Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Sprang by Comb and War Shirt

Interesting links

Sprang technique by means of comb
Anita Rašmane, 2006
http://www.senzeme.lv/Sprang.htm

I also found the "war shirt" article very interesting. It looks like a finger
knitted coat, no loom and no knitting needles.

http://www.senzeme.lv/Pakulu_krekls.htm

Translate to english: http://tinyurl.com/WarShirtLatvia

And translate to english Senzeme main page: http://tinyurl.com/Senzeme

I used Google Translate to convert from Latvian language.
Have a good day!

Edited to add:
Ieva contributes this link: http://zagarins.net/Latvjuraksti/index.html

Google Tranlate to english: http://tinyurl.com/LatvianSigns
Be sure to click on "Shirts articles etc"

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Lambtown USA Oct 2 2010

Oct 2 - The Dixon Lambtown, USA Committee has planned another great Lambtown Festival for your family this year. The festival will be held at The Dixon May Fair Grounds, 655 South 1st St., Dixon, CA, on Saturday, October 2, 2010, from 9 A.M. to 9 P.M. Admission is just $2.00 for adults. Children 6 - 13 $1.00 and kids 5 and under are FREE! For your enjoyment, you will find more focused craft and fiber booths, competitions, and as always, a variety of great food celebrating the lamb industry and the rich agricultural heritage of the region. This year's live entertainment will feature music and an evening street dance. Parking $5

http://www.lambtown.com/info.html

Friday, September 24, 2010

Rancho Cordova CA Fiber Arts meeting report 9/24/10

Rancho Cordova CA Fiber Arts meeting report 9/24/10

6:30pm Arrived at library to set up the room. Laid out some woven items, a
Cricket rigid heddle loom, an Erica rigid heddle loom, a Harrisville lap loom, a
couple of drop spindles, some handspun yarn samples, some samples of
fingerweaving. Posted a couple of notices on the glass doors.

7:00 Open door to meeting room that connects to the library. People were
wandering around the library. I pulled out a drop spindle to spin while I
waited. Meeting was scheduled for 7:00 to 8:30

7:15 First visitor showed up. Two kids who wanted to see what all the stuff was
for. So I showed them the stuff, answered questions, showed them how to use a
drop spindle, how to use the Cricket loom, and the lap loom. One girl took to
the Cricket loom right off because she said she had seen it done before.

7:30 Another kid shows up and she starts working on the lap loom. By this time I
am realizing I need little cardboard looms for kids to use and take home with them.
I'll try to have some next time.

7:45 An adult woman drops in to see what I was doing and said she couldn't stay
but she grabbed an information flyer and said she'll try to be back next month.

7:55 Library closes at 8:00 pm and the kids have to go home with parents. So I
start putting stuff away since there was no one else there.

8:10 Take stuff to the car and go home.

Notes: Need to advertise the meetings. Need to have some prepared projects for
visitors.

Have a good day!
Franco Rios
Rancho Cordova Fiber Arts Coordinator

Upcoming events:

Sacramento Weavers & Spinners Guild
Sat Oct. 23. 10:00 am to Noon
Arcade Public Library, 2443 Marconi Ave
A resource for spinners and weavers
http://www.directcon.net/weaver/

Church of the Nazerene -
Fiber Arts Presentation by Franco Rios
Sept 29, 2010 Wednesday evening 7 pm
3520 Bradshaw Rd, Sacramento, CA - (916) 363-0364

Next Rancho Cordova Fiber Arts meeting
Oct 14, 2010, Thursday, Spinning for Beginners, drop spindles, plying,
Nov 15, 2010, Monday, Weaving for Beginners on simple looms
Dec 2010 Holiday Break (no meeting)
(schedule updated 9/10/2010)

Thursday, September 23, 2010

The Fabric of Mayan Life - An Exhibit of Textiles

"The Fabric Of Mayan Life: An Exhibit Of Textiles"

http://www.snomnh.ou.edu/collections-research/cr-sub/ethnology/mayan/Home.html

Found this article on the web.
Lots of examples to look at and some background info.

Courtesy of Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History

Have a good day!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

$2 Thrift Store Loom


(click pictures for larger image)

Back to the fiber adventure. Above is a needlepoint stitching kit I bought for $2.00. It has a mesh background with a printed pattern to follow that is tacked to a wooden frame measuring about 10 inch by 8 inch on the outside. It includes over a dozen hanks of embroidery floss. I bought it to make a loom out of it.



Here is the wooden frame. I attached pencils with clear plastic tape to raise the warp and give me some room for tension adjustment. If the tension gets too tight, I'll remove a pencil to give some slack.


Here is the frame with a continuous warp of #10 cotton crochet thread, about 100 ends. I tried to weave some floss with a crosstitch needle. I quickly realized the warp was too close and many of the warps were crossed over each other.


The warp is wrapped around the front and back of the frame. I followed the warp around and around the loom making sure all the warps do not cross over the one next to it. Once it was straightened out, I set the cross using pencils and safety strings. The knitting needle was helpful in picking up threads.


Once the crossed warps are straightened out, I need ot spread out the warps. So I put three rows of twining on the warps. This spread the warps very well. You can also see the string heddle on a pencil.


In this picture you can see I am using the knitting needle to open the shed to make room for the ruler I am using for a shed stick. When I turn the shed stick it opens the shed (spread upper/lower warp apart) so I can push the shuttle stick, which is the pencil with the red floss wrapped around it.


Here you can see the pocket comb I am using as a beater to push the warp into place. Right now I'm getting a very uneven spread of weft, too far apart then very close. Very gauzy in spots so I now have one way of doing gauze which is on my list. I am thinking I should use double floss to fill in the weaving more.

Have a good day!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Weavezine - Syne's Back

Syne's back!

Two articles in last 3 days posted on Weavezine

What I Did Over The Summer 2010 - Syne Mitchell
http://www.weavezine.com/weavegeek/what-i-did-over-summer

Weaving Handspun Singles On A Rigid Heddle Loom - Syne Mitchell
http://www.weavezine.com/weavegeek/weaving-handspun-singles-rigid-heddle-loom

Weavezine is the online magazine for weavers

Have a good day!

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Living Crafts

Another fun link: Free Patterns from Living Crafts
http://www.livingcrafts.com/page/Free_Patterns

Have a good day!

Hair tie


Here is a quick project. Please excuse the blurry phone camera picture.

My niece Maggie had her birthday party last month. I wrapped her gift with paper and tied it off with 4 strands of #3 crochet thread in different colors. After she unwrapped her gift I told her to save the threads and get a safety pin. Using the safety pin to anchor the end to a tablecloth, I tried to show her a four strand braid, but for the life of me I couldn't get it to work!

So I showed her how to fingerweave it. She made quick work of it, weaving up a 4 foot long band which she used as a hair tie. 12 year olds can be so crafty.

Have a good day!

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Farmers Market


My corner of the world: Sacramento Farmers Market at Sunrise Blvd and Highway 50
Every Saturday the light rail station parking lot is converted to a farmers market where farmers bring their products to sell direct to the public. Vendors are certified as actual farmers who work in the surrounding area. As you can see there is a lot of produce for sale.


These are herbs for sale.


These are buckets of flowers for sale. There is a black bumblebee browsing the flower in the center under the little white arrow. These flowers are fresh.

Often there is live music for enjoyment. Today is a 3 piece band with bass, guitar, and accordion.


Here is our stuff from the farmers market. Got potatoes, squash, cherry tomatoes, sour baguette of bread, oranges, a plant called hummingbird sage which I bought because it attracted bumblebees while it was on the table. We bought white peaches and yellow peaches. We also bought some organic eggs (not pictured).


It was a busy day for us. Our chihuahua, Paco, needed to get his shots. The mobile vet trailer is where we get shots for our dogs. The two men on the left are veterinarians. There is a table to the right where people get their paperwork filled out and pay for the shots. It's cheaper to go to the mobile vet clinic than a vet's office.


And there is an airshow going on this weekend. Overhead there was a Stealth bomber, an F22 Raptor, a squad of L39 jet trainers, a couple of acrobat flyers, but none of those pictures came out. I did manage to get a couple of pics of these P38 Lightnings.

It was a good day!

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Paper Reed Basket



This is Laverne's basket which she shared last month in My Corner of the World. She made it 7 years ago using rolled up newspaper for reed to weave it.

And now, because I am not afraid to try something new, here is my first attempt at basket weaving!




As you can see, it's very rough. The good news is that I'll get better.

My lovely wife Tracy saw this and said she did baskets like this in Campfire Girls. She hasn't thought about it in years.

Laverne said to get a full sheet of newspaper (2 pages) and tear it down into thirds. Then take a knitting needle and starting at the bottom left corner at about 30 degree angle and start rolling sideways to make a long tube. Keep the first few rolls very tight. Use a bit of white glue to hold the last bit. You'll get a tapered tube that is smaller at one end and flares at the other. You can push small end into large end to as you go to add more tube.

So I made some tubes at work and made the above basket just to start getting the feel of it. I did not have a knitting needle so I used a nail from the work bench. No white glue so I used some cellophane tape. What can I say? It's got to get better.

I have to go surf the web for basketweaving info.

Have a good day!