Loomer madness

The weaver's lesson for the week?  Choose a strong thread for the warp.  Learn from my mistake.

I recieved a loom on Tuesday.  Less than 30.00 on ebay for a 20" rigid heddle loom, MIB.  Yay me!  The instructions are stilted and confusing, German translated to English.  (That totally explains WHY it's MIB).  I've put a call out for Rigid Heddle Weaving at my library, but it's not in yet.  I want to set it up and go!  I talk to Daryl, and look at Youtube videos, but I am resolute.

Later, I gave in to temptation, and put the warp threads on.  I have some free laceweight alpaca and some Colinette scraps, so I use them. I thought it would be fun to stripe it (you know I can't ever ever do things plain).  The alpaca catches on itself and tangles, annoying the crap out of me.  I keep coming upon weird bits of alpaca, but it doesn't dawn on me.

Warped and ready to go.  It's odd; I have a place in the set up where the tension sags.  I investigate, and discover that the alpaca just isn't strong enough to handle the stress, and is tearing.

I am back to thread one!

Books in Singapore

I found Kinokuniya in Singapore.  It was fabulous, but a little tricky.  Everything was shrinkwrapped, and I can't read Japanese.  I managed to muddle thru.  I made mistakes. 

 That white lace book with red lettering?  It has a picture of the knitting princess they featured in Knitter's a few years back (#82).    I was really disappointed to get back to my hotel room and find it was a "how to knit" primer.  Blah.

When I told my brother I went there, he said you could get the staff to show you the books.  But he just opens them himself and makes a mess.  That sounds about right.

They also had a great Borders that had a new British knitting magazine I hadn't seen before!

I love Japanese magazines because the projects are just so wearable.  Seriously, look at this!

Mistakes

Wow. That's what I thought when I walked into my LYS and saw this leaflet next to the sample garment. I snapped Noro 24 (the leaflet) right up. This weekend, it crawled out of the want pile, and wriggled over next to some Needful Yarns I got on a raging good sale at Elann. So I cast on.

Now, I am a competent knitter. I can follow instructions. On the pattern set up row (Row 8), it has you reaching back "4 rs" to make a loop. On subsequent pattern rows, it says do loop stitch.

I looked up loop stitch, which was [knit tog the next stitch and the corresponding purl loop form previous row on the right side of the work]


My work looked like this. It was totally kicking my ass, so I drove to LYS and looked at the sample garment. (40 miles, dontcha know)



Well, the 4s were the problem. The first row needs to go back MORE than '4 rs' and subsequent rows just reach back to the previous garter ridge.

Well just say so, already.

A Noro color tutorial (how Mr. Noro determines his colorways)

Have you ever wondered how Mr. Noro comes up with his fabulous color combinations? Have you ever wondered why he takes a string of delightful colors, and throws in that particular shade of lark's vomit? How does he do it? Where does he get the inspiration???

I've wondered for years. A few minutes ago, I was on the phone discussing Niji, a discontinued frothy bit of mohair and wool that came in the mail this morning. I looked down at my kitchen table, and saw a make-up bag and hankie, the remnants of a parcel my cousin sent me two weeks ago.

Oh.

Ok, I totally get it now. Gomenesai, because I couldn't see it earlier. I feel like a wonkin' idiot. Someone in the family tree is gonna disown me. Here's a scan of the bag, a hankie, and a scarf that my mom gave me years ago. Do you see what I am trying to show you? They're just textile palettes. That's all.

The only thing that's wrong, that's not a direct copy, is that his proportions are equal. The particular shade of lark's vomit (aka mustard) that serves as an accent on the coral scarf, for example, actually has equal footing to the coral, grey, navy and green in his yarn. Which is why it seems like such a vast expanse of that color. Because it is.