Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Day 2: History Lesson

I'm taking a break about halfway through coating the loom in tung oil (and yeah, I really didn't set out to actually refinish her but that's how its turning out anyway) and thanks to my Mom's awesome research skills I have some more info on her.

Based on the size and this ad:
It would seem I have their 30" "mini-loom" and the wood is birch (this agrees with what the guy at Woodcraft told me so I'm pretty confident of that now).

Interestingly another ad suggests that the loom is intended to be threaded in the folded position. Also the sectional beam on mine was likely an add-on as its available without.

Of related interest the University of Arizona has an archive of the newsletter "Looming Arts" which seems to have been put out by Mary Pendleton. Her husband is the one that made the looms.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Day 1.5: Cleaning

My back & shoulders hate me but the loom is officially clean. In hindsight I wonder if I should have taken a picture of just how much nasty I scrubbed off so everyone could be impressed by my dedication to cleaning but... well... it was gross. I really could have gone my whole life without knowing what rotten felt looks & smells like and probably no one else needs to share in that bit of knowledge that hasn't already had to deal with it.

Besides the good cleaning I have stripped and replaced the rusted hardware, removed all the old heddles & heddle bars and sewn up new canvas straps for the front beam. I'm also slowly replacing the old pedal cords with hemp bands and new clips (I debated leaving the chain & cord on there but couldn't work out a way to just replace the clips which are really badly rusted).

Next up is reconditioning the whole thing & / or repairing the finish. This is the step where I stop having any idea what I'm doing but friends and hardware store employees assure me I can do this and not either f-up beyond belief or somehow permanently damage myself so I'm charging ahead.

Still looking for a reed & new bars (replacement heddles at least were easy), but I'm confident I will find them.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

The "Thing"

I am convinced that every dedicated yarnie/fiberista/crafter/artist type eventually has that score that they will tell stories about forever and their friends will tell stories about and then eventually it will turn into a crazy niche-type urban legend about finding 50 balls of Cashmerino at the thrift store for 5$ or a Reeves wheel in a parent's attic or a dozen froggable cashmere sweaters at goodwill.

Like if you just stick with your crazy obsession long enough someone somewhere will leave you their entire stash of Noro or some distant relative will find out you spin and mention that hey, they raise sheep or alpaca or angora on the side and would you like a few prime fleeces for christmas this year?

And until it happens to you all you can do is try not to be too overwhelmingly jealous when someone shows up at knit night with a complete set of Addi Turbos they got at some estate sale for pocket change.

So.

Yeah.

I think this is mine:

Its a 30" 4 harness Pendleton jack loom (& yes, it folds).

It needs a new reed, heddles & heddle bars and some small bits of hardware here and there.

Also a really good cleaning.

I'm hyped. I've been wanting a 4-harness loom for awhile but its been a kind of a pipe dream. I don't have the space for the large looms that sometimes crop up on craigslist on the cheap and the smaller folding looms like the Schacht wolfs don't usually resell for much below retail on the rare occasions you can find one used.

This one is pretty much everything I could ask for. She's a good size - large enough for bigger projects but not so big that I don't have space to set up. She's well built - I'm not sure what the wood is yet but it seems sturdy and in pretty good shape in spite of having spent the last some-odd years in someone garage. She's even pretty - underneath a layer of grime the wood is warm with an attractive almost iridescent grain.

Oh, and did I mention that she was free?

Its OK if you need to hate me a little bit right now. If I wasn't me, I'd probably hate me a little bit too.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Nearly Instant Gratification

I finished my cowl and it is wonderful.

It took one skein of Merino 12 (and by that I mean exactly one skein - between the left over from the cast on and bind off I had exactly 3inches of waste which felt rather awesome actually).

It took 2 days to knit.

Okay... technically it took 3 days to knit but since the third day was compromised of midnight to 1am of the next morning that I stayed up to finish the last few rows I don't think it counts.

Its big enough to fold in half around my neck or flip up to cover the bottom of my face (should it ever be cold enough here to warrant that).

Pretty much its just awesome in every possible way.

Also I started the hat I was talking about:

Actually I already knit it into 90% of a hat, but then I had to pull it out and start over because a) it fit a bit funny and b) I wasn't going to have enough yarn and after the success of the one skein cowl I really wanted a one skein hat too.

I'm doing a modified Koolhaus pattern.

Its slower knitting than the cowl with all the twists but I still love knitting it.

After the hat I think I am going to be working on a shop sample out of -yarn I can't really talk about yet- I will say that its a yarn that I find fascinating - its not supersoft or brightly colored and its kind of tweedy which are all things that go against my usual preferences. It is curiously light and squishy, however, and made from a cross of sheep that I happen to think rather highly of. Its quite possible that I just might really like it for no particularly logical reason.

I am already considering that it might be a good yarn for that vest I promised my grandfather... or failing that maybe something to finally make the CPH out of because I really did want to do that one this year and I haven't spun fast enough to make it happen out of handspun...

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Happy Yarn

Today I got to add a yarn to the Ravelry database.

Ask me how stupidly amused I am by that. =D

Also everyone should find some to squeeze because its awesome happy yarn and you need to knit with it. Seriously.

I am making a cowl.

Its going to be the smooshiest, most wonderfullest cowl anywhere ever.

Afterwards I think I will get some in green and make a hat. It will probably be the softest, most cuddliest hat in the world.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Let there be light!


So yesterday I finally gave up on the idea that my living room would eventually hold a couch -and thus be able to seat people should I ever actually desire for people other than myself to hang out here - and got a new craft table. Yay craigslist.*

This is really more logical all around since I suffer a desire for other people to share my space perhaps .05% of the time but NEED somewhere to work on yarny and other artsy-crafty projects 99.95% of the time. Having this spare desk means the sewing machine now has a home that is not the back of the closet, the skein winder does not require me to completely clear off my computer desk to use, and I have a big chunk of stable flat surface on which to put things like a lightbox.

For anyone that's never used a lightbox before, its one of the easiest ways to get a color accurate photo indoors without a lot of screaming and crying and some combination of grey cards and colorcards ** and a/or really competent flash or light setup.

I've managed without one since moving but my pictures have been a lot more varied in quality without it. This isn't helped by the fact that my apartment is north facing and never gets sufficient sunlight to mooch off of instead.

A few times I have trekked down the three flights of stairs carrying a box of yarn to take pictures out by the pool but this is not ideal for oh so many reasons and so mostly I've just let the picture quality slide a bit and hoped no one that wasn't me noticed.

For instance - this is what that Targhee I spun actually looked like.

And this is what my finished Ashland Bay Merino looks like.

This is the yarn that finally kicked my butt into replacing the light box because there is nothing like trying to get a decent photo of a really dark color in dubious lighting conditions to make you want to tear your hair out. The box I whipped out is 16x16x16 which is a little smaller than I'd like ideally - fine for 1-2 good sized skeins but a little cramped for larger quantities - but the smaller size does mean it slides out of the way easily and I can take some time hunting down a larger box in decent shape later. ***

The finished yarn is 704yds of 3ply, which I hesitated over for a long time. I tried a 2ply but just couldn't make myself like it even though it gave a more practical gauge in my swatch. This yarn is knitting to about 16sts & 24rows over 4"x4" which is really heavy for something I'd want to wear in Texas pretty much ever. On the other hand, it looks good knit up and has a nice stitch definition and I'd finally decided when I was doing my swatches that I didn't want to spin any more of the stuff to try and expand my yardage.

I'm happy with the yarn, even if I'm not sure what its going to be. Rosemund's Cardigan is a possibility, as is Hey Teach!, and Little Blue Sweater. Alternately I could go completely off my original plans and knit something that's not even a sweater with it.

I'm not really sure yet as nothing is screaming "KNIT THIS" right now to me. I am confident the right project will wander by eventually though.

* what exactly did 20-somethings do for furniture before craigslist anyway?
** which for some bits of colored plastic or cardstock are really ridiculously expensive
*** hopefully one with the banker-style put together so I can collapse it when not in use... I think U-Haul sells some like that