Make Nine 2020

This Epiphany – in some Christian traditions the Day of Kings (el Día de los Reyes) – secular revelation comes not with a star, angels, and shepherds, but by means of a Tweet and Reply. There's the horror, the horror of an imperial, violence-prone presidency on full public display, in 140 characters or less, and the lawful rejoinder. Context here.

This Media Post will serve as a reminder that war powers reside in the Congress under the United States Constitution. And that you should read the War Powers Act. And that you’re not a dictator. https://t.co/VTroMegWv0

— House Foreign Affairs Committee (@HouseForeign) January 5, 2020

The contending assertions also provide a reminder that the religious text for the day plainly calls wise men and women to acts of resistance and civil disobedience against would-be tyrants. When fox-like Herod treacherously demands you play the informant for him, conscience and lucid dreaming will send you home safe by another way. It's not alternative facts, but an alternate road.

One of those alternate paths for me includes the gentle Make Nine Challenge (#MakeNine), explained by blog, Instagram, and Ravelry group. Rather than attempt to Make All the Things and succumb to the pressures of fast fashion, this challenge is a thoughtful, intentionally limited ramble through a year of making. I've been trying to de-clutter, and that really should include my multi-craftual queue, too. So here's my collage and intentions.



1. Make some prayer shawls: maybe knit them, maybe weave them. While the production method may be in question, the current need at Church of the Improv is indisputably urgent. I've never before seen a time such as this. It's easy to feel anxious and overwhelmed.

2. Fold some origami cranes and take them to the June pilgrimage to Washington, DC.

3. Reduce the number of UFO socks, including Singular Sensation Socks. This could easily turn into a deep dive into a rabbit hole all by itself. To set some parameters, let me note the current number of Singular Sensations is 11; the lowest number is 7, achieved in 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2016; the highest number is 12, a dubious achievement of 2009.

4. Sew a T-shirt or two. I haven't done any garment sewing in a long, long, long time and would like to get back into it, not least because I love wearing tees, inventory is running low, and I'm increasingly dissatisfied with storebought. Although I have a quibble... I prefer the finished look of facings, but patterns with bias binding would seem to be the current style, such as the knit 100 Acts of Sewing: Shirt No. 2 or the woven Grainline Studio Scout Tee, with sleeve variations. Perhaps more research is needed.

5. Free square, project to be determined. Of course there's a free square. There are many contenders for the empty space – Sock Madness, Tour de Fleece, and the Tokyo Ravellenics come readily to mind – but I want to hold it open for a while.

6. Sew some project and shopping bags, such as Grainline Studio Stowe Bag. I'm still trying to reduce my use of plastic.

7. Knit a Churchmouse Yarns and Teas Swingy Linen Skirt. I have the pattern, and yarn purchased for Camp Loopy 2017 (just when the most recent round of chaos started) and re-purposed in 2018. I haven't had the requisite time to knit, but I hope to remedy that this year.

8. Sew some aprons, such as Purl Soho Cross Back Apron. Or possibly weave some kitchen towels or spa cloths.

9. Can some things – apricot or peach jam, maybe; tomato jam, definitely; maybe dilly beans or pickled nasturtium pods; hopefully some cherries. Lately I've repeatedly missed cherry season because of too much travel. Sigh. The list could go on and on, but in the spirit of Make Nine, there's no pressure (har) to can All The Things.

I'm looking forward to learning lots of good ancillary things too. For example, that's my first photo collage above (yay, me) and I hope to become more proficient on Instagram, the format of which just boggles me. So here goes, and good luck to everyone Making Nine.

Once Away

Once away from airport hell, I noticed I'd cast on Geology Socks incorrectly. Fixed that.



And, despite the dearth of FOs this crazy over-committed summer, I immediately signed up for a bath-related weave-along. Because, sure, I'll take one of those.

Sumer Icummin

Happy Summer Solstice (Northern Hemisphere)! Every year when summer rolls around I find myself craving a smart new straw tote bag. The trusty old and worn canvas tote bags that got me through the fall and winter just won't do. I'd not considered make-your-own, but inspired by knitcole's Rafia Tote Bag, this year desire became a weaving project, with raffia and citrus-y colors and pirates. I must admit the project came together when I saw the whimsical fabric I picked for the bag lining, Robert Kauffman Message in a Bottle, designed by Suzy Ultman.



For the warp I used Just Our Yarn Aziza, 5/2 100% Tencel, in pretty variegated lemonade and limeade tones, part of my MDS&W loot. It's lovely stuff, also very slinky. I didn't attempt to wind it into a ball, but dressed the loom with the yarn still as a hank, which is why the remainder pictured below is in a (now much smaller) hank.



Dressing the loom took me three days and about 367 yds (336 m) of warp. There were the usual sorts of interruptions and delays, not to mention I find the process tedious in the extreme. Some people say it's meditative. After the dreadful news last week I needed something meditative, but for me this wasn't it. Strange that I'm a process knitter, but an impatient weaver. I tend to think of my woven FOs as intermediate items, precursors for sewing projects. Maybe that's why I don't think to take many pix of my loom or weaving-in-progress (sorry).

For the weft I used Morex Ribbon 100% Rayon raffia. The entire spool, 110 yds (100 m), fit on my stick shuttle in a loose rustling mass. There was lots of aural stimulation, unusual for fiber projects! I wove a few inches before realizing the raffia is a skinny cord when it comes off the spool...



... but it can be spread into a broad flat ribbon.



The fabric looks and drapes much better with the raffia woven in the form of a spread ribbon rather than an unspread cord – the cord is stiff and unstable as weft while the ribbon scrunches down nicely when beaten lightly. I thought about unwinding the shuttle, spreading the raffia, then re-winding the shuttle, but decided it worked better to keep the shuttle wound with rustling raffia cord and to spread only enough for a pic at a time. More tedium. Oh well, I'm happy with the results.



The straw bag is shaping well! To be continued....

Lei Aloha

It will not have escaped the notice of gentle readers that lately much of the traveling done from casa Jersey Knitter has been hurried and for reasons that go unblogged. Sad to relate, those reasons include serious illnesses and deaths in my family. There have been long blank patches of blog disruption corresponding to long sad watches as health and life ebb away. There has been sickroom knitting of variable gauge and other imperfections (sigh). There has been funereal crafting as well, such as these Basic One Straw Round Lei (the plural of lei is lei).



These simple yarn lei emulate the appearance of lei hulu, Hawaiian featherwork lei. They were made by weaving a weft of novelty yarns around a warp of grosgrain ribbons on a straw loom. The original feather lei were symbols of wealth and power and were reserved for royalty. Nowadays their yarn counterparts are given as gifts of aloha on both happy and sad occasions – alas! the latter for these.

As an eco-conscious blogger I must add: While the image of casting lei into the ocean as a sign of farewell or mourning is a popular one, the custom originated with tourists of the steamship era and was not part of old Hawaiian culture. The practice is discouraged, because non-biodegradable lei strings pose a threat to sealife.

April, Then Summer

What became of spring? Apparently I blinked, missed it, and now it feels like summer.

Last winter's unseasonable cold made the cherry blossoms in Branch Brook Park start blooming late, then the sudden unseasonable spring heat made them burst and fall in record time. Ah well, some years are like that – the flowers were still pretty the brief time they lasted. These almost-twin trees are among my favorites (note the photographers are bundled up – the photo was taken before it got hot).



As always, DH and I paused to remember old fallen favorites. I marvel at how resilient the trees and their blossoms can be, and also how fragile and fleeting.



Although the cherry blossoms in Branch Brook Park can't hope to rival the formality of those in Washington nor the cherry blossom festival match its scope, there was a fun surprise in Cherryblossomland – paddle boats, including exactly one swan boat. Alas, the line was too long for me to try one, swan or non-swan. Next year!



Galloping along (as the season is doing), this past weekend the heat made MDS&W too hot for handknits, at least for me. Others may have gamely or grimly (or perhaps even grimily) worn theirs; I didn't think to bring my linen Christiana headband and so wore last year's T-shirt unadorned. It would have been handy.



It was so hot I staggered from booth to booth collecting only the most essential items on my shopping list: a heddle hook to replace the one that unaccountably vanished, bringing all weaving activity to a screeching halt; a book on making clothes from SAORI handwoven frabrics, some Into the Whirled roving for later (= Tour de Fleece); and a T-shirt. The tee is a shockingly bright pink, a good visibility color for bicycling. I wanted a sky blue one, on which the sheep looks like a cloud, but my size was sold out on Friday. How can this be?



I'm particularly pleased to have the book as I hope to become sufficiently proficient to weave cloth suitable for making garments, SAORI-style or otherwise. The two gift shawls I've woven so far were well-received, albeit with the humorously blunt critique I need to get a wider loom. The shawls are the full width of my 15-inch Cricket, admittedly narrow, which is unacceptably inadequate to the demanding discerning critic. Talk about heat! Uh, right... I just got the loom, I'm still learning on it, I don't need another so soon – indeed, I don't actually need another hobby. The rabbit hole beckons again.

Another

Another Thanksgiving at Casa Jersey Knitter gone by – this one was a happy feast, not least because DH and I celebrated at home. Instead of the anxieties, disruptions, and hardships of the past several years, our biggest worry this T-Day was finding the perfect turkey and roasting it without setting off the smoke detectors. I'm deeply thankful for that. The only very small complaint: despite a diligent search there were no extra turkey giblets to be found to enrich the stuffing. Huh. Back when I used to order my turkey from a butcher, they always came with giblets from a much bigger bird, which was a little strange, but very welcome. The past few chaotic Novembers a supermarket bird (with its own, proportionate giblets plus some extras when available) has had to suffice. But perhaps next year I can hope to order from a butcher again.



Meanwhile, the first Homespun woven prayer shawl eventually worked out so well, I made another. This time I made sure the selvedges wound onto the warp beam evenly. It helped that I found a roll of craft paper the same width as the weaving width of the loom, so had a continuous length separating the layers instead of the taped-together paper I had been using. My third weaving project drafted easily, wove up quickly, and made a pleasing FO. I may never knit another prayer shawl. Although I did knit up more shawl ministry pins for my group.



My backordered 10-dent heddle finally arrived over the holiday weekend. Newbie weaver that I am, I was surprised by how big a difference in fineness there is between the 8-dent and the 10-dent heddles. I wouldn't have thunk it, but the 8-dent is for worsted weight yarn while the 10-dent is for fingering.



So, I guess I have myself another hobby. Pity about the 15-inch weaving width though, it really would be nice to have a wider shawl. It seems very soon to be saying this, but... one would need another loom for that.... Danger, Will Robinson, danger!

Newbie Luck

As it turns out, quite a lot can go wrong, but sometimes newbie luck is almost as good as skill.

It was easy to weave with Homespun – my selvedges were good! But, somehow the warp wound around the warp beam a lot more tightly at each selvedge than in the middle. So of course the resulting fabric was shorter at the selvedges, longer in the middle – an unintended, undesired ruche effect. I also wove much more tightly at the beginning than at the end, with unfortunate (or comic) results for the drape of the shawl. Both effects, obvious to the hand, were subtle to the eye and difficult to document with my poor digicam, so there's no pix of the sorry fabric. Perhaps that's for the best.

Fortunately, because I still don't have a good sense of how much warp translates into a given length of fabric, I wove 'way more cloth than needed for a prayer shawl. That gave me leeway to cut off most of the tight end and to gently spread out the remaining weft across the remaining warp. The process probably would have been impossible in wool yarn, but is do-able in slippery acrylic yarn like Homespun. After several days of patient spreading whenever I watched TV (a process that may include posteriors as well as wefts), I ended up with a shawl that still was denser at one end and airier at the other, but not quite so inordinately so. I made some twisted fringe and called it a Finished Object. I am really loving twisted fringe.



DH thinks the FO is kinda bright, but I like it. Ordinarily, I like a wider prayer shawl, and I do find myself wishing for wider weaving width... a dangerous wish that I'm keeping firmly suppressed. If I stick with rigid heddle weaving, I could see wanting a simpler, smaller loom for quick samples and experiments, and a bigger, more capable loom for bigger projects. The rabbit hole beckons....

Weaving Improv

Halloween night was a three-bagger at Casa Jersey Knitter, well within the middle of years past. This year I didn't recognize most of the trick-or-treaters, who were evenly split between small, precociously verbal preschoolers who readily offered lengthy, precise explanations of their costumes and largish, already rebellious pre-teens who were attentive to their friends and scarcely deigned to notice the person giving them candy. None of the costumes were nearly as scary as Gnarly Tine, Destroyer of Gardens, who showed up to snack on my yew hedge.



Emboldened by the semi-success of my first weaving project, over the weekend I started a second using Lion Brand Homespun. Like many prayer shawl knitters, I have an overly-large stash of the stuff. Coincidentally, I've gotten a little tired of knitting prayer shawls, so I had ulterior motives in seeing how this weaves up. As I only have an 8-dent (worsted weight) heddle at the moment, I improvised and threaded every other slot-and-hole to get a draft spread out sufficiently for the bulky bouclé yarn. This time I'm using the full weaving width of the loom.



What could possibly go wrong?

Learning

So... I was told handwashing a woven project in hot water with a bit of wool wash will make the yarns bloom and the selvedges even out. That didn't really happen with my scarf. After handwashing I still thought the weave was too flimsy, or to use the weaving term, sleazy, so I put the scarf in the washing machine for a bit. That tightened up the weave and the selvedges nicely, and also made the scarf the thickness of a blanket. It also seems to have washed out the blue – the scarf started out charcoal gray (#8400) and silver gray (#8401) and ended up mushroom gray. Ah well, at least it's windproof.



I'm still happy about the fringe, my first twisted fringe, and its A-B-A-B-B-A pattern. I like it much better than the simple overhand knot tassel that knitters frequently use. Hm... there"s no reason a knitter couldn't borrow this technique.

Having come to weaving from knitting, I was surprised by the amount of loom waste. Intellectually I knew there would be loom waste, but it still triggered a certain amount of thrifty clucking. What to do with so many leftover bits? Even discounting the lost yarn from warping the loom incorrectly, there was the lost yarn on the cloth end and on the warp end of the loom, and from spreading the warp. All necessary, so this newbie weaver will simply have to adjust.



Although the loom waste was amazing, I didn't have nearly as much draw in as I thought I might. I think I need to increase my tension for weaving. I'm sure wool yarn can take it, less certain about how other fibers would behave.

I was also surprised by the allocation of time for the project – pretty much equal amounts of time spent on warping, weaving, and finishing. Knitters may swatch, knit, and finish, but the majority of time is spent knitting. Which is another way of saying weaving creates fabric much faster than knitting and uses yarn much faster. Bad news for a slow spindler if ever handspun is to be woven! But, onward.

Ready to Wash

After weaving, concerns about unraveling come to the forefront. To finish the raw ends of the scarf I made 2x2 twisted fringe, then realized that left a tail on the selvedge. Oops. Next time I'll hide that within the weaving.



Some people enjoy twisting; I don't, and can see why people use a hair "braider" for the task (did not know there is such a gadget). By beginner's luck, although the pattern as written has the wrong number of ends for 2x2 twisted fringe, my mod added the right number of ends for the fringe to work out perfectly. I left long tails on the fringe on purpose.

So, the scarf is ready to wash!

Fall Practice

After assembling the Cricket loom, which was straightforward, it took me three tries to warp it correctly. But warp it I did! Rather than use the Nature Spun that came with the loom, I used pale gray Cascade 220 from stash and the 8-dent heddle that comes with the loom, following the Cricket Scarf draft with three added repeats. I wound a stick shuttle with more Cascade 220, only to discover big shuttle, small shed may not be the best combination.



It was a problem that fixed itself as weaving progressed. I was more focused on gaining familiarity with the weaving actions: up heddle, throw shuttle, oops, reseat heddle, retrieve shuttle, beat, beat, down heddle, throw shuttle, beat, beat. I still haven't quite got the knack of not unseating the heddle in the up position. I was really surprised by how firmly the warp threads locked in the weft threads in plainweave. My consistency needs a lot of work, both in the cloth and on the selvedges, and I'd like to build speed.



In spite of my newbie difficulties, in no time at all (compared with the time it took to warp the loom), the weaving was done and the piece cut from the loom. The resulting cloth was strangely stiff, almost like new linen yarn. Off the loom, the weft was easy to manipulate – too easy for my taste. It's clear that unlike a knitting project, where it can be tempting to skip proper finishing, weaving requires a lot more finishing to be presentable. Onward!

Beaming

My weekend was an exercise in delayed gratification – the marshmallow test, if you will. There was a lot of exacting work that needed doing and no time to get distracted by the backordered Cricket loom that arrived. I stayed focused – and finished on time and under budget.



Although I may have smiled a lot more than was warranted by the task at hand. And now to play.



Look, a wingnut!



To be continued....