Baskets,Baskets, Everywhere!

 I found this little Chinese basket this morning while I was looking for more examples of different types.

I realized that this was one that I do not yet know how to do...

I am going to have to figure this one out.

 I also realized that I have baskets in just about every mini scene that I have done.  Mostly all of my own making. 

The little one with the apples in this photo was one that I did early on...It is done with pieces of quilling paper and string.  So is the larger one with poinsettias. They are done by twining.  Yet another technique.  There are so many different ones that I have never thought about counting...

The little one has nails around the bottom to hold the band on, as it would be done in real life.  The only difference is, the nails on the mini is done with a black pen.

We went to see the latest Star Trek movie this morning.  When we returned I found Tessie weaving like a madwoman.

She really does want to get the conservatory going in a big way!

Maybe if I keep going out in the mornings, she will do it all herself... I may just have to see what happens if I leave home every day...

Where can I go tomorrow? Let's see... It has to be something with a good excuse.  She wouldn't do it if I just went to get a cup of coffee somewhere.

Anyway, I have messed around enough for one day.
Back to work.

See you tomorrow.

If at First You Don't Succeed....PRACTICE!!!

First of all, let me just say...Ebru's grandmother was a very talented maker of lace.  Ebru is a Turkish follower that offered to help translate if I had any problems learning this. Thanks, Ebru.

Oya lace looks easy...The people showing how it done, do it effortlessly.

It's not the translation that I need help with...

First I tried it with sewing thread...Too small. That's what I will probably use if I get to where I can do it.  I had high hopes for mini lace.

See?  I tried three times with that...

Then I shifted to #5 pearl cotton.  Too big.  I am beginning to feel like one of the three bears.

For practice, I am going to have to use something between the two. Something "just right".  I am not giving up.  Just taking a break...

At least, I am still well versed in knotless netting...I did a mini gourd yesterday, to help my friend Jo get started. 

Now THIS is simple.  The whole thing is a series of loops. 

I did this with three ply waxed linen.  I'm not sure what I am going to do with it, but at least it shows me that I can actually still do something.

This stitch is the oldest way of making fabric in the world.  Historians say that this came before the weaving of cloth.  Actually, you can make anything with this stitch.  People still use it for clothing in some parts of the world. 

Their clothing doesn't have holes in it like my gourd cover.  There are actually people on ETSY selling bags and other items made with this stitch.

I didn't realize it at the time, but my grandma Daisy taught me to make, what she called "buttonhole" rag rugs.  It was actually this stitch done over a core of another rag strip going around in a spiral. 

I have made spirit bags with it, rugs, and yes buttonholes.  I am now getting the fever to try my hand at something to wear. 

If you would like to see how it's done or learn to do it, go here for basic instructions. http://youtu.be/9fMxa9T-yQo

I am going back to trying to do oya lace now.  Wish me luck.

See you tomorrow.

Almost a Success....

OK....The rug is finished.  I knew about half way through that the starting end wouldn't be perfect.

It wasn't.  That's because I forgot to put leader boards in the loom, before starting the weaving...Otherwise, it would have been pretty nice.

I finished the last few rows this morning, knowing that one end would be just fine.  The other end.....Not so fine.

I decided to bite the bullet and finish it anyway.

First I put glue on both ends, figuring that it might help.

It was fine on the finishing end.   I scooted right along and tied square knots.  Nice even and smooth.

I put the bottom end at the front of the photo so that you could see how uneven it is.

It doesn't look terrible, but the glue is what is holding it together.  Without the leader boards, there was not enough length in the thread to tie the square knots....After about four, which took about 15 minutes, I decided that the glue was going to have to do on this one....

Believe me.  I will not forget to weave in a couple of tongue depressors before I start next time.  That will keep the edge straight and leave me enough thread to tie the knots.

Eskiaga volunteered to sit in it to show it off....He doesn't know that it is going in the Weaver's Workshop or in the waste basket.  It is a toss up as to where it goes right now.

Meanwhile, yesterday afternoon, I decided that I was tired of looking at a Nestles water bottle, sitting on the nightstand.

I fancied it up with a bottle cozy.  Simple double crochet in rows.  Then when I noticed that I was going to run out of thread I switched to 1 dc and two chains, alternating.  I finished it by chaining a cord to run through the top.

And....a longer chain with what was left to tie on the bottle if I want to carry it anywhere.

I made the mistake of filling it with Cherry Pepsi.  Tessie is trying to figure out how to get into it.  Ladder and looooong straw?

Back to the Bloomie's Box now.

See you tomorrow.

Housing Shortage?

OK. The cat cottage is finished!  See.  I do finish things once in a while.

Widget stayed in it while I was weaving...

He stayed in it through taking photos, but when I decided to put a new pad in the bottom...He was ticked off and went elsewhere.

The first photo shows the back of the cottage and the picture window/escape hatch.

The second one shows the front door.

I am very pleased how the top turned out.  I just tapered it down as I went and when I got to the place where I couldn't weave anymore, I just wrapped the tip top.

As soon as Widget left the premises, the Terrible Two moved in with Spike.  They are now claiming that it was a dog house all along.

Widget will be back soon....

I will be around to pick up the pieces after he is through with them...I don't think that they are going to get away with the dog house bit.

Meanwhile, I did do a little work on the rug last night...

I made a mistake.  When I started, I forgot to put a leader board at the bottom.  Now the weaving is slipping down over the edge.  I will be able to fix it when I take it off the loom, but it sure would have been a lot easier if I had put that in to keep it straight on the end.

Hopefully I will finish the rug today or tomorrow.  We shall see.

 I hear a ruckus coming from the cat cottage....I have to go rescue whomever is getting the worst of the battle for the premises...

See you tomorrow.

If All Else Fails....

I have a bunch of witches descending on me at 1:00 PM for a mini meeting.  So I am not going to have time for a lot of mini making.

I am still working on the rug.  I am well past the half way mark now.

It looks uneven because the weaving still has to be packed down some.  As I go, that will be taken care of.

Here's the front side.  I am liking the stripes that Tessie insisted upon.  The second bunch at the top will be the same as the bottom ones when finished.

A couple more days at the most.

I was looking around for something more to show you...

I did this several years ago.

If I ever give up minis, I am going into forgery... I did this from a sketch in a book.

I doubt that anybody would believe that Leonardo did this....He didn't have sketch pads or a mechanical pencil...

I am going to have to work on that part.

Anyway, I will be a penniless forger, but I will have fun doing it.

See you tomorrow.

Darned Neckties!

How do you work with this staring you in the face?  I seem to have a lot of this lately.

I think that part of it was the fact that I trimmed trees this morning and my hands probably still smelled green...He's an indoor cat.

I decided that I needed shelf fillers, if Tessie was turning the bottom floor into a sales room.

I don't want to be weaving from now until doomsday.  So I dragged out the innards of my men's ties.  The insides are as useful as the silk on the outside.

Tessie is sitting in the middle of the pile to show you all the different textures and colors.

They kind of look hand woven and with a bit of darning, they become usable.

On this one, I simply ran a single thread through, over and under one thread.  Five rows each way, with four threads between.

The gold stripes that you see were already there.  Perhaps they could be used in some way too.
 



When you fold the pieces up and put them on a shelf, they look like they could be a blanket or spread of some kind.

I want to do some more experimenting with this treatment.

Remember when I made this one?  Same idea.  Only it was done on waste canvas for needlepoint and cross stitch.

It is all running, darning stitch.

On some of the coarser tie stuff, I messed with doing darning stitch in a bargello pattern.  It turned out OK...But I think that it would work a lot better if I could find my smallest embroidery hoop.  It tends to draw up and I had to fight it a lot while working.

The advantage is, it is a lot faster than doing the regular bargello needlework stitches.

I am also thinking that some of the overshot weaving patterns could be done on the finer woven linings.

You always get stuck with looking at the good and the bad experiments.  This one was kind of towards the lower end of the scale...About a 4, but I think that with a bit of  trial and error, it could work.

Back to the drawing board.

See you tomorrow.

Tired of Weaving Now?

 I got a whole bunch of the center section of the rug done yesterday...

I am about half way through.  I will do a mirror image on the other end when I deem it half done.

Last night, Tessie demanded that I start the companion piece to the brown chair.

I thought that she would want a footstool.  Nope.  She explained, "We have lots of tuffets.  Surely one will go with the decor."

Then she announced that she needed a side table to sit her hot chocolate upon, when relaxing in the evening....I think that she should have just stopped at the hot chocolate part...She is relaxed much of the time.  Not just in the evening.

First I cut two pieces of walnut the size that she wanted.  They are about 1 1/2" square and have 51 holes drilled in the top.  Four in the bottom. 

In each corner of the top there is a large and a smaller hole.  The outer, larger hole is for the leg.

The inner smaller hole is to make sure that the corner gets covered with the wicker.

In each corner, as I am weaving, I add stitches to make a squarer corner.  then when I work down from there, I bend it to fit the corner.

Here you see it further along with the corners covered.  It would be hard to do if I hadn't done those few extra stitches.

I am well on the way to finishing the weaving...Then I will have to do cushions and a finish on the table top.

Tessie keeps mumbling, "Hurry up!  I want to relax.  I can't relax with you still working on this stuff....Hurry up!" 

She said the "hurry up" part a few more times than was needed to get the message across.

I guess that I should get to work and finish it.  At least it will be a little quieter if I do....Just the loud slurping of hot chocolate.....

See you tomorrow.

Nothing Completely Finished...

Look What I found!  Sometimes it pays to clean the workroom.

I made a base for the workshop when I was last working on it.  It was sandwiched between a couple of bookcases.

Yes, I know that the chimney leans outwards from the building...When we were in Carmel CA last year, I decided that I wanted a chimney like the one on "The Tuck Box" tearoom.  It has a wrought Iron brace between the building and the chimney, that appears to be holding it up. Very cool.

OK.  Tessie is officially fired from working on the rug.  She did about ten more rows yesterday and then sat there and stared at the TV for the rest of the afternoon.

My turn.

I did finish the weaving on the chair that Zar started.  He is in his Tudor Trailer, pouting.  I don't think that he really minded being kicked out of the workshop.  This just means he has more time to follow me around and beg me to work on the Clockwork Cottage. 

Don't feel sorry for him.  He has everything he needs in the trailer.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he spends a lot of time there after I finish the Clockwork Cottage.

It's the safest place to be if he doesn't want Tessie finding the secret laboratory/workshop.  And besides, his beloved Steampunk organ in the rooftop patio there.

I have to get back to work, since everybody else seems to have gone on strike.  Maybe I should bake some cookies.  They work better than money in this house.

See you tomorrow.

Out! No Trespassing!

 Poor Zar.  This morning, Tessie announced that she was taking over the bottom floor of the Weaver's Workshop. 

She wants it for a sales room.

It only took a small rake to force him to leave, carrying his beer and flask...I did notice that she kept the furniture and his favorite saw.

I have the feeling that she will need his help to get the shop in shape....I wonder how she is going to accomplish that?

Zar got the bottom of the wicker chair done last night.  I started the top.

Maybe, since he is now cast adrift, I can now hire him to work on the wicker.  He is carrying around a sign..."Will Work For Cookies".  

Before I could get to the chair, Tessie took over.  She seems to have the same problem that I have.  Widget has to sit in his basket whilst I weave...Spike has already claimed this chair as his...

What is it with animals and weaving?  They seem to think that every piece is for their benefit.

Shortly after I took this photo, Tessie left to look for furniture for the shop in the "Mom Store". 

I have to stop letting April influence Tessie.  She keeps telling all of my secrets...I will have nothing left in the workroom if Tessie keeps shopping there. 

She is already talking about letting me have the rust colored chair to put back where it belongs...If I do a companion piece for the chair that she is pretending to work on so diligently.  The kind of companion piece is not specified.

I guess I should go look over her shoulder whilst she shops, or the workshop will be down to bare bones....And in an even bigger mess than it is now.

See you tomorrow.

Never Give Tessie a Needle.....

I started working on cleaning my room again this morning...Maybe that should be "continued the never ending job of cleaning my workroom".

While I was doing that, Zar volunteered to cut wires for more wicker.  Between the two of us, we got all of the stuff together for eight chairs.

He found that using a pair of utility scissors from the Dollar Tree was way faster than the usual jeweler's flush cutters.

With those, you can cut a bunch at  time and if he ruins them, we can just go buy another pair...$1.00....


I glued the wires in one of the chairs and he started weaving...Tessie decided that it would be faster if she waxed and fed the wire to him. 

I am not sure that was a good idea....She is a great backseat driver...

Last night, I made the mistake of letting Tessie have a turn at the rug...

In her infinite wisdom, she decided that there should be stripes in the middle....

Actually, they are starting to grow on me. Each stripe is four rows of weaving...That will give you some idea of how condensed the weaving is when it is finished. 

My big problem now is Bunny.  He has decided that the rug on the loom makes a great trampoline! At least we won't have to test it for strength with him around.

See you tomorrow. 

And Still More Weaving...

Yesterday, I was up to the second row of charcoal gray...

This is the back of the rug. I have close to two inches now.

I am going with a rather rag rug look, since I have a lot of over dyed crewel in similar colorways.  So far, I have only used two of these.

Here's the front.  There is a disadvantage.  You can't see the first row of charcoal.

Actually, after it is finished, you won't be able to tell the front from the back.

 Last night I connected the top of the doorway and did what you see here.

HRH Widget, reluctantly posed again this morning.  Last night, he slept in it while I was weaving.

I think that I have cat approval...

I am thinking of making the roof separate and somewhat shaped kind of mushroom-ish.

I'm still thinking on that part.  If I do that, I won't have to go higher on the walls.  I can put a bit of headroom in the top part.

I think that you could count wire wrapping as a form of weaving.  The wires go over and under each other. 

These are older stones.  Not the ones that I got earlier this week. 

I figure that I will ease into the good ones and practice on the stuff that I had, just laying around.

I am going back to the rug now.  That is going to take the longest to complete.

See you tomorrow.

Bringing Out the Big Guns.....

Sometimes, ambidextrous comes in handy.  As in when you are trying to weave in both directions on a hand loom...

 

I went out thrift shopping with April and Amare this morning.

 

Amare found a doll carriage just the right size for him to push, complete with baby.

 

Unfortunately the batteries in my camera sent me a message that they didn't want to take any more photos, about the time I tried to snap one.

 

We decided that taking care of a baby would teach him responsibility...And besides, I think that he would have been in a very bad mood all the way home if we put it back. 

 

When I got home from the adventure, I decided that, if I am going to work on the Weaver's Workshop it needs more weaving.

 

Tessie refused to start weaving rugs before I finished the building, so I was on my own.

 

The big gun in the title was my BIG beading loom. With that, I could weave a room sized, wall to wall rug. Mini, that is. 

 

I threaded it up with regular sewing thread(cotton mercerized) and went to work.

 

First I used the same thread to put in the bottom edge of the rug. In theory, this keeps the rug from creeping in towards the center and having a wedge shaped rug.  Great theory....It works on big Navajo rugs.  Not so much on minis. 

For me, which ever side of the rug I am working on is the hand I use.  A lot of people have to turn the loom over or weave across themselves.

 

When I get to an edge, I weave back across.  Then I put the needle down in between the first and second warps of the row that I just did, before pulling the thread down to lay on the proceeding row.

 

In mini, sometimes I do an extra wrap on the outer threads to keep the weaving from slanting down on either side of the rug also. 

 

As you can see, I haven't gotten too far yet.  This is the largest one I have attempted.  If it turns out, I may just get brave and try for a patterned one....Later....

 

I need to get back to it and see just how far I can go in one day....I don't expect to finish it before tomorrow.  It is very time consuming.  Be patient please....I promise to get it done...That is if Tessie doesn't try to help.

 

Back to work.

 

See you tomorrow.



 

Checking It Out....

This morning I went to check out the new Walmart Superstore that just opened down the road a piece...and a half...It's really not too close, but closer than the one that I usually go to in the morning.

The thing is huge and not laid out at all like the old one....Could someone please explain to me why they put the scrap booking supplies next to the bathroom decor and towels?

While I was out, I decided to try to find some new drill bits for my Dremel Mighty Mite.  I went to Harbor Freight to see what they had.  I don't think that the guy stocking the shelves knew as much as I did about drill bits...

I wound up purchasing a small, very cheap drill with lots of accessories.  It also had a cord... I like my Mighty Mite because it is cordless.   However, it has long ago lost most of it's accessories.  I also bought a small package of drill bits the right sizes for my needs. 

Now.  If I could only find the mini mini sized Colet.

I started this table last night.  I have no idea where it is going to be used....It was convenient.  It had the holes drilled and the wires glued in.

Tessie will try to convince you that she did all of the weaving.  Don't believe her.  She was sitting around eating cookies while I did all of the work.

I did get a bit more done on the bunny hutch yesterday at the witches meeting. I am going to have to start eliminating some of the spokes to make the top come together.

Now that I have the doorway done, I will glue the edges and cut the bars out of the entrance.

Then maybe the bunny will try it out.  Right now he refuses to go in, for fear of being trapped.

Anyway, that's about all the news from here.

See you tomorrow.

Back to Weaving...

About a month ago, my favorite tweezers went missing.  I suspect that a certain cat bounced them off of the table and into the waste basket.  I can't prove it.  No hidden cameras installed.

After a while I gave up on looking for them and found an extra tweezers in my workroom.  Yesterday, I could not stand to look at the poor naked thing anymore....  It is now dressed to kill.

I beaded the top in peyote stitch and topped it off with a couple of chips of jade.  They are much more fun to work with when they are dressed up a bit. 

Now, if I could only get them away from Tessie.  It seems that the best way to do it is to distract her...

I made her a new machine to play with.

I got on the net and looked for images of Inkle Looms. 

I had one in real life at one point.  I asked my dad to make me one and gave him plans....It never worked right.  He drilled the holes for the pegs by hand and they all pointed in different angles, just slightly, but that threw off the warp and let it slide from one side to the other....It just didn't work.

If you are looking at this photo and saying to yourself that I did the same thing, not really.  It's not glued together yet.

I sanded the edges and rounded the corners.  Then I glued the pieces together.

Here's the finished loom.  I am trying to decide now, if I am crazy enough to try to warp it or not.

I have to wait until the glue dries anyway....

If I don't really want to do it, I can fake it with ribbon.  That is what this loom is for.  It is strictly a band weaving loom.  In real life, you make belts and straps of different width and as long as the warp threads.

This one is a small one....Some are very complicated with many pegs and the warp is run back and forth between them to keep all of the threads straight.

Anyway, if you want to make one.   The dimensions are on the paper above.  Each square is a quarter inch.

I used toothpicks for the pegs and cut them 1/2" long.  I drilled the holes with a pin vice and tapered the ends for the holes with an Exacto knife.

I have to think on whether I want to actually weave anything on it....I have about 24 hours.  That's a lot of thinking.  Maybe I can talk Tessie into doing it...

See you tomorrow.