

            Out of the bin it came. I wrapped it around a mannequin. Dusted off the project notes. Pulled out other red fiber that was going to be used in the sweater. I even proceeded to finish the paper pattern. Then, without my knowing it, I stopped.

            I know, I know. How can I stop and not know it?” How could that be? Well, the boring monster appeared. An email appeared. Quiet. Inauspicious. A fiber farm that I had bought fleece from previously was holding their yearly auction. Fiber at a discount! In the form of a bidding auction. A game!

            Just one look, I told myself. I scanned every sheep, read about their fleece, micron count. My imagination went wild. I could see the fleece arrive, locally sourced! I saw myself spinning it. Making a locally source fibershed qualifying sweater.

            Fibershed is an organization helping to change the planet’s mindset about clothing in a planet and environmentally friendly way, which I wholeheartedly support.

            Well, of course I bid! It came! I had to spin it up! But it takes a lot of time to gently wash fleece. To hand card it. Wait, I had to have the right-hand carders. That took time to find and buy, and arrive! Then learning to card locks, a new experience! Finally got the hang of that.

            Then spun it up in sections. Two spindles of hand carded and wheel spun fiber later, I was bored again. I nearly put that aside several times, but forced myself to finish. Meanwhile, the red bomb sweater, hung on the mannequin, lurking in the room, silent, but loud.

            I ignored it. Staring at my wall of stash fiber, I was consumed by the yellows. They just popped out at me. Like they spoke to me. Everything else paled. It was a divine message! The wall is organized by color. A wonderful statement of art, and supply! But that yellow, and the nearby gold, pulled me in. What you need to know about me is that I have never been a yellow person. This was a NEW experience.

            Hooked! It suddenly came to me. A gorgeous yellow toned woolen cloth to weave and a sweater coat to make! Off on this tangent I went. 

Meanwhile, the red bomb of a mannequin kept staring at me. It loomed large and deadly silent. I ignored it, again. 

            It takes time to plan a weave, select the actual specific correct threads, sample a swatch, measure the warp threads of six colors for the warp, and then four colors for the weft. All in yellows, peach. Then, after measuring the final warp, unfortunately, I didn’t have enough for the weft! So I had to hunt and search, and purchase! How awful!

            The cloth took shape, months of work, and I ended up with gorgeous yellow cloth, meditating in my fiber closet, waiting for a flash of inspiration to become its next incarnation.

            I suddenly looked up and realized that, here I was, ten months into the year, and I had yet to finish the red project, let alone the other thirty projects. That was a sad day!

            After much knawing and complaining, I put the red project away. I put away about six other projects in the fiber room that were started into the “waiting to make” bins. The fiber room felt clean and ready to begin a new life.

            I needed to start again. To really only pick one project, finish it. I hadn’t been listening to my creative self, but to my brat self, who only wanted the next new taste. The only problem with the next new taste, is that over time, it speeds up, and eventually nothing satisfies. Nothing gets done. It is a spiraling addiction like many others.

            I planned a new game. Went through my list to only pick the in-process projects that I actually wanted to finish. Spun the wheel, and this crochet hat project came up.

            It was actually a project Dave started when he was trying to get involved with my passion of fiber art. Not really something he rings to. So, I picked it up, grateful for the smallish project, and finished it up. I made two hats and a cowl.

            I did, unfortunately, have to search for and buy from Etsy, beautiful horn-shaped wooden buttons dyed the perfect shade of light turquoise blue!

            The spell is broke, I hope! On to the next project! And only one, I promise!

Enjoy!

Alex

Abstract Face Punch

 Project Dates:  12/25/2023 - 1/19/2024

This was a short quick project. It was a kit purchased through Etsy from Chloe Art Crafts. This was one of my self-selected holiday presents. I was searching for a kit project. Something easy and new, in the sense of a new-to-me craft. Love finding and trying out new textile tools and techniques. Rather than invest in all the tools for a new hobby, I thought to test it out first with a small kit project.

It’s funny to me how some things just don’t cross your path until they do. I had not heard of punching until almost a decade ago now. A friend was into it and introduced her fascination with it to us. They were doing something a bit different which utilized fabric cut into small narrow strips and then punched into a background fabric. I’ve been curious about it ever since, though only now with just enough motivation and curiosity to actually try it out

The kit I purchased uses a multi-ply yarn. The design is reminiscent of the sixty’s abstract artist Piet Mondrian. The colors and design motif come straight from one of his famous painting. I did another project, a sweater, based on the same Piet Mondrian style. His design was blocks of primary colors with outlines of black lines. Yves St. Laurent also designed a short dress using the same inspiration.

When my sister and I were pre-teens, we received many different kinds of art kits as presents. We tried everything from color pencils to jewelry-making. Mom loved it because it kept us occupied for hours at a time. We tried paint-by-numbers, crafts kits to make tile ashtrays, and there was one even one that reminds me of this punch kit. I don’t recall how it was marketed, but it was a two-dimensional art kit. The background was a painting cardboard with a stamped design. The motif was abstract in the same style as this art piece from Chloe. The outline was done with black cord glued onto the surface. Then there were colored tile chips, like tiny odd shaped grains the size of peppercorns. After the block areas were outlined, glue was dispensed into the bordered areas and the colored chips sprinkled in to fill in with color.

This project went fairly quickly. The result is satisfying. The effort is probably not something I will invest more time with. It just doesn’t provide the same level of satisfaction as some of my other textile hobbies. It was a fun and quick tangent, but I will leave punching as an interesting side trip and occasional attraction, but nothing more. 

Enjoy!

Alex

Pokeberry Stash Blanket

 

Project Dates: August - December 2023

The last several projects I have undertaken have taken a familiar genesis. As I near the end of one project, I get an idea for another one. It becomes persistent. The nearer I am to closing the former, the more persistent and essential, or rather more imperative the next becomes. I am certain there is a psychological connection related to the desperateness of not having another project in the wings. What dire straits I would indeed be within if I find myself without a project in hand. The joke, is that I have several bins of projects waiting to be finished, a list of projects I want to try, but this one that becomes insistent next exists on neither of those avenues. It’s almost as if there is a petulant child that wants to have its turn, as if it never received its turn.

            I have managed to retain some discipline thus far. I did create a project file, and have documented along the way.

            One of the initial motivators was to weave a project that was handspun and dyed. It provides more control, theoretically, anyways. In actual practice, there is still a great deal of directional changes, and spontaneity and happenstance that alters the end result almost unrecognizable from the humble beginnings.

            Another motivator was to create a soft blanket or coverlet with a circular twill pattern, something that has intrigued me for a while.

            Lastly, I was hoping to make this almost exclusively from my stash.

            So, how did this fare? Since the pattern required a taffy weft for every other pattern weft, half the weft was handspun. The other half was inspired by my stash of possum yarn. After doing a sample of the light dove gray in the stash, I realized that a much darker, or even black tabby weft would better contrast the colored handspun. I looked for a match to the possum blend and found the original seller, but thankfully they have replaced the ten percent of nylon in the original in my stash with silk, retaining the possum and merino wool proportions.

            Wool fiber from my stash made up the handspun.

There was a beautiful light brown indeterminate wool roving that came to me in my early learning to spin years a couple of decades ago. The other was purchased more recently over the last decade whilst I was in festival mode, searching and adding to my stash regularly.

            I determined and weighed out how much wool I would need for weft, and also measured and cut my warp thread.

            Both the wool roving and warp threads were dyed using some leftover Dharmaset that had supposedly expired a year ago, but was ultimately still useable. All the stash fiber was hand-painted and dyed using this.

After that was done, I had left a large amount of pokeberry that decided to grow up in many of our flower beds. I collected and used this to overdye some of the warp and weft.

At the beginning of my fiber enthusiast expansion period, a time when I dove headlong into expanding into all aspects of fiber art including weaving, spinning, and dyeing, I had dyed several hanks of different wool threads with mullein and logwood. The logwood turned out a lovely blue purple, but the mullein, beautiful I am sure, was a bit too brown and yellow for my tastes. Three small hanks have lingered in my stash these past couple decades. I opted to throw that into the pokeberry bath.

An interesting accident occurred. I opted to mordant the mullein and logwood dyed fiber first. A lot of the logwood dye entered the mordant water, and I couldn’t believe how much dye came out of the fiber. Unfortunately, I didn’t think about taking a photo beforehand, just after the Pokeberry turned it a beautiful raspberry red. I take it back, I found a photo, just not very good resolution, because it’s buried in a larger photo of the section of stash it was buried within.

The piles of fiber were studied for contrast using the black and white photo technique. The goal was to have some gradient occurring in the color movement as the colors moved across a muted rainbow. The original design intent was to also have shading from dark to light move across the warp from one side to the other. The roving’s were bundled together into their designated skeins.

I spun a three-ply worsted choosing to spin each roving bundle at a time. Each single was spun, then the three singles plied. This was very fun and meditative to watch the color variations occur as each single built up on the spindle. Moving the singles through my fingers to ply onto a large bulky sized spindle was like weaving magic. My young feline friends learned for the first time to live alongside a spinning wheel. It was amazing how quickly they learned to leave it alone.

Once all of that was ready, I laid all the fiber warp and weft onto a table to arrange them. The warp was dyed purple to blue to green. the handspun ranged from raspberry to orange, brown, forest green, light greenish blue, to purple. It was a pleasant surprise, even though planned, to have the colors move from one end of the warp to the other aligning pleasantly.  This too was accompanied by my fur friends and while on the table, very surprisingly, let me arrange and sley the reed without any mishap or playful mutterings.

The loom, however, was another matter entirely. Keeping the cats away required constant attention during the weaving process. I get it. There were these tantalizing squiggly wool worms constantly waving in their face. What respecting cat would resist? But that was really only in the beginning. This wasn’t their first rodeo with me at the loom with their company, but it had been a while so they needed to relearn what toys were theirs.

Weaving went fast. It was fun to watch the pattern build up. It was woven very loosely to allow for fulling it later into something wooly, light, and fluffy. In a little over a month, the blanket was woven.

I often dither about fringing and how to edge the product. I usually overcomplicate matters. This time, I opted to leave some of the warp as fringe, no twisting, just a nice simple hemmed stich using same color weft on each end, raspberry at the beginning, and green at the end.

Oh, yes, I should mention that the last two half segments at the end, a beautiful darker green, were especially dyed to coordinate and contrast with the beginning weft which featured a soft and fluffy boucle. Another step in this project had to be added. The end had to be dyed to order! I say this tongue-in-cheek because I love a multi-step project like this.

Fulling was done by agitating gently by hand in lukewarm water until the fiber was locked into place. Then I put it into a dryer at cool temperature checking every few minutes until the blanket was nicely fulled. It finished by air drying on top of that large flat space made by the tops of the front load side-by-side washer and dryer.

The end result was exactly as anticipated. It is luxuriously soft and has that velvet soft feel like wool with a little lanolin. Perfect to take the chill off.

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