Stasia's Place Of Grace

Saturday, January 25, 2003

 

Something Neat

Click To Go To Southwest Indian Foundation's Catalog

Isn't she sweet? The Navajo grandmother shepherd doll... just search for "shepherd" at the site and she'll pop up! She's all handmade!

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Something ELSE Neat!

Peggy posted a link on her blog for an online color schemer. This thing is fantastic! Wonder which yarns go with which others in your stash? Planning a weaving project? Just need some color therapy to cheer you up during the winter months? Stop here! Kary, Linda, you're gonna' love this!

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Thankful Today For...

• Finding printer cartridges at the hardware store for 1/3 what they cost at the office supply store... and getting an additional $2 off each of them, on special!

• The sweet, juicy, fruitiness of a navel orange on a bitterly cold day. It has been so long since I've had an orange... thanks for the fruit idea, Kary!

• That the temperatures are rising slightly - it was -9 the other day, and today's 23 feels absolutely balmy!

• For Mary Engelbreit's cheerful, colorful artwork - so appealing when outside it is drab brown and gray. The sharp colors and spunky designs really get my creativity jump-started!

• That I did a by-the-seat-of-my-pants, unplanned project on my rigid heddle loom - little four-color coasters - and am almost finished tying the knots in the fringes now. A photo will follow soon!

• That I was able to find parts to make a simple cone holder to support my weaving yarn spools, at the hardware store, for under $10. A photo will follow soon!

• That the new horizontal supports for my Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom Stand arrived today from New Zealand, and that Ashford was so wonderful in sending them (so inexpensively!)

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Current Project Photos

Treenway Silks' "Simply Sophisticated" 4-shaft scarf kit on the Ashford 32" table loom.

Detail of twill pattern of scarf (extra threads will be trimmed later.)

"Freehand" coasters made on the Ashford 24" rigid heddle loom. Yarn is Maysville cotton warp. They still need to be hemmed somehow.

Abby Tabby, my very friendly, adopted Maine Coon mix kitty. Ok, so she's not a project... but she's so sweet!

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Some Creative Ideas

I'm doing my "morning pages" each day, a la "The Artist's Way," by Julia Cameron, and I'm finding that they're helping me in my creative thinking process - things are just "jumping out" from the recesses of my mind.

Two projects that appeared for no reason are these:

A little, dark red velvet band, like a hair scrunchie, with an elastic in the middle, and beaded around the edges, or with dangling beads, to be sewn and used around the neck of a wine bottle as a drip catcher. If I made one in burgundy or black, stains from red wine wouldn't show.

A coiled basket woven with raffia, plain wool roving, or yarn as the filler, and using the loom waste of handspun yarn. The original project was a scarf and used a green wool, with flecks of other colors and some sparkly mylar filaments in it (an Alpine Meadows blend from Bountiful). It was one of my first weaving projects, and I didn't know then how to minimize loom waste, so I was heartbroken at how much I had to cut away after I was finished weaving. I thought I could use these lengths to bind the filler, and at the beginning and end of each length, leave a little bit hanging off, so the basket would have all these fluffy ends hanging off of it, making it "furry".

I'll probably never get to these projects, but I liked that I thought of them, and how "free" my mind is becoming from doing the exercises in "The Artist's Way." I hope you'll give the book a try... and feel free to use my project ideas!

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Have a wonderful weekend!

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