Listings day

I'm just about to start listing the stitch markers again on Etsy and I'm contemplating putting them on the UK version called Folksey.com but first things first, I've done a cool looking, easy to follow two page photo tutorial for them.

If you wish to purchase a copy of this, it is $4 and will be emailed to you as a PDF thus providing the double whammy of saving on postage costs and the environment - no addition to either of our carbon footprints here!

Cick on the Paypal Buy it Now button on the right hand side of this website, log into your account to pay and I'll email you the PDF as soon as I can.

How simple is that! And for your perusal, and to tempt you into buying one, here's a couple of sneak peaks. The first is a shot of the cover page - I've called it 'First Take Your...' because I want to do a series of simple to follow tutorials. The second shot is of part of the instruction page. Enjoy!

Relisting on Etsy

I decided today to have another go at taking photos of the stitch markers as I wasn't 100% happy with what I'd done before - not bad for a first try doing close-ups though.

The main thing was making sure that they were better lit because although our digital camera is about a couple of years old, it can do close-ups really well. What I needed was to bounce the light from the daylight bulb around the shot better. Before I had been just shining the light on the object, not realising it was still being hit by the other lights in the room - the yellow light from the ceiling light and the light from the window. So this time I took my old Spears size 3 loom box lid and put some white paper in it as a test. Success! The picture was better lit but it needed something a bit better as the box only had narrow sides so was still letting other types of light in.

Knowing a little about photography from everyone on Etsy, I thought a photographer's tent would be a good idea - this site has examples - http://www.stevesphotoshop.co.uk/photo_light_tents_cubes.html

So into town it was to have a scout around because I didn't have the patience to buy one off of Ebay. Luckily, more on this in a few sentences, as soon as I got off the bus there was the Jacobs camera centre. They had a few tents in there and the woman in charge was even kind enough to open up the box for the smallest size to show me it. However, unfortunately, I'd already seen the price -£55! How much! It would take me ages to pay that off using sales of my stitch markers. I even asked if they had anything cheaper but no, that was it. Bugger that for the proverbial game of soldiers! So it was up to my original plan of going to Jessops. But they're also targetted at the middle class boys toys kind of market so I wasn't holding up much hope there either. I needn't have worried, the shop had been closed down and because I couldn't be bothered walking across town to the other one, I had to go for plan C. Plan B by the way was this - http://jasontomczak.com/2007/12/17/a-quick-easy-white-box-light-box-for-product-photography/ - but I wanted to see if I could do cheaper.

So I did a trawl of the shops in town for a reasonably large box that was white inside. Would you believe it, the best place I found was Clintons cards. For £4, yes £4 - much better than £50 odd, I got a large box for putting presents in it and it was perfect. The one I bought was holographic silver on the outside, so if I wanted I could have bounced more light off of that by sitting the stitch marker holder on that but to be honest, the light bouncing off it was blinding so I put some white felt over it.

Here's some of the results....

Not bad yeah! Okay, not perfect and I had to do a bit of tweaking in my camera software photo editing package but I'm happier with them.

The way I displayed them by the way was to use bamboo double ended needles held up by those crocodile clip photo holders - courtesy of Paperchase.

Warping and wefting

Well, the weaving's improving. This weekend was the first time in about a month I was able to sit down and get some serious work done.

I'll show you some piccies at some point but I managed to do about half a metre of plain weave using yellow (warp) and green (weft) 4-ply. Then I rolled it up in a towel and stuck it in the washing machine with tonnes of conditioner and it's come out dreamy soft and balanced.

Next on the loom is more yellow (warp) and fushia pink (weft) 4-ply. I think I'm about 3/4s of the way through the warp and the seleveges are looking much neater. There was a point where it looked like I was working at a serious angle but fingers crossed that it's just the way I've wound it on.

Rather than use these as blankets or scarfs, I much prefer the idea of using them as fabric to make things like bags, etc with.

It's here!

The loom arrived yesterday and has been put together by my wonderful boyfriend. I have a request to finish on the Spears loom and then I can get started on the Ashford. I also have three days off so I can play.

Happy bunny? Who me!

Weaving loom - patiently awaiting...

I bought a spinning wheel a couple of years ago, dabbled with it a bit and got reasonably good at it but to be honest it's very tiring on the hands because you have to guide the wool between your fingers. It was good fun to have a go with it but I can say I've done it and now I can say I've sold it!

And with the ill-gotten gains from the transaction, I can justify buying a loom. I've got to that stage of one hobby in - one hobby out. We don't have the space for the steady accumalation of hobby equipment although both of us have had a damn good try at seeing how much we can fit into the house over the years.

I have purchased a 36" Ashord rigid heddle loom from Twist Fibre Craft in Scotland and also bought a second heddle kit for added versatility and the Ashford book to inspire me. They were ordered last Tuesday and like an excited five year old I had hoped for them to be here for this weekend but really expected them to be here next week, hopefully in time for my Friday off.



Needless to say I got the stand as well to go with this monster, and then I can start to make a dent in this lot. I'm thinking once I've gotten over the scarf stage, I'm going to be looking at using the loom to make fabrics that I can sew with. I've seen some very nice skirts that have been made out of woven fabric. The second heddle allows me to make a much denser fabric than the two more open weave items I've done so far.



But until then I've started to warp the Spears loom with rather long lengths of white cotton and I mean seriously long, probably a bit ambitious but hey, I'm an optimist! Then I'm going to weave some yellow, green and purple in bands and see what comes of it.

First go at weaving

I've been pottering away for the last couple of days on an old Spears weaving loom I bought a few months back on ebay. I hadn't even bothered to open the box until yesterday. The loom itself appears to be in good order although missing the shuttle - my wonderful boyfriend stepped up to the mark and set about making me a substitute out of plastic which works brilliantly!

Needless to say there's no instruction book in the box but there are some instructions for how to warp the loom in different ways on the inside of the lid. Luckily enough the person who had it before me had set up some cotton thread warps allowing me to just get started - a bit like plug and play!

This is the first weaving I've ever done. The yarn I used was one of the multicoloured Opi sock yarns and I have to say it looks quite good.

After that I tried warping the loom myself. The loom is 25cm x 32cm and I wanted to try a scarf. So to make the long threads (apologies for my lack of knowledge regards weaving terms) I wrapped wool vertically around one of the living room doors so I could get roughly the same lengths. I decided to do 8 strands of green, 16 of purple and 12 dark red. Then once I was happy they were roughly even came the task of threading them through the heddle and then making sure the tension was even as I rolled them up. I tied them to our shoe rack to get them all even as I wound because it was low enough on the ground and could take the tension and would not move when I was winding the threads onto the loom. I tried to set myself up so I could be a bit self sufficient and not have to rely on others to be around when I wanted to start a project.

After that it was just a case of choosing a colour to weave. I was only going to use the light yellow to begin with but felt that was going to get a bit boring so alternated it with bright red and blue. I started some of the weaving late last night and then spent a few more hours on it whilst watching the reruns of It's Not Easy Being Green (great show!) this morning and managed to do about 1.5m. I'm happy with the results and am now going to have a hunt for a better loom to use.

Inspired by Winter

It's a bit bleak outside. You know, that bit between Xmas and the New Year where the sun pulls its silver winter duvet over its head and if you're lucky might show you a bit of colour first thing in the morning or before it goes to bed at night. So I've been inspired to add some colour to winter today and these are the results. All now available in the shop.