Burrito West Blog

A friend was kind enough to loan me a Schacht table loom earlier this year. I managed to finish two projects and have satisfied my weaving urge for a few months at least.  (And returned the loom, much to Peter's relief.... it did take up a lot of space in our tiny apartment.)

The first project used a spool of black yarn I've had for a while as the warp and a variegated yarn as the weft. I was a bit nervous about this, having never used variegated yarn in weaving before, but only one way to learn (after googling things extensively)!

I maxed out the warp width on this one to get a nice full scarf.  In retrospect I wish I had gone a bit more narrow so that the color stripes would have been longer, but I still like the end product, so, I'll call it a success.  My weaving was nice and even and my edges were pretty good too, not bad considering I haven't woven in two years!



Project 2 I sneaked in because I've had this reflective thread I've wanted to work into a weaving project for years. I tend to wear a lot of black and we have many dark, rainy days/nights in Vancouver where I worry I'm pretty invisible. I like the idea of things that look normal by day and are reflective at night.  Example, this awesome bag I bought myself.

I made a half-hearted effort to use this reflective thread when I had my floor loom, but I didn't think the thread would hold up under tension (and it's too wiry to use as weft). This time I was willing to take the chance and remedy any snapped threads if necessary. So I got some silver yarn (Patons Metallic; which I don't think is going to wear well) to match the thread and ran the reflective 3M thread along with the yarn in the warp. I went for a narrow scarf because I wanted something light (and a fast project).  There are some tension issues with the reflective yarn; once I was done and got it off the loom, I went through and pulled each strand to pull out the excess, which helped.

I decided to turn this into a circle scarf by knotting the fringes together. I'm now half way through weaving in the 488203 ends.  By the time I finish, it will be August. So, probably won't take this one out for a spin until next fall.  Interestingly my tension/beating changed dramatically on this - I started out beating hard for a nice tightly packed weft, then by the end was super loose (really terrible). Not sure what I was thinking. It bugs me, but I'll learn to live with it.

You have to look at it just right to see the pattern

I always weave right to the very very end of the warp

Photo on the right is taken with a flash to try and show the reflectivity; not bad, eh?

I have a habit of choosing craft projects that veer towards insanity, like this one. Projects that are very intricate or time-consuming. I like the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that comes from completing a big project.

I learned how to do bead crochet a few months ago and decided to make myself a nice lanyard for my word ID badge. I love the feel of bead crochet and it is perfect for this. Of course, I chose to do this project with the smallest beads I had on hand - size 14 or 15.

Step 1 was to string all the beads for the project onto the thread (I used Beadalon dandyline 0.2mm which had a nice amount of stiffness). Since I had no idea how many beads I would need (assumption: a lot), I strung most of a hank. That took a while. (Good activity to do while watching a movie, actually.) Then the crochet started. And continued. I had a few road trips to work on it. Lots of episodes of Bones. Rainy days at home. Social knitting events. It was a nice, portable project and I had it on hand most of the time for a few months.

I'm very pleased with how it turned out! It's nice to be working with beads again. Now I'm on the hunt for my next ridiculously long project....

Whenever I get the urge to refresh my wardrobe, I head to my favorite thrift shop (the one where I scored almost-new fluevogs for $10).  I went on Saturday to discover they are prepping to remodel and everything was 50% off. Score.

Got me some good stuff, including this new coat (United Colors of Benetton) for $5 (dramatic hood), a nifty purple shrug made from Italian wool and cashmere (Club Monaco) for $3, a sweet button up vest (Le Chateau) for $3, etc. It was a very nice day.

Now to cram it all in my wardrobe somehow.

Also - Peter and I finally got around to making soap! Won't be ready for a few weeks, but, first step is done!  This is good because we ran out of soap a while ago and have been using less awesome stuff.

And we've got tickets to see Kimbra live on tuesday, which should be awesome!

I need your help - over here....

Rather than whine about being sick, how about some photos of my kool-aid yarn dyeing experiment?  This is grape and cherry, and just for the record, you need a fair bit of kool-aid to dye this much yarn (8 packs of cherry, 10 of grape)!

Still, I'm pleased - nice vibrant colours.  I have more of this yarn to dye, but I think I'll wait until I start a project and see how much I need of what colour.

Results of the test dyeing with Kool-aid.... one yarn took the colour really well, the others had mixed results (means some synthetic fibres). very interesting & super easy.

Now to try the trickier bit where I try to dye a large quantity of yarn and get it to all come out the same colour....

Did I just make a bunch of necklaces?

Yes, I did indeed!

Details on the craft blog!

I may have won another contest recently.

It may have been for more craft supplies.

You'll have to go to the craft blog to find out.

http://baremaked.blogspot.com/2011/10/winning.html

One of the hard parts of being a crafting nut is accommodating all the crafting supplies. It was all very manageable when all I did was beadwork, but then came sewing and crochet and then.... weaving. I blame the weaving entirely on Felicia of SweetGeorgia Yarns who blogs about her weaving adventures and who has an incredible sense of colour and style. She made me see that weaving could be bold and colorful and modern (example). So I got a small floor loom about 2 years ago.

Only problem was that I live in a 600sqft apartment with my husband-like-person and two cats. And my husband-like-person often has a mountain bike in our apartment. So we just don't have a lot of space. And with my other 48 hobbies, I wasn't spending much time weaving. So, since it took up the most space and was used the least out of all my crafting supplies, I decided that the floor loom should find a new home. The happy part is that it went to a lovely lady who is very excited about learning to weave and she loved it on first sight - so it's in a happy home and will help launch someone's weaving adventure.

I figure I'll find myself another little floor loom one day, maybe if we ever move into a 2bedroom apartment. Until then, I'll just have to distract myself with one of my 12 works-in-progress. And maybe I'll have to spend some time in SweetGeorgia's weaving studio. :)

For those interested in crafty content - you should swing over to my craft blog where I wrote all about my first project on my screenprinting machine!

I made something super cute - details over on the craft blog!

There is weaving in progress again, finally!

This is my first weaving project that actually takes advantage of all 4 shafts of my loom and had a complicated threading pattern. So far everything is going okay.... it's taking me a while to select a weft yarn that I like - I've decided to go monochrome and use the warp thread for the weft. I feel the diamond pattern is quite busy and having it in contrasting colours is too much for me.

Now that I've actually made that decision - this will probably go pretty fast!

Have I ever mentioned I have a bit of a thing for craft supplies?

It was all fine when all I did was beadwork, but since moving to Vancouver I've learned to crochet and weave, so now there's yarn tucked in every drawer and cabinet you see - open a cabinet where you'd expect to find a dvd collection and yarn will probably fall out. oh, and there's a loom in our living room. There are a lot of beads too, but they're fairly compact. I also got a sewing machine, so there's a cupboard in the kitchen full of fabric. Then there's the miscellaneous supplies - glue, magnets, the stuff I'm going to repurpose one day, the silkscreening inks, the wireworking tools, and all the associated craft books.

What I mean to say is that I kind of have a lot of supplies. I could stay at home and craft continuously for approximately 11 years, I think. I do feel like it's a bit over the top and I try to restrain myself - but then a local store goes and offers yarn that is normally $15/ball for $2/ball! Anyway. I seriously don't need any more craft supplies. Really. Even I admit that.

But then Got Craft - the local awesome craft fair that usually I'm a vendor at with my group Maked - had a contest.... and the prize was a Yudu which is a DIY screen printing system. A $300 screen printing system. I may have gone a little over the top to earn entries into the contest.
And it worked because I won! Yay! I'm excited to test the thing out - hopefully this weekend when I have time to make a mess.

The downside? The Yudu is enormous. I live in a 600 sqft apartment that I share with a Peter, two cats, a floor loom, and several bikes. I honestly have no idea where I'm going to keep this thing. It's currently on our coffee table. It's the same size as our coffee table.

Still - who can refuse craft supplies? Not me, clearly. I've got a bit of a thing, after all.

For those who like to follow my crafty adventures - I just posted over on my crafty blog (http://baremaked.blogspot.com) about the project I just finished and the one I just started that involves teeny tiny silver rings.

I was pretty zonked after the craft fair (Got Craft) on Sunday. It was a great fair, as always. Still waiting to hear what the final attendance count was, but I suspect it was more than last year - it was pretty insane for most of the day - usually it's just insane in the morning and then it calms down in the afternoon. Maked had a good day, and I sold lots of bike cuff so there will be a lot more stylish cyclists on the streets soon. =)

Tonight is the guest party at dance and I've convinced a friend to come with us and so has Peter - should be lots of fun! Everyone should come to dance with us! We went out to a lovely dinner/dance with our studio two weeks ago and I forgot to get my dance shoes from the studio the night before so I ended up dancing in street shoes (heels) which was an adventure. At one point I was dancing with the owner of the studio (swing) and he was spinning me all over the place and I was pretty sure my shoes were going to fly off my feet and I was going to break both ankles. But I did not. I was quite proud.

These random bits of news are brought to you by Lisa, who is quite tired from working 2 jobs and doing a craft fair.

Peter and I just finished our 2nd batch of soap this month. Whoo! First batch was cold process - because we like the texture of that better, but it takes weeks to cure and we need some to give away for Christmas presents more immediately, so we just did a batch of hot process (ready as soon as it cools). We love homemade soap, it's awesome. We have an orange/clove scent mixture that we both like, it's Christmasy (like a pomander) but not sickly sweet.

Making soap is actually quite easy. You just have to get the right oils, some sodium hydroxide, and be willing to blindly follow instructions the first few times until you build some experience. Willingness to fail is a key ingredient of most new crafts actually. Er, in this case you also need a scale and digital thermometer. And a dedicated slow cooker if you want to do hot process (i.e. not the one you use for food).

We've had great success using these tutorials.

Peter is home! I went out to the airport to get him (yay Canada Line rapid transit), then we went for sushi, and now he's having a nap with all the cats. We have the rest of the day to hang out at home, and then a family dinner out in the burbs tomorrow. =)

October is looking to be very busy for me. I'm probably going to be doing some consulting work (planning stuff) on the side of my full time job. I haven't signed the contract yet, so knock on wood, but if it does happen it will be very interesting. It's an international project, so definitely something different for me. I've got some vacation time I have to use up before the end of the year, so I'll probably take it to give me some space to work on this job (not to travel, I won't be going to the site) - which is a weird thing to do, but I'm keen to get some consulting work under my belt and this project is seriously a great opportunity.

This will put a crimp in my crafting plans though. As work always does.

The latest crafty idea my brain has latched on to is really simple, which is all I can handle right now. It came from the fact that most of my co-workers all know of my craftiness and how I delight in repurposing stuff that will otherwise be tossed. So, one of my co-workers saved a stack of obsolete 2007 city bike maps for me, she figured I could do something cool with them. I did the most obvious thing I could think of, and love the end result (I'm easy to please) - I laminated them with contact paper and sewed them up into simple little wallets.

While it sounds easy, the contact paper I used to laminate them is actually a pain to use (because it's all rolled up.... does this stuff come in flat sheets anywhere?). Still, it's a relatively easy project. I've been using mine for a week or two now, testing out the construction to see if it holds up, and it's doing great. I made a few more while Peter was away, thinking I might stock them for the holiday craft fair, since they're perfect little stocking stuffers for Vancouver cyclists. I haven't figured out a price point for them - if anyone wants to chime in with the price they think is appropriate, please do!

Yay for finishing baby gifts for people! Finishing projects is so satisfying!

Latest - 1 baby hat with an awesome button made from wood waste, and 1 round ripple baby blanket.

Bring on the babies. Actually, don't, I'm still way way behind!

Did I ever mention that I finally finished my last weaving project? The one I took off the loom months and months ago? Yeah.

Took forever to get that last step done because the only way I know to finish a scarf is with fringe but I really didn't want fringe on this one. I finally took a day and sorted it out and am pleased with the finished product. I'm listing it in my etsy shop though because I just really really do not need another scarf. Really do not. Our apartment is too small for me to have an enormous scarf collection. It will be listed tomorrow, in case anyone is itching to do some shopping.

Last night Peter and I went to the taping of CBC Radio Book Club where Douglas Coupland was the guest. He's a super interesting guy - has a very unique outlook on the world. He's a writer and artist. You probably know him for Generation X or Microserfs or JPod but he also recently had some of his artwork unveiled at a new waterfront park in Toronto. It was really neat to go to the CBC building, to experience the taping process, to see people geek out at seeing/meeting someone they're all fangirly for, hear him get all philosophical and funny about things. Great way to spend an evening!

Continuing in the theme of finishing projects I started a really long time ago.... I've got this green tank top that I did a little funky bead embroidery on ages ago. It's one of my favorite summer tops because it's casual and comfortable but has a little unique detail on it. Nothing fancy, just a bit of personality.

I liked the finished product enough that I went to the store and got 2 more tank tops to do up. One I ended up wearing plain - I needed a shirt and didn't have time to wait for me to get around to crafting it up (I can be so slow!).

The other shirt got started and promptly shoved in a workbox. I pulled it out recently and decided the bead colour was all wrong - that's what caused me to hit a wall with it. So I took out the beadwork that had been started and I went with something more subtle this time. I've been working at it a bit here and there this week. I think a few more squiggly turns and it will be done.

Those who know me, know that doing random, organic/flowy things is very difficult for me. I prefer lines and patterns and things planned out in advance. Just winging it is not my forte!

But, it's good to break out of your box every now and then and do something that challenges your natural tendencies.