Restless Knitter

Saturday, the Ventura County Handweavers & Spinners Guild held their annual open house, sale and show. While hubby and his mom were doing some sightseeing, I did some sightseeing of my own. I swear, this just followed me home. All on it’s own accord, with it’s little rubber feet.

The lady was selling it because she isn’t interested in 8 harnesses, she does what she wants with 4. I bought it because I’m interested in 8 harnesses and this was a cheap way to find out if I really want that many. (And, there were two other people who appeared to be ready to slap down their money and I was afraid it was going to get away from me. Nothing like a little competition to make the heart grow fonder.) In one of the first Handwoven magazines I bought, there was a dog collar that was made with an 8 harness that I’ve wanted to make. I’ve already slapped a little test warp on this one to see if I like the mechanics of a table loom. Just from my little play session, I think I’ll like a floor loom better (you were right Janice) but this one will still provide some entertainment. If not, I’ll sell it and move on. The loom itself is a 10inch 8 harness maple loom by Montana Loom and I paid less for it than most of the 8 harnesses I’ve seen on EBay.

The Secret of Chrysopolis is no more. Amazing what one little dropped stitch can do. I attempted to fix it and found myself with one stitch where five had previously been. Instead of adding more frustration to my life, I said a nice goodbye, promising to come back to it again someday.

Today has brought us a new adventure in California weather. It’s windy. Hurricane force winds in some area. Winds up to 80 mph. Don’t even attempt to fix your hair wind. I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto. But with the wind comes something else

Dust, or dirt. I took this picture and came inside to upload it and start a post. In that half hour (I’m slow), it changed to look like this

Most of the sky looks like this behind our house. In front of the house, it’s still blue. Scratch that. It was blue, now it’s hidden behind a veil of dirt.

Edited to add: I know better than to listen to the “dirt” source. That isn’t dirt, it’s smoke. There are 7 fires surrounding us.  Don’t I feel stupid.

The past couple of days have found me more loom obsessed. I’ve made all kinds of excuses why I can’t weave. I don’t have a warping board. I don’t know how to get the warp on the loom even if I did have a warping board. I can’t get it on there alone even if I did know how. You know that saying Either shit or get off the pot? It was time.

Short version: I did nothing for the last day and a half but work on getting this going. I used random pieces of fake wood trim for lease sticks, paint sticks to smooth the yarn on the back, a dental tool for threading the reed and heddles, a dowel rod/peg as a shuttle, and a homemade warping board. I also got sore arms and hands from using a hacksaw and screwing pegs to boards, and a sore back from winding and threading. It was all worth it.

Long version below. If you want to know the full scoop and see pictures, they’re below the bump. If you aren’t interested in weaving, it will be boring so feel free to skip. I’m just a tad proud of myself though so it’s here for me.
(more…)

Okay, for those of you that have upgraded to IE7, you should be able to see everything okay now. Don’t get me started on how much I dislike IE.

I called Harrisville Designs today and found that my loom was made in 1975. You can still get all the parts for it with the exception of one and that’s the crank. And guess what my loom is missing. The crank. Looks like I’ll be a part of the lucky vice-grip users. She also told me that if it still has the rawhide harness straps, they’ll definitely need to be replaced because they dry out. They seem to be working okay so that will wait for now. I do wonder if they’ll still seem okay once a project actually gets on the loom.

I did a search on removing rust and found one site that says to soak the items in tea. I tried it on the heddles and while it didn’t get all of the rust spots, I think it did eat some of it off. It’s possible that soaking for 6 hours wasn’t long enough. On the bars that the heddles fit on I tried some stuff called MAAS, Goo B Gone, and a Brillo pad. The Brillo pad seemed to work the best but there was still a little bit of rust on one of the bars. Since there’s no shortage of sandpaper around here, and because I didn’t think I could make it any worse, I sanded it. Let me tell ya, that was a thick layer of rust. The bar is now smooth, though it still has areas that look stained.

If you haven’t seen Cars yet, you should rent it Right Now! I really didn’t think I’d like this movie but I rented it anyway. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up on a farm or I just needed sleep, but dude.. Tractor Tipping.. laughed so hard I cried.

ETA

I did see one other yarn related item yesterday

I didn’t want to go out today but I had two things that were must-do’s, so out I went. After I got out, I decided to at least do something that might be fun so I went to a large antique consignment store. I was hoping that I’d find a table loom in one of the booths very underpriced because someone didn’t know what it was or what it was worth. See, I still don’t know jack-squat about looms but I did decide that I want a 4 harness table loom instead of a rigid heddle. I struck out at two stores. I decided to hit one last store then go home. I don’t like this particular store. It’s layed out so crazy that you don’t know where you’ve been or where to go next. Regardless, I’m zipping through pretty quick, knowing I’m not going to find a table loom. A man asked if he could help me find anything, and I told him what I was looking for. He doesn’t think there are any in the booths in his store, but he saw a big one, like it sits on the floor, not a table, next door the other day. Next door? As in, the junky thrift shop next door? “Yes” he says, “but they’ve probably sold it by now.” I can barely contain myself. Out of courtesy, I did finish looking through all their booths but what I really wanted to do was bolt out that door. The loom was still there! It’s very dirty and has a bit of rust. The price is $80. It was $130 and they’d just marked it down on Saturday. If I wait until next Saturday, they’ll mark it down to $50 but they won’t take $50 for it today. I took a few pictures of it, and I left it there.

I rushed home and frantically shot off an email to Janice for advice. Please Janice, please be at your computer. Please answer me before 7:30. If she doesn’t answer by then, I’m going to go get it anyway because now that I want it, someone else is going to come along and buy it. I’d like to wait until Saturday when they knock another 30 bucks off, but that’s probably pushing my luck. And besides, I have the patience of a 3 year old. I got a reply from Janice that said GO BUY IT RIGHT NOW. Okay, that’s not what she said but that’s what I saw! So that’s what I did.

I figure that even if I find that I don’t like it, or like it so much that I want a bigger one, I can sell this one and make a few bucks.

It’s a Harrisville Design 4 harness 4 treadle loom, and came with that nice big comb for the mornings that I’m having a bad hair day. That’s all that came with it, except for the dirt and rust.

I found a few numbers on it. The top piece says A75 467, and the bottom piece has the number 30

I’m a little embarrassed to show you this pic because there’s a full bag of shredded paper and the shredder that needs to be emptied (again)(and may die on me before I’m done) but here she is in all her glory.

I don’t want to do any more packing, I just want to start cleaning this. Nevermind that I have no clue how to use it, or have any of the necessary tools. I just want to play with it! Speaking of packing..

It’s amazing the treasures you can find in your own home. When I started peeling wallpaper, patching, and painting, I needed sandpaper to smooth said patching. So I bought some. After I was done using it and putting things away, I found we already had sandpaper. Several packages, in fact. In going through boxes that we haven’t opened in the 4 years we’ve been here, I have found no less than 4 more packages of sandpaper. If I keep going through boxes, I’m afraid I’ll find I have more sandpaper than yarn. That’s not all I found, either. Can you say Stirrup Pants? Yeah, those have found a new home in the garbage. Yesterday, I found this huge lock, a large version of what you’d use on a school locker. I wondered why in the world we had this. We haven’t used it since we moved here, so I tossed it. When calling around for prices on storage units this morning, I realized why we had that lock. And now I can NOT find it anywhere! I have no idea what I did with it. I thought I put it in the trash, but I dug through that (yuck!) and didn’t find it. It’s not in any of the boxes that I filled up yesterday. It up and freaking walked off! See, this is what happens when you throw things away. I threw the homemade loom I made in the recycle bin, then I wanted one again. I threw the lock … somewhere… and now I want it. I don’t regret the stirrup pants though.

If you’re interested, there are more loom pictures

(more…)