Over the past few years, I haven't been one to make resolutions when January 1st rolls around. Between having a baby, renovating an antique home, and everything else that seems to have happened, I have been busy enough trying to keep myself focused on accomplishing pretty much anything. This year felt a bit different to me. The catastrophic issues with the house have been fixed, the child is finally sleeping through the night (if you call waking up at 5:30am sleeping through the night), and I can usually count on at least two hours during the day of 'me time' while he naps. It took me a while to figure out how to manage every waking minute of my life to a point where I can actually do something other than cleaning, laundry, baking or whatnot during that 'me time'. Thankfully the little guy at least seems to like to follow the vacuum cleaner around to experience the exhaust blowing in his face (HEPA filter!!). Of course he has also figured out how to retract the cord and turn the machine on and off, but I look at this drawn out process of cleaning the floors as one of the more peaceful times of the week. Thought bubble... I should probably be worried that the mashed pile of blueberry waffle that I saw under my desk earlier today is missing.
 
Focus! So this year felt a bit different to me. My main issue seems to be motivating myself to use the me time wisely. That general softening of the brain that occurs when you are sleep deprived for over a year and a half can really affect one's choice of activity. Now that I am starting to chip away at the sleep deficit, I seem to have energy to do more than scour Perez Hilton for the latest in celebrity gossip. Enter Pinterest! At least it's a bit more inspiring, right? The other day I did a search on linen hoping to find some weaving inspriation. Several minutes later I was so engrossed in photos of yards of this glorious material that I even thought I was smelling linen. Turns out the water evaporated from the pot I had simmering on top of the stove, and my bamboo steamer was starting to burn! At least I had perfectly steamed carrots for the little guy. 
 
Wasn't this supposed to be about resolutions for the new year? Okay. First one has to do with focus. Clearly my start on that has been less than successful. Next. Use the good china. I was staring at the china cabinet the other day admiring the set of dishes I inherited from my grandparents, when I realized that I had really only used the sugar bowl and a few of the tea cups and saucers. So I resolved to make at least one dinner a week feel a little more civilized by serving it up on the good china. Of course a little more civilized should probably be more like actually eating dinner while sitting at the table rather than wolfing it down as I'm in a full sprint trying to intercept the kiddo before he drops the cable remote into the toilet. Yes. We installed a toilet lock earlier this week. 
 
Next. Weave more. This is going to be an easy one since my weaving hours have been woefully slim over the past two years. I am already on a roll with my first doubleweave project underway and all sorts of other creations queueing up in my mind.
 
And finally, learn to tat or at least try to learnt to tat. I am envisioning lovely handwoven linens trimmed with tatting. I have acquired three books and a dvd, and once I track down a tatting shuttle, I will sit down and give this a go. Stay tuned to see if I can get the old brain firing on enough cylinders to make this happen. 
 
In six moths I will plan a mid-year review with myself to see if I am on track.  Time to evaluate the budget and plan for a performance bonus! In the meantime, feel free to check out my latest free project, a Shaker-inspired carpet, for Schacht Spindle Company. 
 
 

I just re-read my last post from August 5th of last year. I guess I did overdo it just a bit, as my water broke on August 6th. My sweet baby just couldn't wait to come out. He was three weeks early, but in perfect health. Apparently if he had stayed cooking, he would have weighed in at over nine pounds, and I'm guessing labor would have been a bit more of a challenge. 
 
In the months since his arrival, I have learned a lot about a lot of things. For example, I never thought I'd spend so much time talking about baby poo, but it was, and still is, a hot topic of conversation around the house.  And I now know what soft as a baby's bottom really means. I also relate to my mom and dad in a while new (and appreciative) way. Wow.
 
It took me a while to get back into the swing of things, but I am finally weaving again. My first new project since last August for Schacht Spindle Company was just published. To see the rya knot rug I made using t-shirt strips, click here.  I wasn't overly fussy about the strips being exact in size. I just used my rotary cutter and made the most of the material I had. I wove this up, a bit here and a bit there, while Benjamin was napping, and realized that my former habit of not sitting down at my loom unless I had a big chunk of time to weave was no longer an option. 
 
We are currently in the midst of a major back yard renovation. I can't wait to show before and after (or more likely, before and improved) photos. It has made for some very exciting heavy equipment watching over the past week.
 
Up next, living room summer curtains in linen. Time to start winding the warp!
 
 

It's a big day for me. After two months and four days, I am finally on my last day of bed rest. If you are in the north shore area of Boston and see a cloud of dust puffing up into the sky this weekend, that's just me dealing with the weed problem in our yard that seems to be growing as quickly as this little baby I'm carrying. I think I should be grateful that there hasn't been more rain as the problem would otherwise require some sort of machete to get the job done. 
 
It was an emotionally up and down journey for me, but I did manage to get a bit of weaving accomplished on my mini loom. You can see the results with free project details here. In addition to weeding, I will be warping my Baby Wolf loom for the next project, which may involve five minutes of warping and ten minutes of resting. I'm so excited to get working again!

I have two words that describe my life these days: bed rest. Bummer. I figured I'd l start to slow down a bit during my third trimester, but this is a bit slower than I anticipated. The good news: other than having to be horizontal all day every day, the baby and I are both healthy as horses.
 
The other good news is that my latest free project for Schacht Spindle Company is now available by clicking here. My grand plans to weave curtains for every window in the house are on hold for the time being, but I'm happy to have finished this pair for the bathroom. Now we just need to get the trim up so that we can put up a curtain rod.
 
Since I'm not allowed to sit upright at any of my regular looms, I have been weaving on a mini loom. I'm working on a little project for the kiddo using some Southdown that the very generous and lovely Margaret Russell sent along to me. I have also been working on a bit of knitting. And while I find it far less enjoyable than weaving, it does help pass the time. Speaking of time, it's time to get back to my mini loom. 
 
 
 

As you may know, I have a minor obsession with all yarns Habu. I picked up some of their NS-2B wool crepe at Convergence two summers ago, and have only just managed to weave with it.  
 
Well, I ignored their warping advice and warped a full 26" of my Baby Wolf with a four yard warp, front to back. I alternated threading an inch each of 30 ends per inch and 15 ends per inch across the entire warp, but since I wanted to both start and end with an inch of 30 epi, I sett the center two inches at 30 epi. So 30-15-30-15....30-30-15-30-15.......30. I used a total of 590 ends, 15 of which broke over the course of the weaving. On a percentage basis, not bad. I didn't bother fixing these broken threads as the yarn is a high twist yarn, and the end result was meant to be a bubbly, bumpy, crepe-y type thing, and I figured I would be the only one who would ever notice the errors. Way less stressful. Now trying to pick off the cat hair is another problem. Gray yarn, gray cat, you'd think it wouldn't show. Wrong-o.
 

My latest free project for Schacht Spindle Co. has been published. While the project isn't one of my favorites, the topic certainly is. Sett.
 
There is a lack of helpful information on recommended sett for knitting yarns. Plus there are no right answers for what sett is the correct sett for any yarn. It's all about what you want your outcome to be. Many weavers poo-poo knitting yarns as an option when weaving, quick to point out what makes them unsuitable and generally less cost effective for weaving. But as many a rigid heddle weaver will tell you, knitting yarns offer up some wonderfully creative options, and heck yeah you can weave with them. And if cost is a concern? I always check out the sale bins at yarn shops to pick up some unique additions to my stash. Often you can find one or two skeins of something wonderful at a discount.
 

Every Tuesday evening I head on down to Elissa's Creative Warehouse in Needham, Massachusetts for an evening of weaving fun. I remember my first visit there being slightly overwhelming as never in my life had I seen so little visible wall space in a yarn shop. You could spend hours in that place and still not get to see all of the yarn she has for sale. It's amazing!
 
Well that was last August, and I have been going there almost every week since. We teach, we learn, we share, and we're constantly impressed by what everyone is weaving. Most everyone owns a Cricket Loom or a Flip (or both!!), and we have newcomers on a fairly regular basis. If you're in the area and want to join us, give the shop a call to make sure we're on for that night. 
 

I have been rather silent recently, though for good reason. First the weaving stuff. My super awesome guild, NOBO Handweavers, decided to do a bookmark exchange using only sheep breeds from the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy also cross listed with the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, a UK organization. Eleven of us participated, and each person wove twelve bookmarks, one for each participant and an additional set which we have sent along to Handwoven Magazine. I was thrilled to receive what essentially amounted to wonderful little samples of each breed.
 
My latest article for Schacht Spindle Company was published back at the beginning of February. It's an introduction to twill weaving. I have to say that I'm pretty thrilled about the project I made. It's not that complicated or particularly remarkable, but I'm happy with how it turned out and can't wait to use it in our new home.
 

My latest free weaving project for Schacht Spindle Co. is live. I think I neglected to post my previous project as well. Ah well. Click here for my thermal scarf project and click here to learn about weaving a blanket out of smaller panels. Off to get some holiday weaving done!

Ikea is pretty close to the top in my list of "most dangerous places for weavers". All of those storage solutions under one roof. Ahhh.... 
 
Kevin and I took an impromptu trip to our local Ikea a couple of weekends ago to get some super long curtains for our massive windows. Somehow, the car was packed to the gills by the time we left. The next thing I knew we were rearranging our entire living space around a new chair. It's a nice chair. Of course I didn't leave without some new shelves for my studio. Things were getting a bit out of control, and I was in danger of being lost beneath the fiber-y rubble. Not to mention the only available floor space seemed to be occupied by my trash bin which managed to get itself kicked over at least once a day.
 
Well, I was completely smitten by the limited-edition Billy Jader bookcases covered from tip to toe in snippets from Billy Shakespeare himself. Had to take them home.
 
Ahh...for organizahhhhtion.