As the Lathe Turns

No, I didn't drown in the river, I just haven't had much to post about. I'm working on a new tri-loom shawl, and am about halfway through. I've also been playing with my lathe. I'm trying to re-create an 18th century drop spindle that I saw a picture of once. Progress is slow, but I'm feeling determined, so hopefully I'll have a finished spindle to show in a couple of weeks. My lathe tools are in serious need of sharpening, so I've ordered a sharpening system and should be making more progress once my tools are in better shape.
I had a big sale on my undyed fiber locally, and it went pretty well. I hope that once school satrts back up I'll be able to sell things at the booth without having to put them on sale! They've asked me to do another ddemo soon, but I think I'll wait until the weather cools down, which around here won't be until November.
I'm off to clean the wood shavings out of my sandals.

Mini-Vacation

I'm off to the beautiful Texas Hill Country to spend a few days on the Frio River, which is the clearest river that I've ever seen. We'll be staying in a log cabin on a bluff over-looking the river. I'm so excited!! I can't take the CSM or the tri-loom, so I'm taking the pink shawl that I started a few months ago (the Gossamer yarn one)....I hope I can remember the pattern I was using.
Will post more when I return!

FO: Tri-Loom Shawl

My first woven shawl is done! I finished it last night, and I am very pleased with it.
Here is a pic before taking it off the loom:

The weaving was fun and fast. The only good picture that I could get of it off the loom was this one in which my youngest daughter had placed one of her drawings:

I guess the white of the page kept my camera from brightening/distorting the shawl colors.
Here is a close-up of the weaving:

It is by no means perfect, but I love it none-the-less. I used my hand-dyed merino fingering weight yarn in the "girly" colorway. I'm now cutting yarn for a different form of tri-loom weaving called the "cut lengths method" that moves diagonally across the loom. I'll be using a thicker yarn this time for a fuller shawl.

In other news, check out this cool darning "egg" that I bought from http:www.islandgirla.blogspot.com:

It is made of cedar cleared from the aftermath of Katrina. John carves beautiful nostipines and darning eggs from wood he's cleared as a member of the Coastguard working in the area, and his wife Alicia sells them. Each piece is unique and I want to buy them all, but for now I have the cedar one. I found them through an online fiber sales list. The pieces are selling like hot-cakes.

The Looms, The Looms!

I'm in the home-stretch with the triangle-loom building. The nail hammering just wasn't happening, so I yanked the nails out and began drilling holes for pegs. Drilling is so much more enjoyable than hammering.
The pegs were more expensive than the nails, but my cost for the whole project is still under $75.00, so I'm pleased!
I did a spinning demo at Homestead Handcrafts (the place where I'm selling my fiber goods) today. I had planned to do more spindle spinning than wheel spinning, but the spindle gods were not with me today, so the wheel and I danced our dance. As is usually the case with demos, there were more lookers than buyers, but I had fun talking with people about wool, spinning, knitting, etc. How can you beat a gig like that?

Happy Fourth!

My neighbors/friends to the left and I decorated ourt children's bikes and had a good old fashioned "Fourth of July Bike Parade" around our cul-de-sac.

I've made a bit of progress on the tri-loom. I hope to have it ready for use by the weekend, but that may be a bit ambitious. Sheepish Annie suggested that I try a nailgun, and for a few minutes I got excited about the prospect of getting all those nails in with a pull of the trigger (I even started a Google serach) until I remembered something: no nailguns are allowed in our home as DH has had to sew up more than a few eyeballs (not anyone we know) after nails were thrust into them by such guns. I've always wanted one, though, but I have to respect DH's feelings about them since he is really supportive of my fiber activities, and is truly concerned about nailgun dangers. We also don't own any bungy-cords...yes, they tend to spring back and insert their gigantic hooks into the eyes of unsuspecting users. Those ratchet style cords work pretty well and are much safer.
On a happier note, it is raining!! We have been on water restrictions for a month or so, so the rain is more than welcomed. It is all dark and stormy out, and I love it.

What was I Thinking?

As promised, photos of my progress on the tri-loom:

Looks pretty good, until you take a closer look:

That is a corner with, oh, 35 or so nails..OUT OF 500 PLUS.. that I need to hammer into the frame. It took me about 3 hours to get those nails in, so I may have a loom by the end of the month if I ignore the laundry, children, and meal times. I made the mistake of choosing a very hard wood, not realizing that nails do not like to be pounded into very hard woods. The drill only seems to slow things down. Can you hire people to hammer nails into looms? The $200.00 I was avoiding having to spend on a manufactured loom seems negligible now.
Oh well, it did get my mind off of NIcaragua for a while, and that was the whole point, right?

Worried...who's worried?

I had lunch with my wonderful 19 y/o and his girlfriend yesterday. It was a going-away lunch date for us as he is leaving for Nicaragua on a mission trip (I was never that good!). I'm genuinely excited for him...I think he'll have a fantastic time, but I can't help but worry. They'll be in a city (rather than out in the wilds of Nicaragua) but still.....
So what is a fiber-obsessed mom who deals with stress and worry by sketching out shawls and petting fiber to do? This called for a serious fiber project, one that would involve major distraction from reality in the form of hours of online research and some serious planning. I'M BUILDING A LOOM!!
Okay, it isn't quite so impressive as it sounds. It is a triangle loom, which is very simple, really; but wait,it gets even less impressive: after a trip to the lumberyard and some more sketching, I excitedly laid out the pieces of red oak on the floor. Dear hubby came home, saw what I was doing, and pretty much took over the project. I know, I could have stopped him, but I honestly cannot say that I'd do a better job of it than he would, so I stepped aside( for now). Tomorrow I take back the reins as I begin the tedious hammering of close to 600 nails into the rails. I'll try and post a picture of my progress tomorrow (unless my fingers are too swollen and numb).
There is of course a yahoo group for tri-loom weaving, which gave me hours of research material to pour over. You see, aside from a couple of pot holders that I made in third grade, I've no weaving knowledge/experience, so for now I'm sufficiently distracted, sort of. Here is a picture of my son, my daughters, and me. (this past Christmas)