Monday, October 24, 2011

Weaving Update


The first step in weaving, after choosing your colors, is to measure the yarn / cord/ thread. Instead of cutting 30 threads the same length, and tying them on, it is easier to use a mill. This keeps them all in the correct sequence and keeps them from getting tangled. I have finished this step. The photo is not my project. I used a stationary mill, this one twirls around, making it easier to handle longer threads.

The second step is to chain the threads together, and take them to the loom. This is my project, and I just finished this step.

The threads are then divided in the rattle. This preserves the spacing of the quilt, so it will be as wide as you want your project to be. I had some difficulty, and got my threads tangled up, but I think it has been worked out. The next step is to roll the threads onto the roller thingie. I haven't finished this part yet, but I will try to get the name of this for next time.

Then the threads will have to be threaded into these thingies. After that, we will finally be finished with setting up the loom. The actual weaving part goes much faster. It is setting up the loom that is very slow.

It is a lot of fun, and we are still enjoying the progress.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

List of Quilting Magazines





As I said in an earlier post, I have been madly writing articles.  Since most of the articles are ghost written, I can't share them with you, I have also created a space where I can write articles on my own.  I thought you might be interested in the most recent one I wrote - it is a listing of quilting magazines. I will be writing additional quilting articles in the future.  Most of them will start with the basics - like the ones I recently posted on this blog. I think that my readers are experienced quilters, though, and hub pages will be a better home for them. I will let you know when I write others that might interest you. But in the meantime, you might want to keep an eye on the listing of recent hub pages I have written in the sidebar. You may be interested in the other topics I write about as well.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Writing

Columbus, Ohio

I promised myself that I would write more frequent posts on this blog, and I broke that promise almost as soon as I made it. Oh well, you will have to put up with sporadic posts as usual. At least, it will save you from boring posts!

I have been writing articles that will be written under someone else's pen name. I think most of them are filler articles that will be published online, to keep people on their website, with hyperlinks to those things that will bring them money. They tell us the topics, and the approximate size of the article. The people who completed the optional review have been happy with the articles I have written. I have always dreamed about being a published author, and now that dream is coming true, even if someone else is getting credit for it. It is a great start, and is giving me some confidence and practice in writing. I am learning what topics are popular, and since some articles require research, I am learning quite a bit. Hopefully, I can venture forth and eventually become published in my own (pen) name.

All that writing makes it hard to stay on the computer to write blog posts.


There were many people who were ready to start setting up their looms for weaving this week, so I watched as they set up, and helped my sister do some of her set up. Some of it is really difficult for one person to do by herself. We were talking about how wonderful it is to simply look at the room. All the beautiful threads lined up on the shelf, the wonderful finished projects displayed on the walls and from the ceilings, and the many works in process on the many looms provide a great deal of eye candy. It is crowded and cluttered but that just adds to the atmosphere.

I have decided to keep my denim rug simple, and use light and dark blue threads for the warp. The warp is the lengthwise threads that hold the tension. I have started measuring it and preparing it for the loom by using on the mill. This is apparently an important first step in the process. The weft, that will be going under and over the warp will be the denim strips, which I have been cutting at home. I promise to show you as I go along.


My brother-in-law and nephew joined us this week while we walked along the river. It is a pleasant walk, a great place to ride a bike, and we even walked by the Mayor. I think they need to have places to eat along the walk though. There is one restaurant, but it is expensive, and we were hoping for something quicker and more appropriate for our walking attire.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Simply Squares

how to make gif

Why are you seeing photos of a quilt that you thought was finished way back in May?  Well, it is a long story.  When I finished the Celebrate quilt, I updated my spreadsheet to mark the finish date, but I also tried to add a column to figure out the average amount of time each quilt takes.  It didn't work out - since there are estimates of dates and ranges in there.  Then, I tried to sort the spreadsheet, but used the wrong range, so the sort was all wrong.  I didn't save the spreadsheet and just quit.  I didn't remember that I hadn't saved the updates.


Anyway, yesterday, I was looking at the spreadsheet to see how I was doing, what I wanted to work on, and I noticed that the Celebrate and Simply Squares quilt did not have finish dates on them.  I looked on the blog for the finish date for Simply Squares, and all I found was a note that I was working on the binding in May.  No quilt reveal!  I know the weather was bad and I wasn't able to get a good picture, but we've had good weather days since then!


I decided to remedy the situation by providing a belated quilt reveal.  I took the quilt along for our daily walk.

Which photo do you like the best? I added a poll in the sidebar for fun.  Please leave a comment to let me know what appealed to you about the photo(s). This will help me take better photos of other quilts.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Weaving


At our weaving class, I continued to work on the abandoned piece. A previous student had abandoned it, so I could just play without guilt. I added some gold because I thought the gold would make the red and black look Christmasy, but it made it look African, so I went with the African theme and added random amounts of other colors.(The color is off in the picture - that is red, not orange).   I started making random patterns, but since this was supposed to be my training piece, I forced myself to get practice on following patterns.  Instead of winding bobbins, I tried to use up bobbins other students had left, although I did add other colors as it pleased me. I really like this piece, it was fun to play with it.  I might add some other colors and use it as a table runner or wall hanging.


But it is time to start my official piece.  When we went this time, she had a denim rug on display, and I have decided to use denim instead of my original chosen material.  I have lots of jeans which I acquired when I made a jeans quilt, and this will reduce some of the stash in my house as well.


After our class, we walked around some more in downtown Columbus.  Both my sister and I used to work downtown, and we both really miss the walking we did there.  And they have added more walking paths, with fountains, benches, planters, piped in jazz music, with the new Scioto Mile, so it is very pleasant to walk and hang out downtown. We saw many people jogging, many with their dogs.