Weaving - I’ll be back!

I wish it wasn’t so, but I occasionally have projects that are started, not completed and are either given away or frogged. 

One of these 'not completed' projects is a weave-it blanket.  I will say this project has “staying power” because it has survived multiple downsizing events.  Every time I came across the bag filled with woven squares I said “I’ll be back” ... It never occurred to me even once that maybe I should just give up on this project

Well, now I am back!  And here is the story.

Here are all the squares of this partially started blanket.
Yes, it is a lot of pieces,
and yes, it has a lot of ends to weave in! (Gobs and gobs of ends!)  And as you can see - some of the 
sewing has been done - but honestly, this has a ton of work left to do 
before it is complete.

But seen up close the woven squares are so appealing to me, and different yarns
produce different effects.  The plaid ones above are made with a single multi color skein of yarn.  
It is fun to watch it develop.  
Each plaid is different and there is no cutting the yarn to change colors.

This weave-it blanket was started around 2009 - 2010 soon after I learned to make these little squares from Karen, (Happy One) of the Life is Good blog.  Karen introduced me to this weaving technique that she learned from her grandmother. At the time it wasn’t all that common a technique but in the 1930s and 1940s it was very popular.  When I started with this project you could buy weave-it looms on the secondary market - and with a little searching - I found someone who would make them “new.”  As the interest in weaving grew over the years, these little looms were “rediscovered” and have gained popularity among weavers, knitters, crocheters alike.

The white loom is the Zoom Loom and the wooden loom is the one
I purchased off of Etsy. Both are weave-it style looms.

On weave-it looms, the pins are in groupings of 3.

At about the same time, I discovered the pin weaving looms made by Hazel Rose - looms where the pins are equally spaced and the weaving is done corner to corner. They come in various sizes (squares, rectangles, triangles, etc.) and fall under the umbrella term of continuous strand weaving - meaning that you create the warp of the project at the same time as you weave the project.  Very ingenious and half the work.

Here are 6 squares made on a 12” Hazel Rose pin loom using the 
continuous strand weaving method.  They are not yet sewn together and many more 
are needed to complete the project - but with 12” squares there are many fewer ends to
weave in and the sewing is much easier.  I am still experimenting with this project on patterns and
if I will introduce a 3rd color.  I have researched weaving patterns that can be done on this loom as well.  So this project is still in its infancy.

I once made a shawl for my mom using this 12 inch bias corner to corner loom.  It was pretty easy to sew 10-12 squares together and have a lovely shawl. A close up of that shawl can be seen in the center picture of the header of my blog. Unfortunately that shawl is no more and finding pictures of the shawl have proved unsuccessful.  My mom was in assisted living at that time and the shawl was snatched up by the center staff and put in the laundry - washed and dried in commercial sized washers and driers - and because it was 100% wool, it shrunk to the size of a placemat.  ☹️

Weaving and I parted company for a few years, but I held on to most of the equipment and yarn.  Then my thumb started giving me problems and I was searching around for things to do with yarn that didn’t aggravate my hands!  Weaving started to pull me in once again, but only for the smaller simplistic looms - like the weaving-it and the Hazel Rose looms - that didn’t involved tons of preplanning and warping as a precursor to the fun part - which was the actual weaving.

So weaving is back in my life again and it has been most gratifying to discover that these smaller pin looms have a dedicated following.  They can be found in Facebook groups, Ravelry groups, websites, and several dedicated blogs that focus on small hand held looms - and even books and patterns that are dedicated to wearable projects created using these cute little blocks.  In fact, it is very easy now to get a weave-it style loom that is not a 1930s antique.  The Zoom Loom has several wonderful little features that the antique style loom does not.

Returning to the weave-it loom blanket (that I am now calling The Patch Work Blanket) - here is the first photo once again followed by the most recent photo that shows the current progress.

Here are the squares that I found packed away in a bag from years ago.
Only the far left column of squares have been completely sewn together.  
Tons of strings still hang from all pieces of the work.
And, yes, all those strings are a bit overwhelming.  But I have
a plan for future weave-it projects to get passed the strings.  

Almost all the squares have been sewn together and the strings for 
most of it have been woven into the piece.  I suspect this blanket is more than half done,
but how much more needs to be done - I don’t know yet.

I will return to this blanket and the pluses and minuses of doing a project like this in a future post.  I will also share some of the books and patterns that I have discovered that use this technique.  

Comments - and a Public Service Awareness Campaign

Hello readers.

I have a few new readers.  Since I like to visit and comment on the blogs of my readers ...  it is time once again to make a Public Service Announcement about Blogspot.com commenting pluses and minuses - the blogging platform you are visiting now that is used by me and many others.  

The Pluses and the minuses  There are 2 methods of Blogspot.com comments: Embedded Commenting and PopUp Commenting.  

PopUp Commenting seems to work consistently well for most readers - except that the blog owner cannot respond individually to each comment received.   I use PopUp Commenting.   

Embedded Commenting does not work well for some us.  Comments ‘appear' to be submitted to the blog you are visiting, but they never show up.  No error message is provided to alert you to this problem.  And when I have back-tracked with the blog owner through a private email - just to confirm they got the comment - they report they never saw it.  Very frustrating for the visitor. If it works, however, it lets the blog owner reply individually to each visitor comment.  Very satisfying for all.

What happened: 

A few years ago Blogspot made some adjustments to their blog platform.  It was at this time the commenting problem cropped up.  Embedded Commenting would only work if the blog I was visiting recognized me as “signed in” to Google.  I am always signed into Google, but the software just didn’t see it that way on some blogs.  I spent considerable time trying to get “signed in” in the eyes of some blogs.  I reported this issue to Blogger over a year ago and got no response - and, more importantly - no fix.  I gave up trying. 

While I understand that Embedded Commenting is the preferred method of accepting comments for most of us, it blocks some of the readers from leaving a comment.

My Fix: 

My own personal work-a-round with some Embedded Commenting blogs is to send my comment to the blog owner's personal email.  My comment doesn’t show up on the owner’s blog, but it lets the blog owner know I visited.  I comment less often with that approach.  Lately, however, I have found that some blogs don’t provide an email.  I still visit, but I am totally invisible to the blog owner, with the exception that I probably count in your Blog Visitor statistics.

Bottom Line:  Regardless of where you stand on how you receive comments on your blog, I just wanted to make readers aware of the problems some readers have with the Embedded Comments feature.  And I think twice about starting up with new blogs that use an Embedded Comments method. If I haven’t visited or commented on your blog, that may be the problem.

Thanks for reading/listening!  Happy Blogging everyone.

Tate - perfecting his cuteness!

 

I can’t wait to hold that little nugget on the ride home!  Three whole hours on the ride back.  He will know exactly who his grandmother is by the time we hit my daughter’s house!! 

A New Little Family Member

Meet my newest Grand Baby!!

Yes, my daughter has finally decided to take another little creature into her life.

My daughter has named him Tater Tot or Tate for short!

Tate is an English Bull Dog - about 3 weeks old in the first picture below 

and has recently opened his eyes.

It is his first “glamor” shot.  

Get used to it little buddy.

It is just the beginning of your life in pictures.

Tate, a week or so later in the second picture!

Eyes open wide and taking everything in.

We are very excited to welcome him into our family.

The plan now is to pick him up from the breeder mid-March when he is 8 weeks old.  The breeder is located in Virginia about 3 hours from my daughter’s condo so it will be a full day of driving to get him.  I am going with her.  Tate will need someone to hold him on the 3 hour trip back to his new home and I volunteered to do that.  

Hey! It’s a tough job, but somebody needs to do it!!  (no eye rolling, please!)  😂😂

Of course, more pictures will follow.  

There is nothing cuter than a round little bulldog puppy!

 

A Repeat Puzzle

 

This is my next puzzle - The James Younger Gang offered by SunsOut Puzzles.  This is the only puzzle I kept from my previous puzzle life decades ago. It has survived many multiple downsize purgings of my belongings.   I love the picture.  I tried to find this puzzle on Amazon and it doesn’t appear to be for sale anymore. 

The first step facing me is the pieces sorting.  I typically sort by color and edge pieces first.

I first noticed these pieces are non-traditional in shape.

And the sizes of the pieces vary greatly.

And I have a box full of those oddly shaped and oddly sized pieces.  

Not sure if this will be easy or hard.  

But the sorting step is completed now - and I am committed.  

After all, how hard can it be since I have assembled this puzzle before?  (famous last words)  

There are an awful lot of solid color pieces to this puzzle - so my normal brain process of checking the pieces against the picture for general location on the board won’t work for large sections of this puzzle.  

In fact, I have specifically avoided puzzles that are a single color because I prefer using the picture side for reference as opposed to looking for specific shapes. 

This puzzle will be completed, however, no matter how hard it is because I have plans for it.

Now that I have a dedicated puzzle space, I will glue this puzzle together, frame it and and hang it above my puzzle board.  

This puzzle also will probably be the only puzzle I ever repeat. A kind of a “first” and “last” rolled into one. 

This should be interesting!

It Deserves Its Own Photo Shoot

Seriously, 

this puzzle deserves its own photo shoot.  

I do like to take a picture of my finished puzzles and I like to enjoy them complete for a few days, but this puzzle was the hardest (and largest) puzzle I have done so far.  It was only 1000 pieces but it almost filled my large puzzle board.  I even considered at one point of abandoning it - boxing it up and giving it away.  Some elements of this puzzle just were not fun.  After all, who would know if I didn’t finish it.

Oh that’s right.  I would know!

So here I am in February showing it off (started it in December).

These individual houses and the people in the setting were great fun to do.

 

Ok, maybe the Christmas trees were a bit of a struggle.  

The houses were so beautiful.  If I had to pick one I would like to live in, I could not make up my mind.

But the sky!!!!  It was a head ache of massive proportions.  I had to finally focus on the shapes of the pieces rather than the images on the surface.

Anyway, it is done.  I’ll leave it together for a few days.  Run my hands over it with every visit.  Gloat that it didn’t get the best of me this time.   And then I will break it apart and give it away! 

Was it Sabotage?

I know I am pretty dense about some stuff ... but I think I am actually now RETIRED!

Yep!  I have looked all around me, in all the rooms, in the closets, under the furniture and  through my calendar ...  and I can’t escape the fact that there are no obligations or commitments hiding anywhere.  I am completely and totally retired!

Imagine that!

I suspect this is kind of an odd statement to make considering I haven’t held a paying job since 2007.  But as we near the end of this month, January 2022, I realize that after 15 years of stepping away from formal paid employment, I am retired. It took years to get here, but here I am!!

What happened?  Why did it take so long and did I sabotage myself?

When I left my last employment in 2007 they gave me a “retirement party.”  And there was no need to correct that assumption, because that was what I was doing.  Retiring!  I was only 59.  But my underlying reason for stopping work so early was my mom.  She was living with us and it was very hard for me to hold down a full time job and help her out all the other hours.   Turns out my mom became a 24/7 commitment as she was developing dementia. It wasn’t retirement for me. But it wasn’t exactly sabotage, because she needed help and I was able and happy to give it.

When she died in December 2014, I thought now I will officially retire.  My commitment to mom taxed all of me more than anything else in my life.  I needed a break.  I just needed to close down her estate - and then I was done, done, done. But did I retire? Nope.

With mom gone, it became overwhelmingly apparent that my increasingly visually impaired husband was at serious risk of falling on our stairs - and in a townhouse, there are a lot of stairs.  So from 2015 to 2016 I began the downsizing, taking on tasks my husband could no longer do because of his vision problems, “shopping” for a new and safer place to live, orchestrating the sale of our townhouse, organizing the move, and purchasing our current condo - not to mention the unpacking and settling in a new place and location.   I was 69 at the time of that move, and I used up every last ounce of myself.  Did I somehow sabotage myself over that year and half?  I don’t see how.  Now the person needing help was my husband - we needed to move and I had no choice but to take the lead.  

In August of 2016 we moved into this condo.  I remember thinking “all I need to do is get us unpacked and settled and I will be retired.”  The list of obligations and commitments were at 0!  One day in January 2017 I was walking my daughter’s dog enjoying the feeling of lightness and I was approached by a resident with a measuring tape.  He asked me to help him by holding the measuring tape while he took measurements of a community project.  Ha!  I was thrilled to help, to make a friend of a neighbor, to become part of a community!!  Within 15 minutes he invited me to attend an informal meeting of the board happening in a few days.  He started talking ... you should join the board, you’d be great at it!!  God knows what he saw in me.  Was it my sparkling personality, or the way in which I competently held the measuring tape or .... was I just a warm body without 2 heads, and they needed a 5th board member - and there I was!!  Of course, I didn’t recognize any of that at the time - and I started thinking “Oh yes, this might be fun.”  (In that moment, the “Oh yes” moment,  I began to sabotage my retirement dreams!) Like a magnet I attended that meeting, got involved in community activities - crescendoing in a spell as a board member that ate up hours and hours (... and HOURS) of time every single week.  And this volunteer job felt very much like work without the benefit of a salary!   January 3 of this year, I stepped out of that board position and ... for the first time in forever - I didn’t sabotage myself.  I keep looking over my shoulder, but there are no other hangers-on to hijack my new status! 

I’ll admit, it's a little disorienting, but I think I am finally retired.  

But then the thought dawned on me.  Despite all the past demands on my life, I have been lucky enough to reached this point with good health and independence.  And now finally, my time belongs to me - to do what I want.  Some folks never reach this point.

While I know life can change in a moment I have taken a precaution to prevent self sabotage  - there is no room in my life for measuring tapes!!  I am hoping that will be enough.  Today I am retired!