Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Top-of-the-Waves Tuesday...

...in which we discuss things that didn't go quite as planned.

First, let me say that I totally enjoyed having three days off in a row. It meant a lot more time for crafting and just hanging out at home.

I really wanted to start my new weaving project, so that was the first thing I attacked.

Item #1 that didn't go as planned:
I had already wound the yarn for my new piece, so I was ready to warp. I'm using Blue Heron Rayon Metallic and Cascade Venezia Sport for the warp and weft, adding some Rowan Kidsilk Haze Glamour in the weft.  I planned to warp the full width of the loom (20") and a length of 95".  I wanted the Venezia Sport to be random, so I warped that first.

After I warped the Blue Heron for a few inches, I realized that I wanted the Venezia Sport to stand out a bit more. So I carefully unwarped the Blue Heron--that took a while. I unwarped the Venezia Sport and rewarped to use more of the yarn. OK, not a disaster, but it took more time than I planned.

I warped the Blue Heron for the full width and was very happy with way it looked. Then I started rolling it up and began to notice blue flecks on the Blue Heron. Now, the yarn is white, cream, and tan with gold metallic. There shouldn't be blue anywhere. Cr@p! Somehow, this skein was marked with a blue pen or something. After checking the yarn, it was only on the first half of the warp. Ok, I thought, I don't want to take a chance that this will not wash out, I'll just unwarp half of it.

Wrong. There was no unwarping it. Did I mention that the yarn is rayon metallic, as in slippery and prone to tangle? I had to cut it off the loom. (sigh)

I rewarped the first half of the loom and sleyed the reed. By that time, I had seen enough of the loom for the day and moved on to spinning.

I finished spinning bobbin #1 of the Zen 2 merino-silk. Since there wasn't much of the day left at this point, I stopped there.

After grocery shopping and chores on Sunday, I decided to stick with knitting since I wasn't quite ready to face the loom again. I was going great guns on the Southern Skies shawl and I wanted to keep the momentum going.

Item #2 that didn't go as planned:
I had just started the next set of charts (D) for the shawl, when I felt an odd bump on the back of my work. I discovered an oddly twisted stitch that resulted in a hole that didn't belong in the design...and it was way back at the beginning of the chart C section. Double Cr@p!!  The only good part was that it was in a section with no bead. I dropped a stitch all the way down to it and tried to pick it back up correctly...that's right, tried. Double Cr@p!!

I had no choice but to unravel all the way back to round 30 (the 3rd round in chart C) and start again from there. (another sigh)

I'm now on round 45 and have another 6 to go until I'm back to chart D.

On Monday, I decided to start weaving my new piece. I wove about 15 picks and did the hemstitching. It looked pretty good, but I knew that I wanted to add some Leno to the ends of the shawl. After checking my reference books, I chose a variation that uses 4 threads: thread 4 goes over thread 1; bring 2 and 3 to the top; and put on the pick-up stick.

Item #3 that didn't go as planned:
I had about 75% of the the bundles done and realized I was doing it wrong. I was supposed to twist 4 over 1, then bring 2 and 3 through the middle of the twist so the thread positions were 1-3-2-4. Cr@p! At least I hadn't woven it yet. I pulled out the pick-up stick and started again.

I wove a few more rows, but I didn't have the volition to do more than that. 

I decided to clean house instead. You know it's bad when I want to do housework instead of craft, right? 

Maybe tonight will be better.
.

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