Knitting socks is one of life’s great pleasures.

I have to admit that I am a ‘mindless sock knitter’.

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

I knit plain socks that can just flow through my fingers without me having to pay attention to them except at critical points like heels and toes.

I use sock knitting as a way of soothing myself if I am feeling stressed,

or if I am in a situation where I have to pay attention to other people,

or if we are driving (my husband is driving, that is, and I am passenger-ing),

or if I am in waiting mode.

So, I tend to use self striping yarns and let them do the work,

or  I use bright colors and switch them around for a whimisical approach,

and I love to tat flowers on the tops of the cuffs.

So, even though I tend to like to zip along with easy sock knitting, I still love to collect fun patterns for great socks.

My daughter recently sent me a link for 5 free sock patterns, so if you would like some more sockie patterns here’s the link for you, too:

Free Sock Patterns

Yesterday, I posted a  pattern that I made from a vintage handmade inkle weaving shuttle.

Today, I thought… I should use that pattern to make a shuttle!

Then I remembered that I had a piece of an old ruler from my husband’s Dad in the studio.

I don’t know what he used the other half for, but I am pleased as can be to have this half!

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

I traced the pattern onto the ruler.

Because I promised my friend, William, that I wouldn’t use power tools until my eye is completely healed, I used simple hand tools.

My eye is really not there yet, so power tools are definitely off limits for me still.

But, I can’t stay out of the workshop, because it is such a pleasure, even when I feel wonky/wobbly.

Luckily, we have hand tools.

I have a fret saw that I just love- it’s great for fine cuts like the ones needed for this shuttle.

• I bought mine at Lee Valley tools. Fret saws are surprisingly cheap, and do a fab job. Great value for money!

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

I clamped the ruler to the bench to make sawing easier.  So, add a spring clamp or two to your ‘must have’ list of tools.

And, I drilled a couple of holes so I could put the blade into the area that I needed to cut out.  A small hand drill is also a ‘must have’.

AND…. A set of small files in a selection of shapes, are essential!  I use them all the time for shaping in my woodworking.

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After the shaping is done with files, I need to polish with sandpaper. Sandpaper is good, but I like sanding sponges more.

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

As I was working on this weaving shuttle, I thought… Duh! Why didn’t I do this ages ago?

I was struck by how similar the netting style weaving shuttle is to the tatting shuttles that I make (even though the inspiration for the tatting shuttles came from a totally different direction- amazing how things converge, isn’t it?)

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I just love this shuttle!

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

I load the shuttle so that there is thread on both sides of the shuttle.  (By the way, the rainbow band behind the shuttle is an inkle band that I wove years ago. )

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

Mmmm… it weaves like a dream.

I asked my daughter-in-law and daughter if they would like me to make them one each (they are both weavers), and they both said, YES!

Luckily, I have exactly enough of Dad’s ruler left to make them each a shuttle…. how perfect is that?

For years, I have been looking for a specific style of weaving shuttle for my inkle looms.

The ones that I have been questing after are based on netting shuttles.

I have been weaving on my band and inkle looms with ‘the usual band loom’ style of shuttle, and they have been working just fine:

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

The top shuttle in the pic above,  is made by Harrisville, and comes with their Backstrap loom.

It’s a very pleasant shuttle… lightweight and sturdy.

The lower brass shuttle is one that my son in law made for me. I love it. It’s a hefty shuttle, great for beating in a thick warp.

So, why was I looking for the netting style shuttles?

Well… shuttles are to a weaver what a paintbrush is to a painter or a chisel is to a sculptor.

They are lovely tools that have a different feel in the hand and their own way of moving through the warp.

When we were away on holidays, I was dumbfounded and  absolutely thrilled to find not one, but THREE of the netting style shuttles!

Here they are:  Second hand store treasures! (From three different second hand stores in different communities).

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

My husband was not happy at the thought of me working with the top shuttle… it’s a lovely piece of ingenuity-

It’s wires soldered together to form a pleasing little shuttle. (about 6 inches/15 cm long).

He was appalled that it was made with lead solder.

I sadly promised him that I wouldn’t use it. Sigh.

A day or so later, I was tickled pink to find the shuttle in the middle.  It too, is very obviously handmade.

It’s been rather roughly sawn out of a strip of aluminum. It’s about 1 inch/2.5 cm wide by 6 inches/15 cm long.

I absolutely love it. It’s a GREAT little shuttle.

It’s excellent for opening the shed on an inkle loom and works well for pickup.  Funky, but oh so good!

The bottom shuttle showed up in one of my fave second hand stores and I practically swooned.

Such riches! To find THREE shuttles all on one holiday, especially such oddball little critters, was just amazing to me.

The white shuttle is plastic, not handmade, and is about 8 inches/20 cm long.  It’s smooth and sturdy and glides along oh so well. Bliss.

Now, you didn’t think I was just going to gloat about my treasures, did you?

That wouldn’t be very polite…. so, I have made a pattern of the aluminum shuttle.

Mine is very wonky, so I have corrected the pattern to make it more symetrical.

You can make it from thin hardwood if you are a woodworker, or metal if you have metal saws,

OR…. why not recycle and upcycle some plastic into a dandy shuttle for yourself?

Here’s the pattern:

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

You can make it larger than 6 inches/15 cm if you wish, or smaller, too, for that matter.

Mine’s 6 inches/15 cm by 1 inch/2.5 cm and that’s a really nice size for inkle and band weaving.

Happy Weaving!

Ugh… over the weekend, I had a scary thing happen… I had a  detachment in my left eye and a little hemorghage in the eye.

It was the pits, and has left me feeling very worn and frazzled.

When I was sitting in the doctor’s office, I was knitting a sock. There I was, with the erky drops in my eyes so they could do the tests- feeling freaked out from all the awfullizing I had been doing over being scared sideways by the weirdness going on with my eye -  and the best way to keep myself from falling completely apart was to knit knit knit my sockie.

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

For me, sitting still, freaking out, is not a good thing, so even though I couldn’t see, I could still knit, and be comforted by the knitting.

A lady who was sitting beside me in the waiting room started chatting with me about knitting and handwork.

She had never seen self-striping yarn before, so was inspired to go out and buy some after seeing my sock.

Also, she said that her hands really hurt when she knits, so I suggested the fingerless craft gloves that give support to aching hands.

She was delighted to learn about them and those are on her shopping list now, too.

She got called in, and another lady sat down beside me.

The second lady started chatting with me about my sockies, and was also very excited about self-striping yarn.

(She’s going yarn shopping, too….)

Lady #2 told me that she’s so pleased to see a huge revival in crafting, and I agreed.

She then said that there is one craft that she doesn’t think will be revived.

Immediately, I thought… she’s going to say- tatting…..

She said that her mother-in-law had done something that she’d never seen anyone else do, an unusual thing called, tatting.

I grinned, and told her that I love tatting. She was pretty amazed.

I pulled up the cuff of my jeans, and showed her the cuff of my sock:

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

She liked the tatted flowers a lot!

Then, she asked me about an odd thing that she’d been given from her mother-in-law’s estate.

No one knew what it was, so they gave it to her.

It’s a ‘U’ shaped wire thing with a little clip on it.

Oh! That’s a hairpin lace loom! and then described how it works.

She was enchanted and said that once the eye drops had worn off, she was going to go dig it out and get started with it. She’s going to the library to take books out on hairpin lace. Neat!

Eventually, it was my turn to see the doctor and get the good and less than good news (ick on what happened in my eye, and whew that things will get better. He said ’should’, but I say ‘WILL’.  AND, I also refuse to think that it could happen again. Been there, done this, don’t intend to ever do it again.

Anyhow, they said that they are going to keep an eye on me.

Which immediately set off a series of metaphoric images for me….  I thought…

hmmmm……  ‘keeping an eye on me’…….

So, after I came home and slept for 4 hours,

I went out to the workshop, and cut some pieces of branch off a piece of discarded firewood.

I was inspired by the buttons I made with a branch from my daughter and son-in-law’s house. So, it was natural to still be thinking about using slices of upcycled branches to work with.  The photo makes it look much larger. It’s actually only 1 1/2 inches wide.

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

I drew an eye on it, and then burned it, painted it, varnished it and glued a pin back on it/

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

While I was making it, I was visualizing healing and re-generation, and all kinds of good things.

So, fingers crossed for good health for all of us!  We’ll keep an eye on that, okay?

When my daughter and her husband moved into their new house, they trimmed a branch that was hanging over the sidewalk.

I brought the branch home and let it dry out for a few months.

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

I trimmed the small stickie outie bits off….

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And carefully sliced pieces off the branch. The pine wood smelled wonderful!

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Then drilled holes

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Voila! Handmade wooden buttons- they need to be waxed or varnished…

perhaps embellished with a little woodburning or paint first?

Hmmmm….. my son trimmed the apple trees…. perhaps I should make some apple wood buttons…..

Right now, I am feeling very rattled and upset…. my dearest friend, who is as close to me as a sister, Terri, is very sick in hospital. So, if you can send her healing thoughts, a little love, light and positive energy, I would appreciate it enormously….. thank you….

One of the passions that Terri and I share is a deep love of weaving.

Over the years, looms and spinning wheels and other fiber tools have gone back and forth between our studios.

Recently, the mini inkle loom that I call, ‘The Emperor’s Invisible Loom’, came back home to me from Terri’s where it had been observing life in her Saori studio.

The Emperor’s Invisible loom had it’s share of problems, and now they are solved (yay).  (click on the boldface link in the last sentence to see how).

I have a series of pieces that I am working on, and inkle weaving is a part of them.

I have been  thinking a lot about the yarns that I want to include in the series. (I don’t want to say too much about the series, because if I write too much about some works in progress, the life can go out of them. So, sometimes, it’s better to just skip some of the details.)

It’s clear to  me that using upcycled yarns really fits with my vision of the series….. and then I had an ‘aha’ moment….

photo and project by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

My husband bought me a bag of cheap and cheerful thread at our favorite second hand store a few months back, and I have been using it for lots of fun projects.

Like these Comfort Thread Dolls

and some wild

Tatted Bracelets

These have felt so satisfying that they have  made me re-think what is ‘good’ thread and yarn, and what isn’t.

Because I combined lots of strands together  to make the Old Fashioned Yarn Baby Comfort Dolls, I realized that this was a great way to work with the ‘not-good-for-sewing’ thread.

I thought….

Hey! what about using multiple strands of the cheapie thread for inkle weaving?

So, I got out a pile of small shuttles and a selection of bobbins, and started winding 6 strands at a time onto the shuttles.

This sounds so innocent, doesn’t it?

No problem, right?

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WRONG!

Ack.

The thread was AWFUL to wind onto the shuttles!

I ended up with the stupid little tubes getting all snaggled and snarled and it was NOT FUN.

Phoo.

So much for great ideas.

Ah well…. I spent so much time working on getting the threads onto the shuttles and bobbins  that I felt committed to stick it out.

Which was good, because, in the end, it was worth it.

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

I am really, really happy with the outcome - the bands are very nice and feel great in the hand.

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

And, weaving with the threads was a total pleasure.

So, winding the little beasts tubes of thread (6 tubes held together for each shuttle and bobbin) was worth the trial and tribulation.

Will I do it again? Of course. I can’t let those little stinkers those sticky little tubes of thread get the better of me!

The woven bands are soooooooooooo worth it.

I think……

Remember the story of the Emperor’s new clothes?

The cloth was invisible, right?

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Well, I have been working with the Emperor’s new loom.

It’s invisible.

Okay…. the loom isn’t quite invisible,

but you can see through it.

It’s a tiny inkle loom that’s made of plexiglass.

It’s a fun little loom, but,

alas,  it does have some problems….

I really like this little loomie, so I have had to put on my thinking cap.

My thinking cap did it’s job very well, and, so, I am very pleased that I have been able to rescue the Emperor’s Invisible loom.

I  solved the dilemmas with a couple of  ‘outside the box’  solutions.

The heddle bar was in the wrong place which made trying to open the sheds absolutely miserable.

It was too far forward, which meant that the sheds simply weren’t opening.

So, I drilled some holes further back and inserted a new heddle rod.

Voila! that works beautifully- the sheds are now easily opening!

Okay, so that’s one problem solved…..

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

Another big issue

was that there was no way of tensioning the warp strands-

this was just plain skeeeeery

when it felt like the poor brittle loom was going to go ‘kersproing’ and shatter!

So, the easy peasy fix for that was to add 3 more rods to the outside of the loom while warping it.

I use loopers from a potholder loom (I really don’t like weaving with loops, but boy are they handy for this kind of thing!) and slip the ends of the extra rods through them to hold them in place while warping and weaving.

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

When the weaving tightens up through take-up, just slip a rod out, and the weaving can progress without stressing the loom.

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

Adding the extra rods is really good for maximizing the warp.

It allows you to weave a band that is longer, without the warp getting so tight that you have to cut it off.

See?

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

I am very pleased with the adaptations that I have made to the wee Emperor’s Old Loom.

It now has a new lease on life! Hurrah!

Lately, I keep having wonderful dreams about weaving, weaving, weaving.

LOL! I just realized that this kind of gives me a new sense of the term: ‘Dream Weaver’…..

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

Anyhow, after all the great weaving dreams, the call of  my Saori loom is just not to be ignored.

Saori weaving is all about listening to inner promptings and setting aside critical voices.

The point of Saori weaving is to focus on the creative process, which is dear to my heart.

So, in that mindset, I gave myself permission to just follow whatever interesting thoughts came up with this weaving, and to see where it lead me.

I wanted to make placemats that have a light hearted feeling.

Also, I want them to be obviously a set, but with each one being unique because of small touches.

I have been playing with doing very simple inlaid sections of contrasting weft.

It struck me that working tambour chain stitching around the inlays would be neat….

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

And, of course, one thing always leads to another.

When I was playing with the tambour chain stitch, it struck me that using an embroidery needle would be easier.

So, the spiral in this pic lead me to the little embroidered flower….

and then I thought….

hmmm…..

combining inlay with simple embroidered shapes

would be interesting…..

So, I got out my sketchbook

and did a quick sketch of a bunny.

I glued it to a piece of card stock and cut it out.  Then, I wove a section of inlay:

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

I traced around the bunny shape, (directly onto the white inlaid section)  and then, embroidered a simple chain stitch outline.

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

I am deliberately keeping the shapes simple, as I want the placemats to not be over-embellished.

Oh! I just had a thought….

I think I’ll ask my family what shapes they’d like to see on the placemats, since they are going to be using them!

I am weaving a length of fabric  to make placemats.

I am weaving it on my Saori loom, and am taking a very Saori approach to the placemat weaving.

What’s Saori?

It’s a soulful, contemplative  approach to weaving that is all about being experimental and open minded.

I’m hoping to get 8 placemats from the warp that’s on the loom, and am planning on doing lots of playful things with them.

My plan is to have each placemat be clearly part of a group, but to be unique.

Kinda like the family!

That way, everyone can choose the placemat that they want to use for that particular supper.

photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

Today, I used a couple of fun techniques:

Inlay and tambour chaining.

To work inlay, open a shed, pass the weft strands through, beat, then lay in a contrasting thread or yarn, close, change sheds, beat.

Repeat until you have the shape that you want with the inlaid yarn.

I used green embroidery floss for this inlaid square.

The green embroidery floss isn’t thick enough to show up

particularly well, so thicker yarn is a good idea.

To do the tambour stitching, pass the contrasting yarn  to the back.  Hold it underneath the weaving with your non-dominant hand.

With a crochet hook, push through the fabric, pull up a loop of the contrasting yarn.

Repeat, and pull the next loop of yarn through the first loop on the hook- and keep on chaining!

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

This little inlaid square shows up better, as it is thicker than the green embroidery floss.

The combination of inlay and tambour chain stitching is simple, but quite effective.

You don’t have to combine them - they work well on their own, too.

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

Hmmm…. I wonder what I’ll do with this warp tomorrow?

Last night, all night, I dreamt about warping my Saori loom. The dreams were so vivid, that it was actually something of a surprise to come into the studio in the morning, and find my much loved loom without a warp.

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So, what was I to do? My loom obviously WANTS a warp!

After all, if she’s invading my dreams,

then the time has come to get her dressed!

I love everything about weaving.

I love the choosing of the colors and the textures,

the playing with the math,

the petite panics of the baffling mistakes

and the solving of those mysteries…..

So here I am,

with my floor inkle loom

in it’s alter-ego state of

being a warping board.

I have it perched on the arms of my computer chair.

This is slightly precarious, and can be disastrous if a cat decides to investigate this:

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

Luckily (and totally out of character for them, as they LOVE to help me warp the looms) the cats carried on with their napping.

And, I carried on with my warping…..

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The moment of cutting the warp strands is always one that gives me pause - Do I REALLY want to take the chance?

Oh why not? If I totally mess it up, nothing will be lost, it can become something else, so, go for it….

And then, the truly meditative process begins……..

the warp strands are nudged through the reed, one by one,

then taken through the heddles, (errors are made, and errors are fixed)

the warp is tied, and tugged and blessed,

and wound and tugged some more, and then,

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

Joy.

And playfulness, and quiet contemplation and wondering and

hopefully, years of pleasure in using handmade placemats.

But most of all, a feeling of soulful satisfaction. Yes……