Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Something is interfering with my weaving!


Hi there!  I'm Rebecca, but most call me Becca for short (and I am pretty short).  You can see the legs of my person's loom behind me,  I don't think it is right that she is blaming me for keepin her from weaving.  I know how to sit right under her weaving bench.


No problem for me!  I like being under things. 
I like being on the furniture too, but the living room furniture seems to be off limits.
However, to make up for that, my person got a new cover for the futon that matches me:


Don't we look good?
But I found another soft spot.  I have lived in several houses, but I had never seen a soft spot like this before.  It is in the bathtub!


OK, I, Dawn,  should probably explain:  We had to shut the cats in their bathroom when we had some deliveries right after moving to this house.  I wanted them to feel comfortable, so put an old comforter in the tub for them.  Now I don't know what to do with it, so it has stayed in the tub.

Rebecca is staying with us right now.  She may stay with us for a long time.  It depends on the cats.  We are fostering Becca to adopt from Animal Friends Rescue Project, which is located in Pacific Grove, Calif.  If the cats accept Becca (and I can teach her not to bark at strange people and dogs), she will become our new doggie.



The siamese (Jones) is doing great with Becca.  He doesn't seem worried at all, though he is even more vocal than usual.  Chloe, however, is taking her time.  She hides under the covers (a common hiding place for both of them) all day long, not even coming out when Becca is gone.  So, we shall see...

Sunday, June 5, 2011

My New Spring Loom

Wednesday,June 1st, my new Louet Loom arrived. The very pleasant delivery man put it on a dolly and brought it up the driveway (only moderately sloped) and put it just inside the first bay of the garage, behind the black Z.  My husband is a car buff; one must not even breathe deeply when you are near any of his cars. 

Here is how it looked:

If it weren't for the photo of a loom on the box (upper picture), you would never guess that a loom, or at least its guts, could be hidden within.  However, if you stand on tip toes, you can just see a suggestion of the Texsolv cords that are part of the countermarch system.


Meanwhile, I have cleared some of the left-over boxes out of my room I know, I know; all the boxes should be emptied by now.  Here are my excuses: 



  • My desk has not been delivered yet. We are being kind to the furniture store, located in Pacific Grove, and agreeing to have all the pieces we ordered delivered at once. So, while my desk is in PG waiting for me, I also wait for it and its companion rolling file cabinet to match.





  • Some of the contents are things I am just not sure about. Do I need the Texaco cap with the signatures of Bobby Rahal and Bryan Herta (open wheel race car drivers)? And decorated with 2 pins from races at Laguna Seca (the local raceway set in the hills)?  I don't very often win things, and I won this hat - actually heard my name being called over the loudspeaker when I was outside the tent.  The very large tent was set up on the lawn at Laguna Seca for a fundraising dinner/silent auction put on by the raceway volunteers.  Big social event, with many of the drivers and owners attending.





    • Some will go on the shelves that I want built beside my desk, like my little inkle loom (made by Tony Irwin from Vancouver Island) and baskets with yarn or fluff in them.
    So those are my main excuses.  I am sure I could find more if needed.  Nevertheless, here is the space I made for the loom:


    You can just see some of the boxes in the upper right-hand corner.  The window faces south west, so I will put my right shoulder toward the window so the afternoon sun comes over my shoulder.  If need be, I can pull down the blinds that are hidden at the top of the window.

    So, I decided (against my husband's advice) to assemble the loom in place.  I am very glad I did.  Here is the piece unpacked from the large box pictured above:


    As you can see, it was well packed.  The reeds and the footboard plus other parts are packed into the spaces in the loom body.

    I was sure that I took a picture of all the parts and tools and five bags of hardware, but it is nowhere to be found.  I will say that laid out on the carpet, the various parts took up about 8 square feet.  I carefully labelled everything that was named and pictured in the Assembly Instructions with little hot pink sticky notes.  I began at the beginning and followed the instructions.  I made a couple of mistakes, and I fixed them.  Gradually it began to come together.

    I am glad that I had already used a Louet countermarch loom.  I pretty much understood what everything was for and that helped a lot.  Of course, there were not enough heddles to suit me, so I took my time determining the shuttle count per shaft for the first project I have planned.  I ended up putting 175 heddles on shafts 1 and 5, 125 on shafts 4 and 8.  The other four shafts got 100 heddles each.  That works fine for the basketweave and huck baby blanket I have planned for a certain new Canadian (shh...).

    Here she is - assembled though, as yet, unnamed:


    Isn't she pretty?

    I am going out later to do errands.  One will be to get two "milk crates" or the like so I can elevate the loom in order to sit in a more reasonable position while I tie up the treadles with the fist-fulls of Texsolve cords included.  They are all cut to size, thank goodness!  It took me more than an hour And, yes, I am slow. to cut all the loops on the heddles before putting them on the shafts.


    It is nice to be communicating/writing again.  More when I get that first warp on the loom...

    Saturday, June 4, 2011

    Multnomah Falls, Oregon

    I said that I would share pictures of our visit to Multnomah Falls, along the Columbia River Gorge.  I didn't realize that it would be so long before I would post again.

    But, finally, here are the pictures.  This falls is right next to the Columbia Gorge Highway on the south side of the Columbia River.  They have made a very large parking area and a walkway under the road for easy access to the falls.  My guess that they were forced to do this because of all the people who just stopped by the side of the road to look at this very tall waterfall - 611 feet tall.

    Only 30 minutes or so from Portland Oregon, this is a falls worth the time.  This is how you first see it from the road:

    Not until you get closer do you see the bridge across the falls part way up:

    It is fairly easy to walk up to that bridge.  The paths use switchbacks, so it is not very steep.

    It is only when you get there that you realize that it is possible to continue walking up to another viewpoint right at the top (just to the left at the top of the falls).  We weren't sure how much farther we had to drive that day, and it appeared that you would get pretty wet crossing the bridge to continue up, so we did not go.  Now I am sorry I didn't try to go all the way up.

    It was amazingly wet everywhere around the falls.  So much that not just moss grew on the tree trunks.  Ferns grew as well.
    It was a beautiful sight; I am very glad we stopped.