Things I Like

  • Game of Thrones

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Handwoven Towels


I am weaving some bath towels from 1000 ypp cotton chenille. They are coming out very well but I'm not very happy with the selvedges. They aren't absolutely horrible but they aren't really nice either. I think it's the chenille which is taking up the yarn much more than I thought it would. I'm using a set of home made temples and am watching the edges carefully but every now and then the edge threads tend to want to start scrunching up together and making a smooth area once in a while. But all in all, I'm pretty happy with them.


I walnut dyed the contrasting color in them.

Mitchell's Sweater


Only one piece to go! Mitch wanted a red or blue sweater for Christmas. I settled on a manly looking rusty dark red color. Jim thought the bright red sweater wasn't the right color for a little boy. Who am I to argue since I'm not a male? The only piece I have with me is the sleeve so I'll post a photo of it. You can oooo and ahhhh here. . .

Fiona's hat. The pattern and yarn came in a kit from a website. Can't remember which one right now. But it's called the Ultra Violet Hat by Debbie Ware. Isn't it cute? I love the happy colors. It's as happy and fiesty looking as my 4 year old grand daughter Fiona.

Finished Knitting Project

It's been a while since I posted and I'm feeling a bit guilty, especially since have no excuse whatsoever except laziness. I've been working on several projects lately. I finished a sweater for my grand daughter Kendall. It's a purple bulky wool/mohair with a sort of cowl neck. She's ten and still likes Tinkerbelle - so I intend to do a Tinkerbelle like embroidery on the front in a contrasting pink color before I wrap it up for her for Christmas.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

New Windows!

We had 60 yeard old windows in the house in aluminum frames that were loose and the calking holding the window in place was falling out. If someone had pushed real hard, some of these windows would have fallen out they were so bad. So this year, I decided to get new windows. We chose to do the install in two segments due to the congestion of stuff in the house - which has to be moved 3 feet away from the windows - inside and out - for the installers to have a place to work. The first installment was about 3 months ago before the hot weather. The last 3 windows installation took place yesterday.

It sure took a lot of work to get the house ready for both installations! We have been home organizing to install new windows in very congested areas of the house. We have been organizing the office for about 2 months. My live-in cannot throw anything away and we get into a huge fight every time I try and get him to get rid of anything. So rather than fighting - I allowed him to make the office so untidy that I could hardly get in and out anymore. It's funny that you have no idea what it is going to be like to live with someone until you've been with them for a while. We've been living together for 10 years and it's slowly gotten worse over the 10 years. It's a serious problem when you live in a small home.

So anyway, this weekend was spent moving the computers and computer tables away from the windows. There was a LOT of stuff in there and it's now sitting all over the living room. And the outside was bad too. We had a woodpile to move, tables with dye pots, microwave, etc. on them. And what added insult to injury was that it was about 100 degrees outside when we were doing this stuff. But it's done, yay! Now all we have to do is get the house back together. There has been some really good things come out of this whole mess. I will not allow him to get the office in that state again. We will get rid of paper and equipment that is unused and just piling up. I can finally clean the carpet in there! And the windows look superb. Clean white and lovely.

BTW, this brings me to Home Depot windows. The windows themselves, of medium grade, have a lifetime guarantee on them which can be passed on to the next owners. The installers were meticulous, cleaned up after themselves and did a wonderful job on the windows. My complaint is with the scheduling department. On both window appointments they double booked in our time slot. And although we had our appointment for about six weeks, they still booked over us. I was so mad yesterday morning I was ready to spit bullets at the girl. This is the second damn time they have done it to us. When I called her to confirm our appointment, because they neglected to do that (AGAIN), she says "I'm so sorry Ms. Brunston, but it seems we have double booked your appointment and we have no one to do it today. Would Wedneday be a good day?"
That's when I blew up! I said "No, it will not be a good day. You cannot do this to us again! We both stayed home from work today for this install as well as spending 2 days getting ready for it. You WILL fix this." And she did. She wound up cancelling someone else I assume. Which I'm really sorry about but damn it, serious time and money effort was involved here and I was not going to be put off. Jim was insistent that if they didn't keep the appointment yesterday that we would cancel our order and get the windows elsewhere. Luckily it didn't come to that. I did not want to wait for another eight weeks to schedule the order with someone else. They have to custom make your windows and it takes them quite while to make them. Anyway, it's all done now and we have all new dual paned windows in the house. There's only one window left and that's a garage window that faces the street. We might do that one ourselves one of these days just so the glass and lines within the glass match the rest of the house.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Bobbin Lace Making


No, this is one craft that I don't do. But Margaret More does. She's a music teacher, dancer, harp player, spinner, bobbin lace maker and all round good sport. Here are some pictures of her lovely bobbins and lace making set-up. This one's a bit blurry but it was really hard getting a good picture. Plus my camera isn't doing closeups very well right now, even the macro doesn't seem to be working.














Sunday, August 24, 2008

Pretty Handcard Covers









I had some leftover overshot from a weaving project I did last year so I put it to good use by making handcard covers. It was really easy to make, just took a bit of time. I bought some cotton fabric at fabric store for the lining, laid the handcards on the fabric to determine how large to cut. I overlapped one side and cut a slit in the middle of one side, sewed the lining on, sewed some velcro to close it and voila!






Here's what they look like without the cards: