Mean Pumpkin

Well, this month is nearly gone already, which is hard to believe.  I snapped this picture of the Mean Pumpkin on one of my walks around town.  Actually the first time I saw it, the little pumpkin had a beer bottle stuck in its mouth, which seemed appropriate, considering what’s happening to it.  But by the time I came back the next day with my camera, somebody had removed the beer bottle!  Too bad…

I played a lot of hooky this month.  Fall was glorious here this year, with unbelievable leaf colors, and mild temperatures.  Andrew and I went on many, many walks, and even a few bike rides.

We climbed to the top of Hogback Mountain on Columbus Day weekend, which surprised both of us, since Andrew is a disabled vet who sometimes has trouble getting around.  It was a long hike back there, and the last bit to get to the top was quite challenging.  But it was worth the trip.

View of Harlow Lake and Lake Superior from the top of Hogback Mountain

Here’s one of the views from the top.  Harlow Lake is the gorgeous blue jewel in the center of the picture.  You can see Lake Superior in the background.  It was warm and a little hazy that day, so it’s hard to see where the Big Lake ends and the sky begins!

It was amazing how many people made the climb up to the top.  There was quite a crowd up there that day.  If you ever visit Marquette, you really have to go.

The very next day, we took a hike back to the Lily Pond, which is in back of Wetmore Bog, and southwest of Hogback Mountain.  All the trails are interconnected.

The Lily Pond was a total surprise.  We were expecting a little pond with a marshy area around it.  This place has to be one of the best-kept secrets in the Upper Peninsula!

Me by the Lily Pond. It was absolutely gorgeous back there.

Andrew snapped this picture of me.  It was a perfect, glorious fall afternoon in this incredible place.  We stopped and rested on the rocks overlooking the Lily Pond, and ate our snack there.  It was hard to tear ourselves away from it!  If we get another nice day, we may get back there again this fall, even though the leaves are down now.

Somehow the season changed, when we weren’t looking!  It’s been a lot colder since that big storm went through last week.  And I even had snowflakes hitting me in the face on one of my walks along the beach on the Big Lake last week.  Winter is closing in.

But I’ve been weaving up a storm on my new rigid heddle loom.  Molly Cat was afraid of it at first, but now she skulks around underneath while I’m weaving, looking for loose yarns she can grab at.

First project on my rigid heddle loom! You can see Molly lurking underneath.

Here’s my first project.  This loom is so EASY to use, and it’s even easy to warp.  I totally love it!  I’m working on my fourth scarf now, with plans for another as soon as it’s off the loom.

I also want to order some carpet warp so I can do some rag weaving.  I have several ideas for rag tote bags.  I used to do a lot of rag rug weaving when I lived in Tennessee.  I have LOTS of material already cut in strips, so I’m ready to go!

The business cards I ordered from VistaPrint should be here in another week.  When they come in, I’m going to try selling some of my scarves at Zero Degrees, the local art co-op.  I just applied to join, so we’ll see what happens!

Winter may be coming, but I have lots to keep me busy.  Plus I’m looking forward to getting out my snowshoes again!

Lake Superior from Sugarloaf Mountain, north of Marquette

Hope you all had a great summer.  Mine certainly had its ups and downs, but we’re still here, and we’re reasonably healthy, so I can’t complain!  Didn’t do much sewing until September, when I pulled out a bunch of blocks and decided to put them together into baby quilts.  I’ve gotten two done, with the last one laid out in the floor, waiting to be sewn together.  I’ll get some pix once I finish the last one.  Then I can set up an assembly line to quilt them.

It may be a while before I get around to the quilting part, though.  I’m also a weaver and a spinner, and I’ve been bitten hard by the weaving bug again!

Weaving used to be a pretty good source of income for me when I lived in Tennessee.  I wove rag rugs, and sold just about everything I made.  But banging away on that big loom was just too much for aging shoulder and wrist joints, and I was getting tired of it, so it was time to move on.  I sold my big rugs looms and looked ahead to the next chapter.

Rayon chenille yarn is wonderful stuff to look at, and to feel.  It dyes beautifully, drapes amazingly well, and produces beautiful handwoven items.  I thought, hey, I can weave this into scarves, shawls, and throws, and sell them.  I bought a bunch (and I mean LOTS) of this yarn on ebay and was ready to start weaving!

The sad truth, though, is that it’s the yarn from hell.  This stuff tangles if you look at it cross-eyed.  It’s very easy to twist while warping the loom, and then you wind up having to untangle the fringe so you can knot it.  All in all, a very unpleasant experience, repeated several times.  I never got the first rayon chenille warp woven off my loom.  The upshot was that I sold the whole mess, loom, yarn and all,  and washed my hands of weaving.

Until last week.  Someplace in my online travels I stumbled across rigid heddle looms.  Like many weavers, I had dismissed them in the past as being toys.  But at this point in my life, simpler is better.  I don’t want to have to deal with long warps, and threading multiple heddles.  I always found complicated weaving patterns very frustrating since I  invariably made a mistake that I never found until several inches later.  Unweaving, like unsewing, is NOT fun!  So I usually stuck to plain weave, which only requires two heddles.

Rigid heddle looms are supposed to be very easy and quick to warp, too, which is another plus.  I’m looking at a 24″ Ashford rigid heddle loom.  This way I can weave shawls if I want to, but the loom isn’t too big for smaller projects like scarves.  I think I can also weave with fabric strips if I keep them around an inch wide.

The End Of Summer Blues inspired me  to pull out my trusty old Ashford spinning wheel.  I bought her back in the mid-80′s, which really doesn’t seem possible.  A new tension spring and a good cleaning is all it will take to get her humming away again.

We’ve been getting out and enjoying the beautiful fall weather.  The leaves are at their peak here, and the colors are breathtaking, especially when the leaves are lit up from behind by a late afternoon sun.  But they were coming down in a colorful fall shower of leaves yesterday, so they won’t last much longer.  Winter will be here soon, so it’s good to know I’ll have lots of projects to work on as the days shorten and the temperature drops.