Yes, I am boring you all with even more weaving from those hand painted warps.  I love the colors on this one.

Hopefully I figured out how to make those pictures clickable.

Specs on this one:

Navy/Fuchsia/Teal hand painted warp in 5/2 perle cotton  Navy Blue weft with 8/2 tencel

6 1/2 inches wide, 67 inches long, 1 1/2 fringe

The second one

The specs

Hand painted cotton 5/2 perle cotton warp in Sea Foam Green/Gold/Navy

Peach Tencel weft

6 1/2  inches wide, 69 inches long, 1 1/2 inche fringe

And what’s on my loom now

It’s Purple 5/2 perle cotton with Gray Mauve 5/2 tencel weft using a crackle pattern.  It’s my first attempt at this.  Looks amazing on the loom and hope it only washes up as pretty.

More tomorrow I am sure.  Gotta get off the computer as storms are coming this way.

Yes, more weaving took place at Casa de Chaos.  It’s what keeps me sane these days. Honestly, with all that’s going on, if I couldn’t weave, I’d be committed.  Three extra kids for awhile makes for a very full house of 8 children and 3 adults and let’s not mention the 4 animals.  Yes, chaos reigns…but weavine reigns supreme.

These are the hand painted warps I showed on my 15-April post.

This scarf has a cotton warp done in a stripe/block painted effect with a  navy blue tencel.

I am so in love with the bold colors on this one that I will paint another warp similar and weave material for a vest.

This second one is more muted in colors but again is a hand painted cotton warp and a gray mauve tencel.

More weaving on the loom and more warps to paint this weekend.  Good thing I get no sleep these days

The weather warmed up considerably from just yesterday.  Yesterday in the 40’s and gloomy.  This morning church attire consisted of turtle neck and jacket.  Right now it’s in the 70’s, wonderfully sunny, and I am in shorts and a tee shirt.  Weird, I tell ya.

Anyway, I got permission to show off the scarf for Susie.  She sent me a skein of her hand painted yarn and I got all the creative liberty.  I used her lace weight silk/wool for the warp and tencel for the weft.  The result:  a 7 inch wide, 69 inch long, 2 inch twisted fringe scarf that looks like this

and a closer view:

I sure hope you like it Susie!  I hope to get it in the mail tomorrow

Friday I painted more with reactive dyes.  I got to wash them out earlier today after church.  Here’s what they look like.

The skein on the far left is actually wool/nylon sock yarn.  The skein to the right of that, the more muted/pastel looking one was a total experiment.  Instead of using paper towel to wipe up spills and blot extra dye, I used a skein of yarn, and let it batch like the others.  I love how it turned out.  I think I have decided to always have an extra skein on hand for blotting up extra dye.

My tencel order didn’t arrive yesterday as I had hoped (really wishful thinking on my part more then anything) so I hope to get it tomorrow and finish my current scarf.  Then I will be warping the loom for another special scarf.  This one (possibly two) will be travelling to Africa with a missions team from my church.  The group will leave next month to build two tabernacles and will take the scarf (or scarves) to be presented to the church leadership there.  I am so excited to be a part of this trip in my own way.

I hope you all are enjoying your Sunday and are getting to relax and spend time with your families.

It’s cold.  It’s cold and very stormy.  Upstate is under a winter weather warning/snow advisory.  In Oklahoma….in April….weird I tell ya….weird.

But even though it’s been gloomy all week, I managed to paint some rainbows.  Here’s a picture of a warp chain I painted.  The warp is 5/2 perle cotton so I had to use reactive dyes.  This was my first attempt at hand painting with reactive dyes.  I had done some low water imersion before, but this was new.  It was pretty easy.  The hardest part….the wait time.  With acid dyes, you heat set and see results pretty quickly.  With reactive dyes, you wait 24 to 48 hours before you can wash the yarn and that was a long time to wait.  But it was worth it.  Here’s the frst chain.

And here’s how it looks on the loom so far.  It’s really hard to see the colors right now but I know it will look much better off the loom after it’s been washed.

I ran out of tencel so I can’t finish it today.  Hopefully it will be in tomorrows mail.  If not tomorrow, then Monday for sure.

I finished the super secret weaving project…at least the weaving part.  I still need to finish twisting the fringe.  It’s taking awhile.  I would post a picture, but the recipient hasn’t let me know if she wants to see it now or wait til she receives it to see what it looks like.  If she (and you know who you are….you rainbow dreamer) says she wants to see it before I send it, I will post it.  If she wants it to be a surprise, I wil post the picture after she receives it and hopefully tell me she loves it.

A shout out to my SP10 pal.  I want to thank you again for my first package.  I tried to take a picture of the goodies, but the batteries died as I was taking the shot.  Phooey.  Anyway, she (assuming she is a she) sent me a skein of Fleece Artist.  It’s Mohair and Blue Face Leicester.  It’s in burgundy and brown and so pretty.  I really can see a warm and snuggly scarf woven with this.  Also in the box was a neat CD of Christian Music and a cute little Easter Bunny.  Thanks again so much for thinking of me.

And to Katrina.  I am on the home stretch of those socks and I hope to have them done sooooooooon.  Thanks again for your patience.

Don’t know what the plans are for this weekend, but I think napping (for hubby) and chill time is on the board.  Jim took a PT test this morning and he is going to celebrate his passing by being couch potatoes tomorrow. Perhaps I will be able to paint more rainbows.

…just took a little break from things.  Sort of like a self contained mini-vacation.  oooh that makes me sound really weird.  Seriously, I just needed some time to sit back and take a breath or two and I worked on some other projects.  One I can’t show yet.  Hopefully soon.  The others…well I can’t show those either…yet.

But I can show you this.  4 years ago a certain little 9 year old legally became our son.  This is us on adoption day.

And this is the “little guy” with us on Sunday after church.

and yes, it feels like he’s eating us out of house and home.  We’ve had good days and we’ve had some really bad ones…but all in all, I wouldn’t have not let this little guy steal my heart.

More later….

I can’t believe it, but I forgot to post this Pixie Batt for sale. Hmmm…maybe because I am wanting to keep it for myself?  But here it is.

50% merino wool / 50% silk

4 ounces

Green/pink/white angelina

12.00 plus shipping

…and it’s only 4:30 am!  Alarm went off at 2:30 thanks to a urine test at the facility.  Hubby had to be there to run things so an earlier then usual alarm.  Also meant that I would get my 3 “extra” children.  They arrived in their usual fashion, bundled in their blankies and carrying a small pillow.  They hugged their mommy good bye and trooped right to my bed to crawl in for some additional sleep time.  Jim and I were praying when daddy came in to seek help in getting the dog in the house.  Seems our neighbor’s dog, aka the Harry Houdini dog of the neighborhood, had somehow gotten in our fence and Caleb and she were ”playing”  (thankfully Caleb is fixed) and daddy didn’t want to create a ruckus even further so he came seeking help.  I went out in the backyard  (did I mention that it was jus barely 3:00 am at this time) in time to see said female dog shimmy back under the fence into her yard.  Jim came out and called for his “boy” and Caleb came running.  Said good bye to hubby and kissed him at the door.  Opened the door to be greeted by the trash of our other neighbor spewed all through our front lawn.  They didn’t have their Monday trash in the right bin so it did’t get picked up.  Instead of bringing it back up to their house yesterday, it sat on their sidewalk.  A cold front, sporting very strong winds, blew through last night (and is still currently blasting winds in the area) and along with it, the neighbor’s trash.  I sure hope they plan to pick it up when they realize it’s there.  If not, I will have the boys pick it up later this morning and put it back in the neighbor’s trash can and perhaps have the boys put it in their driveway for safe keeping.  (well, I wouldn’t want the trash can to blow over again into the street or something).

So…I have done a little spinning this morning, gotten my shower taken care of and will probably head out to my work room to take out some frustration on some fiber that needs to be carded.  Did I mention that it’s only 4:30? 

Pattern Ordered

Now I must find just the right yarn.  Am thinking I will dye my own colors.  Check out this KAL.  If interested, order your pattern now.  Apparently there are a lot of orders going out today and one of them is mine Any suggestions on colors?

Prayerfully this day will turn out to be glorious and just get better and better.  Hope yours does too.

Had to run a quick errand this morning.  Didn’t want to go onto post so went to Wal-Mart instead.  I am not a big fan of Wal-Mart, but it was close and with the recent gas price spike, close is good.  Anyway, as I am loading my pitiful few items on the counter, I realized what I bought….sugar free chocolate syrup (tastes great with my daily protein shakes), the new coconut chocolate kisses (and can I just say yum…one is enough to do me in though), some jelly beans for Jelly Beans for Jesus (more on that below), and some femine hygeine products.  The cashier, bless her, just looked at me, looked at the items and asked, “Rough day?”  I tell ya, that could have been a day breaker, but instead we both got the giggles and I left the store smiling.  Chocolate and pads…yup, they most certainly go together don’t they?

There is knitting, weaving, and spinning all going on here, but alas, I can’t share any of it because it’s all a secret right now.  Working on Katrina’s socks, some weaving (which Kelly did see a bit of it but that’s ok..she didn’t see it all) which needs to be finished up so I can get something else on the loom.  There’s also some sewing going on as well.  But again…it’s a secret for now.  Kiki and I decided to do a tote swap between us.  She knows, I think (and if she didn’t before she does now) that the material is hand woven, but alas, she doesn’t know the colors, the style or anything like that.  But I gotta get it finished and sent off to her.

The weather went from beautiful to HOT in typical OK fashion.  Yesterday was near 90 but tomorrow it should be back in the 60’s-70’s area tomorrow.

Back to school work for the kiddos (math test today) and weaving for me.

Catch ya all later.

edited to add:

oops forgot to talk about Jelly Beans for Jesus

Last year the we enjoyed eating Jelly Beans and talking about the Easter Story.  I found a devotional on-line that talked about the colors of Jelly Beans and what they mean in respect to the resurection.  We dubbed it Jelly Beans for Jesus and the kids asked for it again this year.

You need jelly beans in the colors orange, yellow, black, red, white, green, pink, and purple.

We talked about each color and ate them as we went along.

ORANGE is for the Heaven so bright (2 Samuel 22:13-14)

YELLOW is for God’s perfect light. (Revelation 21:23)

BLACK is for the sins we’ve made (Romans 3:23)

RED is for the blood He gave. (Romans 5:8)

WHITE is for our cleansing from sin (Psalm 51:1-2)

GREEN is for our new life in Him. (Colossians 1:10)

PINK is for His free gift to share (Matthew 28:19-20)

PURPLE is for the crowns we’ll wear. (2 Timothy 4:8)

in OK!  Thanks for those who wrote me privately asking if we were ok.  We are.  The storms that went through here last week weren’t that bad.  The tornadoes were to the north of us so we just got lots of rain and flooding.  The creek ended up in our backyard but Saturday it finally receeded.  I think I lost my tomato plants, but they were still in starter pots and not in the ground yet.  We had them protected (sort of) but still out in the rain, but I still think we lost them.  It’s my first attempt at growing tomatoes from seeds.  Usually I buy them already started, so…..oh well.  Beans, onions, and peas look good.

The kids are going through major Spring Fever issues and we aren’t getting a whole lot done on that front.  We school all summer long anyway, but I still had hoped to be further along then we are right now.  Public school lets out next month here so I think everyone is suffering from school-itis!

No new projects to report right now, but hopefully look for some updates later in the week.  That is, if I can get my act together.  I think I am suffering from Spring Fever too!