cosmicpluto knits!

weaving and growing

Still not much knitting going on around here, I’m afraid! I’ve been weaving up a storm for the Etsy shop, including this scarf out of Dream in Color Smooshy in “Gothic Rose” with a teeny stripe of Fleece Artist Silken in the warp.

Hopefully I’ll have a few more scarves up by the end of the week – I’m currently working on one in Sea Silk. Yum!

Here ends the fibre talk, now it’s onto the gardening – I spent a good amount of time this weekend working on my garden at home. No allotment garden this year, I’m just making do with space in my (rather large, really) yard at home. Saturday I dug out a LOT of overgrown raspberry bush to make room for my squash plants.

Right up to the bricks was raspberry bush; I took out way more on the other side! I know I’ll have to keep on top of the raspberries invading back into the space, but I tried my best to dig up as many roots as I could (those suckers are crazy pervasive). The plant on the left is a slicing cucumber plant; I’ve never grown cucumbers before! I’m going to (hopefully) get it to grow up and around the deck stairs bannister and railing, just to the left of the photo. The other mounds there are different types of summer squash – “Black Beauty” (normal green), “Flying Saucer” (a scallop-type squash) and “Cocozelle” (striped green). I’ve also planted “Eight Ball” (green and round) and “Sunburst” (another scallop).

The Sunburst I planted in a container, and the seedlings just popped up in the hot weather!

And because it’s getting late and I’m trying to get to bed earlier these days (yeah, right), some concluding photos of my container deck garden. I’ve planted two varieties of bush beans, lots of basil, some tomatoes (in old recycling bins! yay repurposing), spinach and parsley. The rest of the tomatoes will go in the ground, along with the aforementioned squashes and some other stuff already planted (peas, coriander, green onions). More info if you click on through to my Flickr!

I’m getting excited about this year’s garden – lots more varieties of tomatoes, and lots of squash – I really don’t think I can ever get enough zucchini (also my family is five people, so we can eat a lot of it).

Now if it would stop raining for long enough so that I can get the rest of the tomatoes in the ground!

ready for the world

I’ve now listed a couple of scarves on my Etsy shop! Have at it! There’s lots more to come, I think – the weaving is just so fun, and I love to see how the yarn works up into woven fabric. I sort of fear what saying this will do – but if you have a particular colour family and size in mind, email me and we’ll see what we can work out!

Since I don’t really have much else, I think it’s time for a (rare around here) meme that’s been going around.

1. What was I doing ten years ago?
Let’s see…I was 13 (yep), just finishing grade eight. I guess since it’s June, we were mostly goofing off for the end of the year, watching the World Cup in class since my teacher was big on soccer, signing yearbooks, that kind of thing. I was excited to graduate middle school and nervous about going on to the big high school! I had a great group of friends and we mostly stayed together even through high school (gaining people along the way). I still see them once in a while now. Something I don’t miss: a group of bullies.

2. What are five things on my to-do list today?
List stuff on Etsy (already done), finish the front bands of my cashmere sweater, straighten up my room, weave another scarf, eat agnolotti for dinner.

3. Snacks I enjoy:
What the heck don’t I enjoy?! I’ve been eating lots of toast with melted aged cheddar and tomato; anything sweet or chocolate really, leftover supper food, deviled eggs, fresh homebaked bread and butter. Man, I love carbs.

4. Places I’ve Lived:
Toronto, Ontario. I’ve lived in the same room all my life, people. Time for a change sometime soon (realistically not for awhile).

Where would I LIKE to live?
Downtown Toronto, in some fantastical house that might not exist for my forseeable budget, with a bright airy studio/office space and a gorgeous kitchen. I certainly can’t see myself actually living anywhere other than here, but I’d love extended visits to Vancouver, Montreal, maybe NYC, London.

5. Things I’d do if I was a billionaire:
Tough one. Build a house in the country with tons of vegetable garden and sheep; build houses for my parents and sisters; travel; establish a couple of scholarship funds; try to use the money to do some good for the environment, farmers, children, and society in general. How’s that for broad?

score o’ the day

Whew, I’m pooped. I spent a couple hours this afternoon working on my veggie garden, which this year is mostly going to be containers. I have to wait until my mum comes back from her vacation so I don’t dig anything up that she’s going to be mad about in the garden proper! I need to clear space for (some of) my zucchini and tomato plants, and while there’s lot of real estate, there’s also lots of very large weedy plants. I did manage to transplant some herbs and things outside, as well as direct seeding some beans and spinach.

And now my arms are all wobbly from lugging bags of soil around. Perfect time to fill you all in on the Textile Museum sale!

It pretty much looked like this:

Crowded! I got there right about 11am, and there were a LOT of people there already. It was madness. There were two tents plus a rather large area right in front of the entrance to the Textile Museum (which I didn’t get any photos of).

This year the yarn got its own tent (the last photo above). The tubs on the tables inside were being refilled as things were bought, but I didn’t really feel like hanging around too long to try and score something good. There was a lot of not great (but very cheap) yarns in there to wade through.

But I managed to score a wee bit of yarn anyway, since Julia gifted me with a skein of red Jaggerspun that she’d bought. And then there was my one big score -

An adjustable dressform! I was standing right at the table when the women behind it were hoisting her up, took a look at the bust dial (to make sure that it was big enough for me) and then pounced right away. Seriously, where else will you get one in this great condition for $25?

I haven’t actually set the measurements properly yet, but close enough for now. And she’s already being pressed into service.

Maybe now I can actually sew some dresses and the like that’ll fit properly!

One more thing, today – a sneak preview of the woven scarves I’ve been working on.

My name on Etsy is cosmicpluto, but there’s nothing up there at the moment – don’t worry, I’ll be announcing here when I put stuff up for sale!

moss scarf/wrap

Dudes. I love weaving. Not the least of which is because it’s freaking fast.

I wove this scarf on an Ashford rigid heddle loom, 24″ width, with a 10dpi reed. I didn’t do the total width of the loom, a bit less on both ends, so it’s 18″ across and about six feet long including the fringe. About 220 ends total (do people want this kind of info with weaving projects? hmm).

Fleece Artist Cashlana (90% merino, 10% cashmere, 400m/100g) means this baby is sooooooft. ETA: oops, I forgot to say that this project took 2 skeins!

It’s a pretty airy, drapey fabric, but darn warm too. Perfect for the weird inbetween weather we’ve been having (but I’m not complaining because I prefer the cooler temps – yesterday was like 27 C and it was tooooo hot!).

Did I mention I love it? Mmmmmm.

I think there’s lots more weaving in my future. I’m considering getting maybe a second heddle kit for more patterning, and maybe a finer reed too. Would there be any interest if I made a few similar scarves and wraps to sell?

P.S. I made the Doane Paper blog! I love their paper, seriously. You should go buy some. (And if the Doane paper people want to thank me by sending me more paper, I’ll graciously accept, hee!)

more ways to use up yarn

I’ve picked up my rigid heddle loom (an Ashford) again, finally! It’s been sitting around for quite awhile, but I think various woven pretties around the web finally gave me the kick I needed!

And damn, is it ever fast. Last night it took about 2 hours to warp up the loom (direct warping with a peg), and it’ll probably take a little less time next time I go at it, because I learned some things (like which way to turn the back dealie to wind on the warp).

Then I got down to the weaving, and after a few more hours today, it was off the loom!

Then I needed to finish the ends.

I decided to go with a medium length fringe (about six inches) and two rows of knots.

I used 2 skeins of Fleece Artist Cashlana for this wrap/scarfy thing, every last bit (although there’s quite a fair amount of waste in little pieces that gets cut off). It was a fairly variegated green mix, but I think the weaving shows off the colour variation really well! Last thing was to wet-finish the piece, so it’s hanging to dry now – finished photos soon.

Now I want to weave more stuff, but I can’t decide on what. Another wrap in a different colour? Dishtowels? A blanket? And what yarns shall I use? Decisions, decisions.

one shortcut gift

When I went to the Royal Winter Fair this year, one of the reasons was to see the Sheep to Shawl – each team gets a raw fleece, and they spin and weave it into a shawl in four hours. The finished shawls are judged and then auctioned off in the fleece auction.

I’ve got one aunt who just LOVES handknit gifts, but sadly this year I don’t really have to make her something! So I decided to buy a shawl for her.

The shawl I bought was made by the Etobicoke guild, and funnily enough, she lives in Etobicoke. So it’s pretty fitting, or something. It’s woven with a colour progression along the width – it’s really cool.

Of course, since the wool is not washed before spinning and weaving, it’s got all the straight-from-the-sheep goodness – lots of dirt and grime and lanolin. It’s a bit of a surprise to see how it washes up – you know it’s going to be good! I washed the shawl the next day in hot water and Palmolive twice, a couple rinses, and a final soak with Eucalan.

Before: Pretty, but a bit stiff, definitely lanolin-y.

After: the light parts are actually white, the fabric is soft and cushy and cohesive, everything’s plumped up. There’s less colour variation, because some of that which was woven in was actually differences due to dirt!

It might be hard to tell from those photos. Let’s try a closeup.

Before:

After:

Yep, they’re really from the same section of the shawl! It’s beautiful. I’m planning on needle felting or embroidering my aunt’s initials on one end, to make it more personalized – and, well, maybe I’ll knit her some socks too.

This just really clinches the desire to weave; I’ve got a rigid heddle loom but just haven’t really gotten into it yet. I think it’s the whole setup that’s kind of intimidating – with knitting, I just sit down and start. With weaving, there’s all the planning and the time spent warping and such…maybe over Christmas I can get going on that.

In the meantime…back to work!