can yarn hold laughter?

i went to the yarn shop the other day for some glittery yarn to use in the weft of my reputation tea towels. i saw a vest that looked easy and ended up buying two colorways of yarn for knitting it (the yellow and the pink you can see in this basket). i started the yellow one the other night. i'm still a beginner and i have this habit of forgetting how to purl if i haven't done it for awhile. even looking at this picture, i can see some mistakes. 

i took it to the knitting/weaving group last evening. i admitted that i had forgotten how to purl. the lovely ladies laughed at me, and then they helped me. and they loved the colors i had chosen. we laughed a lot while i relearned how to purl and i hope that all that laughter got knitted right into my vest. the idea of that appeals to me. i want to feel that laughter when i wear the vest. 

 

good bones

my sister is back home at our parents' house. these days it belongs to her. she had rented it out for the past few years. the people who lived there tore out all the horrible carpet that was everywhere, including on the stairs. i always wondered if there wasn't some nice wood floors underneath all that 80s pile. and it seems there was. 

it's weird to see this room empty and the blinds open. my mother weirdly kept the blinds closed and that room was always so dark. i think she thought she was protecting the furniture from the sunlight. the wallpaper is the same wallpaper my mom put up years ago. it's not too bad, though generally, i have realized that my mom didn't have very good taste. 

my sister is thinking about making a big change in her life and moving back there. i find it comforting to think of her living in our childhood home. sanding and polishing those floors. and bringing it to life again. the house has good bones and it saw our family through many good times. it must be good for many more. 

at the end of a long weekend

husband should be home from his trip to ukraine in a few hours. i picked some roses and brought them in an attempt to have some serenity on the window sill that i haven't necessarily felt for the past week, worrying about him being only 30km from the front in eastern ukraine. that said, i am really looking forward to hearing about his adventures. now that i'm quite sure he'll be home safely. 

we've had a four day weekend, thanks to all those awesome spring holidays in denmark. i spent most of it in the company of yarn. getting started on my reputation era tea towels, planning the next ones, visiting the linen weaving museum, starting a summer knitting project (see above yarn) or two. it will be a vest. i started the yellow one and i want to make a pink one too.

i also picked a lot of rhubarb and made 9 bottles of rhubarb & ginger cordial. and you can't even see that i've picked any rhubarb. husband will be happy, as he loves my homemade cordial and we were getting dangerously low. 

got to weaving on the reputation tea towels. i tried a looser weave on the first one. i won't really know how it is until it's washed, but i already decided that i want to do my usual tighter weave, i think it's what makes my tea towels the lovely fabric that they are. 

i also spent some time trying to figure out what to name these two. butter & toast? peach & cobbler? peachbottom & featherstone? maybe something ukrainian, to commemorate that i got them while husband was traveling there? hmm...stronti & cesia after chernobyl? gogol & viy? perhaps a little too much existentialist dread. they're so sweet and i'm so happy to have ducks again. they're safely in the old chicken enclosure where no fox can get them. 

it's nice to be in this space again, jotting down a few things i'd like to remember. while i count down the minutes until husband is safely home again. 

so much weaving ahead!

1989 - now i have the right colors for this one

same for midnights - i like this color palette

the color palette for red

going to play with a so-called color effect for speak now

 the color palette for debut is probably the one that's most my vibe

i worked on these for five hours today, though that included cataloging all of the colors i have now, so i can keep track for future projects and orders.

i have so much exciting weaving ahead.

plus, they look pretty, just as decor!

these are part of the records i'm keeping.

so pretty, i can't wait to weave them.

more eras in the making

this morning, i decided to start planning some of the future eras. i worked on speak now. i really should have listened to it while i worked on it, but since i'm not finished yet, i can still do that. i want to make some yarn windings (vikleprøver) to see how the colors play together. i have a long weekend, so there is still time to do that. 

i'm liking the vibe of this one and thinking already about what sort of design to work with. i want to try something new. maybe something with more regular stripes.

i put together the color palette for red as well. this assignment i've given myself is proving to be a great way of working with colors and listening to a lot of music. i'm not really a swiftie, but i have come to appreciate her work after the concert last summer. and her color palettes are great. 

these two are similar, so i've got to come up with a cool way to differentiate between them. luckily, the possibilities are endless when it comes to weaving. 

next up - reputation!

 

i've already spent more than 11 hours and i haven't even started weaving on the reputation era. that sounds like a insane amount of time. but it doesn't feel like that at all. i guess that's what flow is about. 

this time, i'm looking to create a more graphic look. and i want it to look like the black & white of the type in a newspaper in some of the fields, to echo the album. i had to add a sparkly thread to the solid black panels as a nod to the reputation bodysuits.

the warp itself is black, grey and white, but i will create some dark green or red horizontal stripes, as an accent that also echoes the bodysuit and the bodysuit that wasn't (the green one that swifties kept expecting). i bought some threads with some small gold sequins as well for extra sparkle in my weft.

i do love this process and i feel like i'm getting better at it with each warp. setting up takes a long time, but i do enjoy every step of it. 

this morning, i was all ready to bind it up, check all the connections and get started. a few had broken (the cords connecting the shafts and the pedals), so it took some time to replace them. i have the old fashioned-style cords, not the newer polyester ones. they're easier to use, but there's something that feels more authentic to me about the cords. they've been good enough for my loom for around 80 years. maybe one day, i'll switch them out, but for now, i'm happy to be learning how to work with the traditional kind. 

i wove a little bit to get started before we decided to visit the linen weaving museum over on fyn. i needed to do something cultural to get my mind off husband driving around ukraine.  we got there just in time to join a tour with one of the docents. she told such great stories, i really enjoyed it. 

yarn porn

i got my latest order of weaving yarn from kinna's today. ordering from them really tries my patience, as it takes them at least a week to even indicate that they've noticed one's order and then another week or so to send the invoice so you can pay it. why not actually have an online payment as if you're in the 21st century? but i digress. look at all this goodness! i think i can do most of the eras now, though i need to restock black, white and some grey because of TTPD, after running the reputation warp (again, more about that soon, i promise). i also got an idea, looking at this picture, for a warp that's cream and that hot pinkish orange color. but that's not really one of the eras, so i'll try to stay focused. or maybe i need another loom. 

i sorted it all into boxes, more or less in color families. that was weirdly soothing. and goodness knows i need some soothing, what with worrying about husband driving all over the place in ukraine, only 30km from the front. 

i'll be able to do another rainbow warp as well with all these colors. it seems everyone i've given some of those to wants more. 

these remind me of my old blue room! i'm looking forward to working with them. 

i'll play around on this long weekend (we have four days off!) with some of the colors, preparing some yarn windings for more of the eras. tomorrow, my friend and weaving teacher is coming over to help me get started on my more graphic warp. i'm trying to learn something new every time. i think what i mostly learn from the loom is patience! 

i couldn't resist the way the sunshine fell on this jar of yarn clippings i've been saving. i want to do a rather fiddly project with them, but i need enough of them. and maybe a bit more patience.