Peach shawl woven from recycled yarn and variegated sock yarn

Got this shawl off the loom just before lunch.  Here’s a quick shot of it.  I was really pleased with how the self-striping sock yarn worked out.  It created a really nice muted stripe pattern.  The purple and lime green really zip it up.

Andrew thought just throwing the shawl over the rocking chair was a good way to display it for a picture.  He liked seeing my spinning wheel in the picture, too.  What do you think?

The picture could be a little sharper, but it was a quick shot.  The anti-shake feature on my camera doesn’t work when I turn off the flash.  Don’t know why they made it like that.

Andrew wanted to go fishing this afternoon before the weather turns bitter cold.  So I went with him and took a walk in the snowy woods.  He almost caught a BIG steelhead, but his line broke, and it got away.  I happened along right after he lost it, and he was not happy.  But he’s pretty much recovered now, and vows to get it the next time.  And he will, too.

When we got back, I worked in a few yarn ends on the shawl, and twisted the fringe on one end.  I’ll finish the fringe on the other end tomorrow and then wet finish it.  It always looks so different after you wash it and let it dry.

Already have my next project in mind!  Burgundy and pink for the next one.  Recycled yarn, of course!

Hope you all have a great New Year.

This didn’t quite happen in Marquette, but it’s reasonably close…

Kid Rock came up to the Upper Peninsula last fall to shoot a video. I finally got around to watching it tonight. Great song, and even better, it features the Pictured Rocks, over by Munising, which is about 40 miles from here. Lake Superior really is that beautiful turquoise color. After seeing this, you’ll understand why I fell in love with the Lake and the UP the first time I ever came up here.

Sock yarn on left, and recycled peach yarn on right

Wound a new warp onto my rigid heddle loom Monday afternoon.  I used a peach acrylic I recycled from a thrift store sweater that called to me until I went back to get it.

Got a wild hair and decided to weave it with a strand of variegated sock yarn in the weft.  You can see that it has lime green, lilac, and white in it, as well as peach.

Wow, this shawl is really coming out great.  It would have been pretty by itself, but the sock yarn is really bringing it to life.  It has a real tropical feel to it that brightens up a gray winter day.

Also weighed my warp with a couple of pop bottles with water in them when I wound it on.  That made a huge difference.  I struggled with tension problems and loose threads with the purple shawl.  Plus it was a somewhat fuzzy yarn, which caused a sticky shed.  This one is weaving up so much easier and faster.

Peach shawl on loom

Here’s a shot of the weaving in progress.  The bright sock yarn is muted by the peach, but it still shows up.

Finished unraveling another sweater last night.  My old yarn ball winder died the other day after a long and useful life.  I’ve been limping by on one I bought at a yard sale a while back, but I ordered an electric one the other day.  It’s been shipped already, so I’m looking forward to seeing how that one works!

Purple shawl handwoven with recycled yarn

Hope you all had a great Christmas.  It was a pretty low-key day for Andrew and me, since we don’t have family in the area.  We decided to go out to eat on Christmas Day, and wound up at the Big Boy, since our other choices were closed.  They had a very nice holiday buffet though, with turkey and stuffing and the works.

Then we rode over to Presque Isle Park, to watch the waves crashing into the breakwater.  No matter how many times we see it, it never gets old.  We also saw someone in a Santa suit jogging around the park.  It was a gray foggy day, so that red suit really stuck out.

Finally got my purple shawl off the loom yesterday.  This is my first project with recycled yarn, and I was quite happy with how it came out.  It finished at 64″ long, and 21″ wide, plus a four-inch twisted fringe at both ends. (Click on the picture to enlarge it.)

Finally figured out what the problem was with my camera.  It has different settings for fluorescent, incandescent, daylight, etc.  It’s amazing how that improved the color.  Can you believe my dad was a professional photographer?  It sure didn’t rub off on me!

My artful arrangement didn’t quite work.  Oh well.  I’ll have to look around online and see how other people do pictures of their stuff.

The light box was full of cat hair.  Guess Molly must have been sleeping in there.  It’s the little things that sneak up on you unexpectedly, and grab you by the heart.

Managed to miss the deadline for applying at the art co-op.  I thought it was the last day of the month, but it was the last Monday instead, which was today.  Oops.  Oh well, it’ll give me time to make some more stuff to sell.  And I’m going to try selling some  of my shawls and scarves here on my blog, too, which is why I’m trying to figure out how to take decent pictures of it.  Stay tuned, as I hope to be putting up a sales page in the next week or so.

Ice on beach at McCarty's Cove

Went for a walk this afternoon, as it was a sunny, albeit cold, day.  But it was nice on the beach.  The lake was calm today, so I could walk right down next to the water, instead of having to stay back.

This picture shows how the waves undercut the frozen sand.  Then the snow on top melted enough to make icicles.  They look like teeth!

The winter sun is so low in the sky, and the shadows are blue.  Is the snow reflecting the sky?  Maybe.

There was lots of glass washed up on the beach today after all the storms.  I usually pick up what’s been tumbled and worn by the waves and the sand, but not today.  The lake will take the glass back in the next storm, and wash it up on another beach somewhere for someone else to find.

Ice on rocks with Upper Harbor ore dock in background. You can see a house at the left. I've always loved it and wished I lived there, but I'll bet it's scary when the waves get big!

As much as I love living in the UP, sometimes it can be a bit challenging in the winter months.  Storms blow through on a regular basis, dumping loads of snow.  The latest, a couple of weeks ago, was a doozy even by UP standards, with high winds and big waves for days on end, along with lake effect snow that just wouldn’t stop for nearly a week.

But then the sun comes out, and you get a few mild days so you can get out and go for a walk.  And then you find out again why you live here.

The Big Lake magically changes from a sullen gray to a sparkling blue.  The sun glints off thousands of ice crystals in the snow.  Bare tree branches are silhouetted against an incredibly blue sky.

Here are some pictures I took the other day when I was out walking on the beach.  If you want to make them bigger, just click on them.  Click a second time to make them bigger yet.

Trees covered with ice at Picnic Rocks. The last storm brought huge waves with it. If you enlarge the picture, you can see the lighthouse at the end of the Upper Harbor breakwater in the background, and the White Rocks to the right of it.

Tree branch encased in ice at Picnic Rocks

Ice on rocks at McCarty Cove. I think the waves may have been breaking over these rocks during the last storm.

Sandbar leading to rocks at McCarty Cove. It looks like a pathway to an ice castle! This wll probably wash away in the next storm. The beach is always changing.

Recycing old sweaters

I’ve been wanting to add to my yarn stash so I can weave shawls and more scarves on my rigid heddle loom.  There are several discount yarn stores on the internet, but it occured to me that there’s plenty of yarn to be had right here in Marquette–at the thrift stores, in the form of old sweaters.

So off I went, up to the St Vincent De Paul thrift store on Saturday afternoon.  This is a fantastic thrift store.  For the princely sum of $26, I got five sweaters, two sets of sheets to weave into rag rugs, and even a much-needed pair of pajamas!  Not bad.  There were a couple more sweaters I think I may go back to get today, if they’re still there.

There’s a Goodwill in town, but their prices just keep going up.  Hey people, it’s USED CLOTHING!  Unless they have a sale, they’re not worth it.  I do need to check out the Salvation Army store though.  They have good prices, but they’re a little harder to get to.  St. Vincent’s is just a bike ride away on a nice day (unless I come out of there with a trash bag full, like I did the other day!)

The purple yarn in the picture is mostly acrylic, with a little wool, but I couldn’t resist the color.  It’s much better than what’s pictured.  The sweater was a bear to take apart, but it yielded probably a pound of yarn (I’ll weigh it after it’s dry–I soaked it in hot water for a while to try to relax some of the curly-cues from being knitted).

I picked up a burgundy sweater for the cotton/ramie yarn.  It’s fine, about the weight of sock yarn, but I’ll double it to weave with.  I got home and wondered why I had bought it because the color is kinda non-descript.  But then I remembed my stash of dyes down in the basement.  I only have one piece of this sweater left to unravel and skein.  They I’m going to overdye it with some Boysenberry and Fuschia (Pro MX Fiber Reactive Dyes).   That should pep up the color a bit!

One thing to keep in mind about recycling yarn is that it’s a time-intensive project.  It probably takes about four-five hours to take apart a sweater carefully so you don’t wind up with lots of little short pieces of yarn, unravel it, and to skein it on the yarn winder.  And that doesn’t count time and materials to dye it, if I want to, and to wind it into balls so the yarn is in a usable form.

Unraveling sweaters is a great job for in front of the tv at night.  It’s an easy job that keeps my hands busy, and I’m doing something useful with the time other than just sitting there.  But it’s important to keep in mind that even though I didn’t pay much for the sweater, there is some time invested in it.  So my materials cost is no lower than it would be if I bought new yarn.   However, I’m reusing a perfectly good resource that’s available right here in town, and the price is definitely right!  (Hmmm, do I sense a business opportunity here, selling recycled yarn?)

On a different note, I can’t figure out what the deal is with my camera.  It works just fine outside, but when I try to take pictures of yarn or whatever, the colors are totally messed up.  I dinked around with the colors with a photo editor on my picture above, but they’re still not right.  Do I need a different camera, or is there a simple solution I’m missing?  Anybody who has any suggestions, please jump in with a response!

My sweet precious Molly. Rest in peace, sweetheart.

Molly has been gone for two days now, and we’re slowly adjusting to her not being here any more.  The shock of her death is beginning to lessen.

What happened?  We don’t really know.  I came home from shopping on Tuesday afternoon, and Molly greeted us as usual, asking to be fed.  After eating, she wandered off, as she always did.

Later that evening, I heard a strange noise.  Wondering what the kitty was doing, I went to investigate, but couldn’t find her.  A few minutes later, I heard the noise again.  Again, I went to investigate, but this time Molly met me in the hallway, hissing and growling at me.  I told her to knock it off, but she got more and more agitated.  I realized that she was going to attack me.

I ran into the living room with her hot on my heels, to grab my spray bottle.  Andrew yelled at her, which slowed her down, although she did manage to get a claw or two into me.  I sprayed her with water, and backed her into a bedroom, where we shut the door to keep her in there.

An hour later, Andrew let her out, thinking she was over whatever her problem was.  But she wasn’t.  She stalked around the kitchen and finally settled in the hallway where she glared at me nonstop.  She acted like she was going to race into the living room to attack me again.  I showed her the spray bottle, which kept her in check.  Andrew finally was able to get her into the basement.  She spent the night on the steps, clawing at the door, and howling.  We both hated it, but we were afraid she would attack us in our sleep if we let her out.

The next morning Andrew let her out of the basement (because that’s where her cat case was) and lured her into the front room again.  He shut the door, but it didn’t catch, and she got out.  I was in the kitchen, headed for the basement, but Andrew was afraid she was going to come after me again.  My wonderful husband put himself in harm’s way to protect me, and put her back in the bedroom.  She clawed him and bit him on the thumb, but he got the door closed this time.

I already knew we were going to have to have her put down.  Even if she was normal in the morning, I would always wonder when it was going to happen again.  But now I knew we would have to get help to get her into the case.  I called the city animal control officer.  He came right out, and had to use the stick with the loop on the end of it to catch her.  But he got her in there.  I had already called the vet and made an appointment.

When we got to the vet, they wanted to know if Molly had ever had a rabies shot.  She hadn’t.  She had always been an indoor cat, so I thought she didn’t need it.  So the upshot was that they would have to send her head down to Lansing to be tested for rabies.  We could have quarantined her for ten days, but with her violent, out-of-control, aggressive behavior, that wasn’t an option.

I had wanted to bring her home from the vet and bury her in a snowbank til spring.  Then I had planned to bury her near the pine trees in the back yard.  But it wasn’t to be.  I think that hurt the worst.  For some reason she had completely turned on me.  She was a one-person cat, even though she liked Andrew well enough.  But I was her person, so to have this happen was devastating.  I couldn’t hold her or pet her or say goodbye.  I could only look at her in the case, while she glared at me, hissing and growling.  My Molly was already gone.  I looked her in the eyes and told her I loved her.

It was so hard to walk away and leave her there, knowing what was going to happen to her.  Andrew and I were just devastated.  And then there was the worry that he might need to take the rabies shots.  The vet said it was highly unlikely that it was rabies.  He thought she might have a brain tumor, or something else wrong.  And the vet was right.  The country health department called today with the news that the rabies test on Molly came back negative.  So that’s a relief, to know that Andrew won’t have to go through the rabies shots.

Looking back, I can see that Molly had been having problems for at least a month.  She had always been a very dominant cat who would have happily run the household if I had allowed it.  She often nipped me for no good reason, although she always got sprayed with water when she did.  And she never did like strangers.  So it was easy to overlook a few things.

She had been off her food for a day or two several times in the past month or so.  And she got very aggressive toward one of Andrew’s friends.  When we came back home after Thanksgiving, she didn’t come out to meet us.  She hid under the bed and hissed and growled at us when we coaxed her out.  We thought it was odd, but she seemed OK once she knew it was us.  Looking back, I can see these things, but hindsight is always 20-20.

I do miss her.  I don’t have to cover up my loom to keep my kitty off my weaving any more.  I don’t have to make sure the closet door in the bathroom is propped open so she can get to her litter box.  I don’t have to remember to put up my pin cushion and thread so she can’t play with it.  There are so many things I don’t have to do anymore, but I never minded doing them, and I sure wish I was still doing all those things.  But I don’t have any regrets.  She had a wonderful life with us, even though it was too short.  I’m so sorry that her last hours were so horrible, and that’s still hard for me to deal with.

All I can say is that life is so fragile, and you never know when it’s going to end.  Love your husband, or your wife.  Love your kids.  Love your friends, and your pets.  You never know what today will bring.

Goodbye, my friend.

Good bye, Molly, my friend.  I’m so sorry things had to end like this.  If there was any way to change it, I would.  It was so hard to see you at the vet’s this morning in that cage.  And it hurt when you hissed at me with no recognition in your eyes.  It hurts to know what happened to you.  It hurts, and it sucks big time.

You were my sweetie, and my constant companion.  Wherever I was, you were right there.  You followed me around the house, and you would find me outside and sit and watch me out the window.  I came home from a walk one time, and I could see you sitting in the living room window, looking for me.

I did love you, sweetheart.  I will miss you.  There’s a hole here now, where you used to be.  I expect to see you lurking around the corner, waiting to jump up and grab my hand in the dark.  I miss seeing you curled up on the bed.  I’ll miss you in my lap at night, watching TV, and taking up too much of the bed at night.  I’ll miss your head butts.  I’ll miss all your help when I’m sewing.  I’m so sorry it had to end like this.  You were too young to leave so suddenly, like this.

I can’t write anymore right now.  I’ll write about what happened in a few days, but I just can’t right now.

Snow angels clearing our driveway!

Not the kind of snow angels you were expecting, huh?  But these folks are truly angels.  I think they’re from a program from the developmentally disabled.  The leader of the group, Glen, (with the shovel), takes the group out to clear out driveways and sidewalks for people in town here.  He doesn’t like us to pay him either, although I would do it happily!

There was a HUGE drift across the end of our driveway.  The lady running the snowblower had her work cut out for her, but she got it cleared out in a few minutes.  It was such a blessing for me, because it would have taken me hours of hard work to open it up with a shovel.  And I can’t handle a snowblower like that anymore.

They showed up right after lunch, so we shared some hot bean soup and freshly-baked corn muffins with them.  Glen and his helper sure appreciated it, but not as much as I appreciated my snow angels!

Rag weaving on my rigid heddle loom

I though I would try rag weaving on my rigid heddle loom.  This is one of those things that seemed like a great idea at the time.

First, I tried putting stripes on the warp.  This seemed like it should be a simple thing, but it took FIVE hours to put a three-and-a-half yard warp on this poor little loom.  And then, because I wanted to keep the stripe pattern intact, the threads are twisted behind the heddle.  It’s kind of a pain, but it doesn’t seem to be affecting the tension at all, which is hard to believe.

I wanted to try weaving some tote bags.  Because I had cut my fabric into half-inch strips, I didnt’ really want to sew those thin strips together, so I tried gluing them.  I’m here to tell you not to do that.  I used a glue stick, which was messier than you would have thought.  Then, when it dried, it made a hard place at the join.  Sigh.

I wove off my first bag, and struggled with that hard spot in nearly every row.  Then I found out that it can pop apart very easily.  I’ll probably be keeping this bag, because I’m worried that the ends will work out eventually, causing it to fall apart. Plus those hard spots caused the weaving to be uneven.  Not my best work, and certainly not something I would want to sell!

My second attempt, shown above, is working out better.  I decided to just bite it and sew the strips together.  Once I got going, it’s not so bad.  It’s keeping me out of trouble while the great storm rages on outside.  But I don’t plan to do this on a regular basis!

Rag weaving casualty

This old hair pick is a weaving casualty.  I’ve managed to break off almost half the teeth beating in each row of rags!

If it’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that rag weaving on a rigid heddle loom is possible.  But like many things in life, just because it’s possible doesn’t mean you should do it! I think I’ll just weave scarves and shawls on this loom in the future.  We’ll both be happier!

Snowed in! This is the end of the driveway where we got plowed in.

Guess the Upper Peninsula is going to live up to its reputation for snow this year.  Last week it snowed for three days nonstop, and it looks like we’re getting it again this weekend.  The wind’s been howling for two days, and isn’t supposed to stop til sometime tomorrow.  Sigh.  And winter’s just getting started!

I shot this from the livingroom window since I wasn’t about to go out into the wind outside.  That pile of snow between our truck and the street is part drift and mostly snow from the city plow.  This compacts into a solid mass that’s about four feet wide, and fifteen feet long.  I’m really glad we’ve got someone lined up for snow removal this winter, because this Granny isn’t up to that kind of hard work anymore!

Andrew has been doing some work on my loom for me.  He noticed that the eye hooks on the bottom part of the harnesses have pulled out or broken off repeatedly over the years.  You can see the holes in the bottom of this harness:

Holes where eye hook has pulled out of bottom of harness

Some of the holes even have part of the eye hook stuck in them where they broke off in the past.  Of course, my husband’s analytical mind went right to work on the problem…

Here’s a picture of the Union 36 Loom from my copy of the Rag Rug Handbook by Janet Meany:

Union Loom from Rag Rug Handbook by Janet Meany

It’s a bit blurry since I took a picture of it instead of scanning it.  But you can see how the treadles are attached to the harnesses at an angle.  Andrew took one look at this picture and immediately knew why the eye hooks either broke off or pulled out.

He said that because the treadles are pulling at an angle, instead of straight down,  it puts strain on the neck of the eye hook, which eventually causes it to break off.  It also pulls the eyehook to one side, which loosens it in the wood, until it pulls out.

Andrew came up with the idea of making two metal brackets on the bottom of the harnesses and using an s-hook to attach the chain between the harnesses and the treadles.  He said it will hold better because it will be attached in two places, not just one!

Repairing split wood in the beater upright

He’s also repairing the uprights on the beater.  They’re attached with hinges, and over the years, the screws caused the wood to split.  You can see how big the screw holes are.  He’s going to glue some 1/4″ dowel into the holes and redrill them so new screws will fit better.

Can you tell it’s wonderful to be married to a carpenter?  He used to work construction, so he knows how to do all this stuff that’s totally beyond me.

Molly keeping an eye on things.

To finish things off today, here’s a picture of Molly.  No matter where I go in the house, she’s right there to supervise.  Sh’e not much for being cuddled, but she’s a great little companion!