Look ma, I'm weaving!

Since I had a holiday from work, I took advantage of it and spent the day weaving my first project - a sampler. I was surprised at how fast it went! I had a 10' warp on the loom (see pics below), and started weaving about 9am. With breaks for lunch, occasional resting, and to cook dinner, I finished the weaving about 5pm. It took me several more hours to tie off all the fringe, weave in ends, and clean up my work area. I did the sample project in Deborah Chandler's book Learning to Weave. This is a great reference for anyone just starting out. I was able to figure out everything I needed, plus it has a lot of options that I'll try out in the future. I took lots of pics as I went and have added them to my photo album instead of taking up space here. But I do want to share one of the finished products. I had enough warp to do generous samples of the patterns, and some left over to make a placemat. After washing, I did learn that this yarn needs to have hemmed edges in the future. The fringe disintegrates in the washer. There was one mistake that the book said would probably correct itself with washing, but it didn't. I had threaded the reed with 2 threads/dent, but missed one. I didn't want to take everything apart and move everything over, so I just moved one thread making 2 dents with 1 thread each. It shows up as a loose space throughout the sampler. Oddly enough, it did fix itself on the 2x2 twill section. Probably because of the looseness of the pattern. Oh well, now I know to go ahead, bite the bullet, and fix any threading errors before starting. Here's a pic of the final product.


Placemat and Sampler


My 1st Placemat


Sample of rib weave for placemat

My First Warp

Will add more description later, but here are pics of my first warp on the Ashford Table Loom. And it only took me one whole day!!

Warp chains hanging on front of loom


Halfway through sleying the reed




Threading the heddles


Finished warp - front view


Finished warp - rear view


Finished warp - side view

Take me out to the ball game

Riley is playing tee ball, but they only have games on Monday's and Thursday's. Since I really have been needing some time off anyway, I decided to go up for one of the last games of the season. The Braves were playing the undefeated Phillys. Riley's team actually has some very good hitters, but no one can catch a ball or has any idea what to do with it once they do, and the coaching is almost non-existent. The Phillys, on the other hand, have a good pitcher and first baseman; and their coaching staff actually coaches. Needless to say, the Braves lost. But at 5 years old, none of them really care as long as they get some gum and a snack at the end. I love watching them though. Everybody kind of doing their own thing, looking around, waving to the crowd. Just having a good time. Actually that's what it's all about.




Riley did get a couple of good hits and made one run, so it was a successful game.




Tucker has the best seat in the house!


However, he doesn't stay there very long...

A musical interlude

The last couple of weeks have been a blur, with hardly any knitting done at all. We've been swamped at work, plus I had my cello recital on the 17th. I was actually able to learn enough in 4 months to have a few pieces to play. Practice was going along pretty well and things were sounding ok a couple of weeks before the big day. Then I woke up with a sore back two days after the Mother's Day adventure, and got virtually no practice in that last week before recital. At one point my back hurt so bad, I could hardly get up and down, roll over in bed, or sit in a chair for very long. Thankfully I had a scheduled day off on Wednesday, and was able to get a massage which helped quite a bit. Then I was able to make it through Thursday and Friday at work. Then on Friday, as I went out to leave, the dog car broke down. So it's 95 degrees and humid, and I'm feeling pretty cranky at this point. Luckily, James was at the track and was able to come down and try to start it. He surmised that the engine wasn't getting any fuel, so we went back to the track to get a trailer to tow the car. Ended up getting home about 6pm. That took care of the good practice session I had planned, but I did run through things just to keep them in my head.

Saturday arrives, and the car that the cello rides in is DOA at the track so off I go with it riding in the passenger seat of the convertible. What a sight! All this time I've been telling myself that I'm not nervous, no one knows me anyway, they're only there to hear their kids, etc. But when the program starts, those knees start to knocking! I did manage to get on stage without incident, which was a blessing in itself. When we planned the order of my pieces, I decided to do the hardest one first. Originally it was because I didn't want to be tired when I got to that one. But it worked out well in other ways. It took that whole first piece for my nerves to settle down so I could breathe and steady my bow. Then the second piece and my duet with my teacher actually sounded pretty good. Ending on a good note kind of pushed the rocky start into the background. I thought I did pretty well for a beginner! Hopefully next year won't be so stressful! Sorry, no pics.

Mother's Day 2008

Since the grandson's birthdays bracket Mother's Day, I decided to go up for the big party and take my own mom with me since she doesn't get to see them very often and it was a nice break for the two of us anyway. Seems like we just don't get much time to visit like we used to when we played golf all the time. So it was nice to have a 4 hour drive to catch up.

On the big day, our job was to entertain Riley while his mom and dad got things ready for the party at the park. So we started with a little basketball. How many kids can say that they shot hoops with their great-grandmother?!


After that, it was off to McDonald's for a quick lunch and a few minutes on the playground there. Riley is slowly expanding his diet to include a few more items besides chicken nuggets and macaroni & cheese, but not much. It's no wonder he's such a string bean.



Once we hit the park, from then on everything is a blur! They've got loads of cousins, plus Riley's class was invited too, so there were kids everywhere. Tucker was a little overwhelmed by all the chaos and was happiest just hanging out on the swings with mom.

After the pinata was broken and things were starting to wind down, someone snapped this shot of us, not too worse for wear. Unfortunately, I didn't get time to find mom. I never seem to be able to get everyone in a picture at the same time!


Finally we made it home and I managed to get one picture with the boys, but had to give them food to sit still for a few seconds. And once bath time was over we all crashed. It's exhausting just being around that many kids under 6!


After a mother's day breakfast near our hotel, mom and I headed for home on Sunday. Shelly deserved to have at least a little time for herself and to see her own mom without having to entertain us. Plus, as always, I've got work the next day. Since we made it back in the afternoon, we had time to stop by to wish Gran a Happy Mother's Day too. She's looking pretty good for 97!


Hope all the mothers out there had a wonderful weekend that involved no cooking or cleaning!