More inkle, a garden treat and some seasonal colour

 

I started a new pick up pattern.   Actually, I started one before this, but cut it off the loom.  I'd used 2/8 cotton for the background and 4/8 for the pattern threads.  It was pink and burgundy and looked very pretty in the 11 thread pattern. However, with the fineness of the threads and the dull daylight hours we've been having, it became way too fussy for me.  There were too many mistakes, and way too much unweaving.   Eventually I cut it off and re-threaded in something that is easier to see.

This is a 7 thread pattern, so easier to begin with.  However the blue and white pattern area gives a lot of contrast and when I'm weaving at night, it's much easier.   The pattern turned out to be a 6 step repeat either forwards or backwards, making it even more fun once I realised that.  It was pretty easy to memorize.

The big issue is that I didn't double my pattern threads.  It's fine and looks okay.  There isn't quite the full coverage nor the slightly raised texture.  This is a flat band.   My recommendation is to not try to warp your inkle loom while watching the Blue Jays come back to even the playoff  series.  I did a bit of unweaving last night too from not paying quite enough attention to my weaving.

The poor chooks have been inside for the past few days due to my being busy.  It's just safer to leave them protected, despite them being not quite so happy. about it.  Soon enough we'll have snow and they'll not want to go out anyway, so as long as the weather is nice enough, I let them free range.    This morning, I let them out and as I was walking by the tomato plant which I'd not yet pulled from its planter,  I saw a flash of yellow.  There were 4 ripe yellow tomatoes, of which 2 were just slightly soft, so I gave them to the chooks for a treat.   The other 2 I brought in, plus 2 of several remaining green tomatoes, which will hopefully ripen inside.  There were another 4 or 5 green ones, but they were just so very tiny.  This was a nice surprise.

I made blueberry jam at Westfield yesterday.  I wish I'd taken a photo though, but I didn't.  I brought my own, very dry wood to start up the stove, which worked a treat.  It hardly smoked at all.  Often, because this year's wood has been green and unseasoned, we've had huge smoke issues when starting up the stove.   It was very windy, but weirdly warm and then we had a lot of rain.  While the stove was burning hot enough to boil, the jam wasn't boiling as the breeze was cooling down the jam from the top of the pot.   In the end though, it turns out that even if the jam just barely boiled, if you cook it long enough it still reduces down, the pectin sets and you get jam despite everything.   I'd popped in a batch of scones into the oven before I started the jam, so we had something to test the jam with.

The drive yesterday was so pretty.   This past week the leaves, really started to change colours.   Lot of oranges around here with some patches of red.  Along my route yesterday, the area has tons of red maple and red oaks, which were all in their full blazing glory.  The colours were spectacular.  On the way home though, because there was still a bit of drizzle and because of the rains, the colours were enhanced.  It was truly a glorious sight.    This little leaf met when I got out of my car at home.

The photo below is what I saw hanging over my usual Westfield parking spot.   It wasn't noticeable when the tree was fully leafed out!   Luckily I'd never noticed the wasps at all this summer, nor in the fall.  Yesterday they were still quiet, so all was good.  I didn't move my car either.  Just left it there because I figured if they hadn't bothered me all summer, they weren't likely to do so yesterday either.

The end of many things

A stupid spammer hit my blog comments so I had to change some of the settings.  My apologies if it's a bit inconvenient, but spammers... ugh!

 The Weaver and Spinner guild challenge for the winter and spring was to choose a holiday card, take some colours from it and make something.   The card I received from my daughter this year was white with black and red.   As I didn't have any black thread on hand, I chose to spin instead of weave.   Here is what I came up with.  Black, Red and white Merino, carded into rolags and spun with a long draw.  It's a fluffy, airy yarn.  It was a fun project.

 I cut the pickup inkle project off the loom at 84 inches.   I could have done another 10inches maybe.  It would have taken a bit more effort for iffy results.  There is a lot of take up on the grey, skinnier threads and not quite as much on the thicker red threads.   Every once in a while, there was a hiccup in the pattern and the non-picked up threads would show in the wrong place, or pop up where it shouldn't and that was despite re-weaving it.  By the last couple of repeats, it was obvious that the tension differences were just becoming a bit of a regular issue when weaving.   So, instead of letting myself get frustrated, I chopped it off the inkle loom.   This is not a project to get frustrated over.

The ramie is spun and plied.  I have a bin for my spun cellulose fibres.  This includes cotton, linen, ramie and bamboo.  One day, I'll have enough of any one of those fibres to weave something.  Until then, I just keep tossing in spun skeins.

I'm whipping the edges of the hooked rug and I'm looking for a new project.  Hmmmmm, what to do next?