Colorful Morning

It was a colorful morning!

This was a busy weekend- alot of little projects that added up to some sore muscles.  That surprised me!

A roll of rugs came off the loom, ready to be edge finished.
I did a quick count of rugs to give me an idea of where I'm sitting- It's craft show season, I have 2 this coming month and could do more - I have right at 100 rugs made up and ready to sell.  I need to get this warp woven off and get some small projects done- I'm getting low on table runners and totes....

I keep getting drawn to this - when I'm bored or don't know what else to do, or frustrated with a project, or just plain don't want to do what needs to be done,  I find myself here.  Kinda like how you find yourself in front of the refrigerator and don't know how you got there?  Maybe this is a new diet - Hip to Be Sqare Diet... We'll see how it works!   Oh! and Hilary - if you see this.... I'm gonna need more loopers!

Unbelieveable

What is wrong with my cats?

Do they think they can control me somehow by lying on my stuff??

Found my crazy cat Polly on my ready to finish potholder this morning.  The little turd.

This can't be comfortable with the nails sticking up around the outside...

I'm Hip...

to be Sqaure!

These things are gonna be addicting, I think!

Hip to be Square Loom by Crazy as a Loom - Hilary!

First scarf!

Here's my first scarf!  It's hanging in the shower cuz it's still dripping a little bit from it's first bath....

Making it was kinda fun!

What I learned -

*With this heft of yarn - and I know, that's probably not the correct term - I can make another scarf and get two from the same sweater.

* I can make the next one a little narrower and a little longer.

* I'm gonna try skipping two dents in my reed to make it a little sleezier.

* These scarves are doable and fun!

Not sure if I'll make one of the same yarn again right away, or if I"ll pull apart another sweater and go for it with something completely different!

Here's a bit of a close up for you to see the weaving.  I really need to figure out a way to take decent pics when I don't have natural light!  the colors are just not quite there...

This picture was before it's bath, so now the fringes are a little less "crimpy"!

That'll do pig, that'll do.  (Name that movie!)

Don't think too hard, just do it

That, in a way is my motto.
But then again - I like to think everything thru before I jump in.

I'm always confusing myself.  I wanted to try to make a scarf on my Structo.  But I didn't really want to sit down and do the math they say is necessary to figure out the warp and amounts of yarn I would need. 

Lazy me.

So I jumped right in instead.

And of course the cheap frugal part of me says I can't spend $ on new stuff, cuz ya know - I just might screw it up.  So what did I do? 

I took this...

 

A thrift store sweater that cost me a buck ninety nine.

And un knit it.

Sometimes people think I'm crazy.

But, look!  I have a scarf warped up!

This first attempt, I used the acrylic cheapo sweater.  If it all works - my half thought out project.... I will attempt to move on to my "nicer" sweaters and make some mohair, cashmere, and wool scarves.  Out of you guessed it!  Recycled sweater yarn.

I admit it... sometimes I am just a little odd.

Flannel yardage rugs --

You never know what you're gonna find to make a rug from.

This huge bolt of green plaid flannel was a donation -  I thought I had some material for quilting!

But when I unrolled it, nope!

Dyeing flaws everywhere!  No way to cut around them, and very obvious problems.  

Makes really nice rugs, tho!

Another bag of the tote variety.

Previously curtains - and a belt.

It's raining again in my world.  

Things had just started to get dried out so I could try and continue with the landscaping.

And yes, Sharon,  the landscaping has to do with moving water away from the house.

(And to even out the cowpaths, gopher mounds and pasture rough that was my front yard!)

South Dakota is usually a 17 inch  a year rain average state.

I think the state has become an overachiever- at least this area!

I got my house because of water woes - the basement failed because of too much water.

I'm getting a new neighbor - when it stops raining- they are moving their house because of too much water.

My uncles, who are ranchers/farmers, this year failed for the first time in history to plant 

a single kernal of corn.

Too much water.

Yesterday was voting day.

The vote passed to opt out of the property tax freeze.

We need money to fix basic roads - - too much water...

Unstuck

I'm finally unstuck in
the purse/tote department.

This simple tote was waiting
for this belt handle to show up!


This kind of belt lets me use my
sewing machine to attach the handles.

Even tho it sometimes complains
about the thickness!

Makin' lemonade

What's the saying?  When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?

My cute little 4 legged kid - it's a good thing he's cute- couldn't find his tennis ball on my bed.

He decided the shortest way to said object was THROUGH the woven cotton king size blanket.

So I had a blanket with a hole in it - a hole big enough to get a tennis ball...

So I made these -

Lemonade!  I guess.    I need to remember to see what I have for my bed before winter sets in.

Threshing Show

Went to a threshing show today.  It's in it's 37th year - or so I heard..... Never been before even tho it's only about 30 minutes away from my home!

Lots and lots of this type of thing... plus every size and kind of old tractor you can imagine.  Some old cars/trucks, too.

To appeal to the female sort, they also have a quilt/heritage item show.  Also a speaker in regards to quilts and quilting.  It was standing room only.

This is only a small portion of the quilts and quilted wall hangings and quilted purses and quilted jackets and quilted....

Every year they have a different theme.  Next year is crazy quilts.

I was with the fiber arts guild I joined this year.  We were in another building.

I had my rugs and was demonstrating fringe finishing...

And Marie was doing some spinning on her wheels and with her drop spindles.

Also on display was this wonderful old loom.  They would like to have it up and weaving by next year.  Someone had spied it an an auction - bought it - and donated it to the threshing show.  It stays here and will hopefully be a demo loom soon.

It is obviously handmade and there are some parts missing - so they are working on that!

Whoever made this even made it a little bit fancy!  The nails that are in it are all square hand made and the construction includes wedges and fancy joints.  It all breaks down.  That's the way it came.  Quite the puzzle.

Also in the pile of wood was this.

The biggest warping mill I've ever seen.  After they built the new base, they started to wonder if it was meant to be horizontal... Anybody out there seen one like this before?

Fun day!  Next year I'll make sure to clear my calender and be there for the whole weekend.  Added bonus - I sold rugs....

My World

Things are a little bit soggy in my world....

I was going to be finishing up my landscaping on Tuesday - at least the heavy lifting part- but rain intervened.  Monday night we got about an inch - that's what I heard anyway, I don't have a rain gauge.

Did I get Tuesday for slackin' then?  OOOOOHHHH NOOOO!

I drove over to my parents with my truck and trailer to get supplies.  My dad cut up old power line poles and I muscled them into the trailer.  Then we found some old skidder tires for me to use when I put in an auto waterer for the horses, and then, Oh! Yes!  My mom remembered she had a stack of old brick somewhere around - so we loaded that up, too.

I got home before dark on Tuesday and parked my trailer. 

Stuff is still inside and will probably stay there in the trailer for awhile.  Today the heavens opened up here.  It poured buckets off and on all day... and it looks like it's gonna keep at it for awhile.  It's good for my sod and it sure helps with getting my dirt to settle.  But there is no way I can even walk out on it - it's like pudding out there!

It's a windy, blustery wet day. The kind of day you wish you could curl up in bed with a book and some company and just laze the day away.

Or wish I had a barn that I could hang out in with my horses.

labor day means vacation? in who's world?

This labor day weekend - and it's a long one for me because of the new job, Friday thru Tuesday - I am doing manual labor.

My parents came and I arranged to have a front end loader/skidder/bobcat, whatever you wanna call it, and we moved dirt.  Lots and Lots of dirt.

Here is a before picture...

Here's now...

We took down a ridge that was in the middle of the front yard, contoured the area so the drainage works at keeping runoff away from the house, and built up the area for the walkway.  There will soon be a retaining wall built from the driveway area up to the door area.  


More manual labor is coming my way.

Here is the west view of the house.  My son had built the window wells, and we did some more drainage work and added some sod next to the house.  Hope this works - it was sod that got peeled off the ridge we took down in the front yard.  Hadn't planned it that way, but sod is a bugger to get worked down to smooth yard.  We started picking it out and ended up putting it next to the house.  We figure it will help with erosion and also be a headstart on grass, if it takes root anyway!

Here's the back side of the house.  More sod, some rock under condenser and window you can't see, and some pavers by the back door. The pavers need to be tweeked and set in better.  But this old girl was too dang tired to really give a rats ass hoot at this point.  I'll go back and do it later - it will probably settle anyway considering the amount of fill we needed in this area.

A view of my much diminished dirt pile.  It was surprising how much was there, but we left some for fill around the retaining wall that has yet to be built.  More labor.  Did I mention how much my body hurts?

And here's my (rough) driveway!   Major fill here.  I'll be needing a load or two of gravel to smooth it out some.  But did I mention the retaining wall I need to build?  Can you tell I'm looking forward to it?  :)



Tentative construction date is Tuesday - oh wait - that's tomorrow.   Groan....

something new learned

I'm always learning...

That comes from trying new things and not always following 'the rules'!

These rugs are made from blankets.  You know the felty type ones that get all pilly and stretched out?

I've made rugs from these blankets before and they turned out ok enough that I have kept making them when I come across a color I like in a blanket.

I didn't notice anything really while I was cutting.  But when I was weaving, I notice a bit of an issue.

From a distance, the rugs look ok.  A unique color for sure, but I think it might work great in a kids bedroom...

Except for this little detail.

Can you see it?  These rugs are prickly ---

This blanket had in the interior a fish line type base that was not apparent when I started the project. 

Now these rugs that would go so nicely in a bedroom, really aren't going to be very cozy to bare little feet.  There are little pokey, stiff little hairs all over it.

See?  Learn something new every day....