Our youngest recently turned 14!
How did this happen? He will be in high school next year!
Lemon cakes with lemon frosting. His favorite!
14 years
Mediterranean Chickpea Salad
We’ve been trying to eat a little bit healthier. Meaning more vegetable and beans.
Mediterranean Chickpea Salad
This recipe really hit the spot. I served it with fresh baked soudough bread and dinner was done! It was met with about a 50% like rate. Myself and a couple of kids liked it, the rest (including my husband) did not.
I had it for lunch the next day with a slice of buttered sourdough bread. That was the perfect combination and filled me up!
Rag Rug #1 Done!
The first rug for this warp is complete, but not without some “issues”.
Rag Rug #1 – Evenweave
I wanted this rug to end up being about 24″ X 36″. The warp is 27″ wide and I wove for 40″ – all evenweave. I took it off the loom (you’ll see why later in this post), tied the ends and washed and dried it. It is wonderfully soft! The dimensions without fringe are: 18″X29 1/4″. I lost almost 11″ in length and 9″ in width. This is good to know for future items! Another surprise to me was that it only took 4 t-shirts! I have boxes of the kid’s t-shirts and lots of them already cut and rolled into yarn balls. I will need to think of other things to make from them as we don’t need that many rugs. This rug is already in use by the front door.
Challenges: t – e – n – s – i – o – n! I am a newish weaver. I have only ever warped this loom with the help of a teacher and have never put a warp on that is this long. I decided to “just go for it” and use the rag rugs as an experiment and learning opportunity.
Warp issues.
As I was weaving and advancing my warp, this is what was happening at the back of the loom. The threads were coming loose and not holding tension. I would run my fingers through them, and then stick the pick up sticks in the back and twist to get at least some tension so I could weave.
Warp hanging off the back of the loom.
Without the pick up sticks and weights, the warp looked like this. From this picture, I’m sure some of you can see what I did wrong. The warp on the back beam is much narrower than the weaving width. I forgot to measure the width of the warp when I put it in the raddle and adjust to make sure the warp went straight across from the back beam to the front beam.
Re-rolled warp.
To fix the problem, I stopped weaving and rolled the warp to the front beam, fixing the tangles. Once all of the warp was on the front beam, I retied it onto the back beam and rolled back. Many, many hours later, I still had some issues, but not as many as before. The warp is not perfect, but it is straight, has no tangles and I can weave much easier. And I started the second rug.
2nd rag rug – twill
If all goes well, the plan is to weave about 8 more rugs with this warp. I am not planning on cutting them off as I finish each one but rather to weave with the whole warp and cut them at the end. Wish me luck!!
HQAL Update – February & Slow Stitch Sunday
Every time the update for our HQAL comes around it really doesn’t seem that three weeks have passed since the last update. Time feels like it’s speeding by! And yet, right after I post this today, I will feel like I have oodles of time before the next update. I’m still working on my Grandmother’s Flower Garden. I’m really enjoying every bit of it: choosing fabrics, the prep and the slow hand sewing. My stitches have gotten more even and I am a little quicker than when I first started this project.
Flower #10
This flower is complete. I really like the two greens together. Originally I had a different green intended for the darker area and had glued the cardboard to the fabric and cut it out. I had even sewn some of them; however, something you don’t know happened to them… our dog LOVES glue. I have to be very careful and keep this project in a plastic box and place it up high somewhere when I’m not working on it. I accidentally left the little pieces out when I went to bed and when I got up there were bits of fabric everywhere and the cardboard was gone! Whoops! The dog is fine. She had no idea she did anything wrong and she’s so cute I couldn’t chastise her! I just chose different fabric and started those pieces over again. I am MUCH more careful with this project though.
Flower #11
I started this one. My next flower will be pieced and I’m looking forward to that. At the last update I was asked to show all the flower together. I took a couple of pictures and that’s how I know how many I have done. I was pleasantly surprised. I seem to be just focusing on which fabrics and whether I want to do a pieced flower piece instead of how many I have done.
Flower #s 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8
Flowers 1, 2 and 3 with the border
Originally, the plan was to attach the flowers together as I went adding the green border as needed. Once I decided to make the pieced hexis for the flowers, I stopped adding them because I think I want the flexibility to place them where I want them once I’m done. Please see below for detail on this HQAL and information if you would like to join us.
Hand Quilt Along Links
This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another. If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.
Kathy, Lori, Margaret, Kerry, Emma, Tracy, Deb, Connie, Susan, Nanette, Edith, Sharon, Karrin, and Gretchen
I am also joining up with Kathy for Slow Stitch Sunday.
Mash
Whenever it gets cold outside, I make a mash for my chickens.
Chicken Mash
It’s made with oatmeal, dried cranberries, garlic powder and flax seed. I serve it to them warm and they really enjoy it. It’s nice to do something for them.
Chocolate
My 17yo daughter loves to bake and cook with me. She is a bit pinterest fan and finds things she is interested in making and then we get the supplies and make them. This time she wanted to do something with chocolate and fruit.
We had raspberries and mallow bits on hand. Basically, as you can see, you use empty ice cube trays. We put a little bit of chocolate in the bottom, placed a raspberry and some mallow bits in and then covered the rest up with chocolate. Usually, it’s just DD and me that does this, but this time she invited her younger brother to help. So sweet!
We moved from the ice cube trays to cookie sheet and dipped apples and oranges into the extra chocolate.
Yummy!!!
Saori Weaving
I took a class yesterday at Saori Santa Cruz. The owner Jill is amazing! The setting where her studio is located is beautiful and her studio is to die for. I spent 8 hours there and the time just flew by.
Jill showed me a new way to measure warp. We measured with 5 threads at one time. I had no idea you could do that. She has this amazing wall (actually several of them) of threads and I was told to choose any 5 I wanted. Oh…My…that was hard!! I wound up with 5 cones of threads I wasn’t sure would go together, but take a look at the photo above of the beauty of them together. Jill was so supportive – she said anything will work and boy was she right!!
I also got to choose any yarn I wanted to weave with. I started weaving and was quickly sucked into adding fleece bits and fabric strips.
Slots or holes (planned holes, kind of like lace)
I learned how to make planned slots in my weaving. I can totally see LOVING this and using this method a LOT. I wove portions of my piece over and over to kind of give the section a stacked look.
Brooks Bouquet done crazily.
I was trying out some brooks bouquet when Jill sat down and showed me some crazy weaving that I love! This kind of weaving is so freeing. I felt my mind spinning with so many new ideas!
Saori Scarf made at Saori Santa Cruz. 2/5/2019
I still need to knot the ends, but I finished (Jill let me stay a little extra) and I’m completely hooked on this method of weaving!
