New Year's Day - Hello 2014

I love being on holiday.

Yesterday was a very long day, with a headache that lasted all day, despite 6 Maxigesic, a nap, food, and a massage. In the evening we went to Cam and Marcia’s for a New Year’s Eve BBQ. Brown’s, and parents-in-law, Heke’s, James and the kids and us. The food and company were good, and Dan and I won a game of pool against David and Shannon. By the time we came home (and bought Azariah with us), the headache had finally gone, but I still went to bed early. Slept in till 1100 this morning.

I’ve spent most of the day working on my weaving project. Trying to figure out how to warp the wire heddle, without it and the yarn running away. I hit some nails into a piece of timber, which I then clamped to the dining table. That would hold the hanks of yarn.

But then I needed something to hold the heddle still. Sitting it in the loom wouldn’t work, because it’s much taller than the loom frame, and I had no way of fixing the loom to anything. (yes, I tried that!) Putting it on a music stand failed. Balancing it on a desk failed. Then I had the bright idea of turning the table over and, using clamps, a bracing bar and lots of masking tape, taping and bracing the heddle to the table legs:

Well, that worked. Now this took four or five hours to do. Twice – because I stuffed it up the first time round. And I used my nice new crochet hook - that certainly made it easier! Once it was threaded thru the heddle, it had to be tied onto the rear and front loom bars.

Here it is on the back loom bars:

Then it was time to start weaving. Which is the quick and easy bit. Cream double stranded cotton and Royal Blue mercerised (shiny) cotton, woven in cables. This is from the Inkle Pattern book:

It's wider than I thought it would be, but I found if I pushed the heddle wires closer together it made it a wee bit narrower. 

Oh, and the first job of the morning was to clip Kama. He’s gone from chocolate dog to black dog. I put him up on the freezer in the laundry, rather than doing it on the floor or outside as I normally do, and ending up with dreadful back pain. I half filled a bucket with hair. I think he’s finally forgiven me. I think he looks very cute now.

Tomorrow, I'm going to have a go at making something called a reed stand - I'm not sure why, but I thought it was called a 'heddle tree', and of course when I did a search for that, google came up empty. Then, when I opened one of my weaving books to see how to tie off the front loom bar, there it was:

Lol. Gotta laugh. At least I have a good selection of dowling and timber. And my Grandpa Jim's trusty old hand drill and bits!  

It’s been a nice week away – feels like we’ve actually had a holiday. But it will be really nice to be going home. I miss my cats. There I was, saying, ‘when/if we move to Canberra, I’ll leave the cats behind; they’re just a couple of SPCA 10 year old moggies ...’ but truth is, they’re MY moggies. And I miss them, and they’ll come too.

It was a long night last night. When I went to bed I had ‘speed-wobbles’ – almost like the aura precourser to a migraine, and dreadful indigestion and stomach cramps which got worse thru the night. Around 0300 I got up and spent about an hour on the loo. L 0400 I grabbed a large, fluffy red dressing gown and curled upright on the couch, to doze on and off for the rest of the night. I think it was a combination of dehydration (I usually drink at least a litre of water a day, but here I’ve only had the odd glass), coffee/jarrah/lactose free milk (soy, wheat, casein), prunes (FODMAPS), and maybe some lamb that was off, and possibly dodgy bacon.

GOING HOME: Jobs are deputed – David to deconstruct fence, Becca to pack car and sweep floors, me to vacuum and put load of washing on.

WEAVING: This is not going so well. Talk about a learning curve.

There are two main ways to warp a table loom. The easiest one, and the way I used first, is called direct warping. You have a ball of yarn, the heddle on the loom, and some sort of post a couple of metres away (depends on the length of the warp) that you wind the yarn around. You take a loop of yarn, pass it thru the heddle, around the post, and back thru the next heddle, wrapping it either over or under the rear loom bar as you go. The yarn lays out nicely in order. One done, you cut the far end, wind the yarn onto the rear loom bar, and thread alternate yarns thru the holes of the heddle, then tie off to the front loom bar. Done and dusted. 

About 2-3 hours work.

Then there’s indirect warping, where you (in my case) use two wooden chair backs 2 metres apart. Once you’ve wrapped the number of ends you need, you then have to transfer that to the loom bar, then thru the heddles. Add #20 yarn, doubled (bloody fine!), and it twists and turns. Tie that onto the loom bar, and you have a great big lump of yarn. Wind it on, then try to lay out the pattern and it turns itself into a tangled knot. Oh, and of course, I miscounted the ends I needed.

This photo shows two sets of warps on the loom. 

One set of warps, but it's all bunched at one end, and I think it's going to turn into a knotty thing. You can see one of my warping plans underneath.

I tried to break it up a bit, but that didn’t help. In the end, I undid the whole thing completely, and broke it up into groups of warps that match the pattern. All this was probably about 6 hours work (going until about 2300 last night!). Because I was going to be cunning, and make two Inklebands of bookmarks at once, I stuck the warp on one end of the loom bar. Now I’ve realised just how long it’s going to take to set the other pattern straight, I’m only going to do one at a time. But that means taking the warp back off the loom bar, and moving it along into the centre, so it’s balanced.

The warp threads laid out on the warping plan.

Since everyone is still asleep, I might play with it for awhile.

This has pretty much consumed my week. Haven't had a chance to play with encaustic. Maybe next week.

Oh, and I forgot to repack deodorant after we went home. Doh.

COZ THERE'S ANOTHER WHOLE WEEK OF HOLIDAY AHEAD!!!!!

Christmas Day 2013

So, when is the last time we woke up at nearly midday?

The fact that it was suddenly midnight when we went to bed is irrelevant, lol.

There is only 1 clock in this house - on the stove, in the kitchen.

Bacon and eggs for brunch. Dogs fed. Lovely overcast day.

Must be on holiday!

Oh, that's right ... "Bailey sleeps out in the hall" ... Bailey much prefers to sleep IN the bedroom, beside me - competing with Tara, as she thinks that's HER space.

David comfortably ensconced on the couch, Tara on the couch, Kama on the floor, Bailey with his butt to us. Brunch dishes cleaned by dogs, waiting to go in the dishwasher.

Took a drive over to Beachlands to buy some rubbishbags, then up the road about 5km to get some fresh fruit and veges – strawberries and blueberries – nom!

Then home for a nap. The headache I’d gone to bed with, woken up with, and had stayed with me finally went away with the help of some maxigesic. All three dogs curled up with me.

There's quite a nice view over the gully to the other side:

Weaving – well, its plan 76. Despite all the fancy calculations, that worked out the sett (how wide it would be), the piece I wove was 11cm wide instead of 5cm. Far too wide for a bookmark. It looks quite cool, but not what I want.

I’ve cut off 6 cream warp threads, and 12 ‘spice’ warp threads, leaving 6 cream warps. The warp is 2.00m long, so I’ll make a few bookmarks with that. I’ve wrapped the cut warps around the back loom bar, and will work on them later.

Found the book on Inkle weaving I'd purchased a few weeks ago - it was still in my Downloads folder. 

After dinner (slow roasted beef, yorkshire pudding, kumara, spuds n salad), we took the dogs for a walk along the beach, this time heading south. They all went paddling, and of course Tara had to go in very deep. It was great watching Tara and Kama playing and enjoying themselves.

Mr B’s external hard drive has thrown a tanty and he can’t access data that he wants. He’s very frustrated. I’d bumped the damn thing earlier – hope it wasn’t my fault.

Done a wee bit of work on my CV – bah humbug. My ‘relevant’ job experience is pre-1996 – a lifetime ago.

Feeling like I/we are in limbo. 

I’m on holiday. What’s a holiday, I ask.

Well, I answer, it’s when you don’t go to work, and, just for a change, you don’t stay at home, either.

You go away to someplace else. And, of course, you take your toys with you.

Oh, and of course, you take the dogs with you. And husband. And child. Who bring their own toys.

Today, I finished constructing the weaving loom I’ve been making for the last few weeks. It’s based on an Ashford Table loom. I found detailed plans on line, and rather than buy one (about $250), I thought I’d make one. Of course, in the long run, it’s not much cheaper. But for FIXSUE, it’s so much more fun-er-er! It’s probably cost close to $120, but I’ve had hours of entertainment. It needs a bit more tidying up, but it’s now functional.

This evening I finally got to warp it up (the long-ways threads). I discovered that one I put some tension on it, the strings that I’d put the warp-bars on pulled thru their holes. Hurrumph – plan 75B (there have been a number of cunning plans making this thing, lol).

There’s a dreadfully complicated mathematical equation (well, it seems such to me!). What I WANTED to make were some bookmarks. Bookmarks that were meant to be 5cm wide and 20cm long. Well, they’re 11cm wide. I’m not really sure why, but I think it has to do with the width of the gaps in the heddle (the bit the threads go thru).

So, maybe they won’t be bookmarks. Maybe they’ll be ... something else.

Here’s some pretty pictures:

We're 'holidaying' at a friends house. So, we’ve been down here at Maraetai (well, it’s downhill from where we live!) since about 2.00pm. Our dogs have taken themselves for 3 walks. We THINK we’ve plugged the gaps. Unfortunately they don’t have much respect for fences that are only a couple of feet high, when there’s children laughing and screaming somewhere over the valley. Sigh.

This evening, we took all three dogs (we’re dog-sitting with Bailey, a large golden retriever) for a walk down near the beach. Of course everyone had a quick swim. Soggy doggies.

Projects this weekend – besides weaving, include doing some encaustic painting, and working on my CV. David has applied for a job in Canberra, digitising film and videotape. So far, he’s had an I/V with the recruitment agent, a phone I/V with the prospective boss, and he’s expected to fly to Canberra for a face-to-face and check out the job at the end of January.

We can see potential for me getting a job with them too, as a lot of the work involves taking old cassette tapes and machines apart and putting them back together – which is definitely something I’m good at doing. So I need to tart up my CV, as it’s been nearly 7 years!

We can’t make the TV here work, so I suspect there’ll be more blogging tomorrow.