I gave The Cricket Loom a rave review and showed a bit of the healing/prayer shawl that I wove for my sister in law.

She’s been terribly ill and has scared the bejabbers out of us….. She had an abscess in her brain, which was life threatening and harrowing. She’s had surgery and it was successful.

Weaving a healing/prayer shawl for her was very soothing for me.

It allowed me to pour my love for her into every stitch…

I hope that it will bring her comfort. I love to think that she is wrapped in my offering….

She is surrounded by love, and we hope that she will soon recover.

To weave the healing / prayer shawl, I wove it twice as long  as I wanted, then folded it in half and stitched a seam up the center.

I wove this one for one of my sister in law’s dearest friends.

I folded the ends into points instead of making fringes.

Remember that weaving on narrow looms doesn’t mean that you’ll just be able to make only narrow things.

Stitch the narrow sections together, and you’ve got something truly wonderful.

Weaving healing and/or prayer shawls is a meditative and contemplative process.

The shawls are healing, both for the weaver and for the person receiving them.

It’s also a lovely  way to bless a loom!

Image Source: Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

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I’ve been weaving with the Schacht Cricket rigid heddle for a few days, and I absolutely  L O V E  it.

Why?

Because:

• It’s really solid, well made, and the ergonomics are a dream.Obviously, a lot of thought went into designing it.
• The heddle glides along the tracks and it stays in position perfectly, in both the down and up modes.
• I really like the wooden handles on the warp and cloth beams.
• The ratchets and pawls mesh with each other beautifully – they hold solidly and don’t skip or jump.
• It’s very portable and compact- we had to drive for a couple of hours yesterday, and because I was the passenger, I was able to sit with it in my lap and weave the whole time.
• I put an extra long warp on it, and it handles it easily.

Thumbs up!

I’m weaving a prayer/healing shawl for my sister-in-law who is really sick right now.

Weaving on a narrow loom doesn’t mean that you have to end up with a narrow project-

people have been weaving all kinds of  gorgeous garments and accessories on narrow looms for centuries.

I’ll keep you posted on the healing shawl as I get it closer to being done….

Image source Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

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The new Cricket rigid heddle Loom from Schacht has arrived, and I am impressed.

It comes shipped flat in a smallish spiffy box that works as a project/tool box but won’t hold the loom once it’s assembled.

It needs to have 6 screws inserted to assemble it.  That took only a few minutes.

The loom is solid and beautifully designed.  It doesn’t fold like their Flip or the Ashford Knitter’s loom, but it’s compact enough to be truly portable. Popping it into a tote bag is not a problem.

I am going to be weaving a healing/prayer shawl in rainbow colors.

One of my beloved sisters-in-law is terribly sick, which has really thrown us for a loop.

I am going to get the Cricket warped up and weave her a shawl that is full of my love for her.

If you could spare a moment or two to send her some good healing energy, that would be most appreciated!

I’m off to warp the Cricket now, and  will take pics to show my progress and to tell you more about working with the Cricket.

Image source: Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

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The Woven Bag….

On the last day of the shoot, we finished shooting the step-by-steps  before we went to lunch.

We were scheduled to shoot the author portrait in the afternoon, so since I looked be-draggled, weary and snuffly, we went off to Aveda to get a makeover.

Michelle Marx is a wonderful makeup artist! She has her own company, freelancing with makeup artistry.

Her contact info: Michelle

Pinkie decided that she needed a makeover, too, and, luckily, Michelle had the perfect makeup for a small bear!

I went urk when I saw the ‘before’ shot of me, so I deleted it! LOL!  And, then we zooted back to get ready for the portrait.

Pinkie wanted to be sure that Christine and Jenni would have good Guardian Angels to look after them when she wasn’t around, so she helped me to make Guardian Angels for them.

Our work in Cincinnati was done, so off Pinkie and I trotted to the airport to trundle on home!

Pinkie liked the flying pig sculpture in the airport, but thought that it really should have been a teddy bear…..

Image Source: Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

This was a Blogtoberfest Sponsored Post.

Here’s what the prize was and who won it: Blogtoberfest Prize #1

GUESS WHAT!  There is going to be another giveaway of a very neat prize (something electronic that has nothing to do with yarn or hankering for it, LOL!) during the week of Oct 13- 17, so keep checking back to see when and to enter.

Good luck!

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The original Pinkie got lost in a move along the way, so in my early 20’s, I made a replacement Pinkie.

Pinkie has been  my travelling companion ever since.

And, when Jim and I got together, I made him Bluebear.

Bluebear fell madly in love with Pinkie, and they got married and have had oh so many adventures together.

We have photo albums of their travels.

Anyhow, Pinkie accompanied me to Cincinnati last week to help with the photo shoot for my new book, The Woven Bag.

(Bluebear declined to leave Jim, so he stayed at home, keeping Jim company, while languishing for Pinkie).

Pinkie checked out Christine’s camera and decided that it was just right.

She found the photo shoot terribly boring, so she noodled around the studio, checking out the props.

She was particularly fond of the planets toy and enjoyed her space travels enormously.

She behaved herself fairly well at the lunch where I got to meet all kinds of lovely people who help to bring the book out into the world.

She loved the quaint street that the restaurant was on.

And agreed to have a picture taken with me.

Then she took a picture of Christine, me and Jenni.

Tomorrow: Pinkie gets a makeover!

Image source: Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

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It was for my  new book, The Woven Bag.

Here’s the photo studio at F & W Media where we were working:

There are the tables with 35 woven bags, looms and other equipment:

This is Christine, ace photographer and Jenni, editor extraordinaire, playing ‘Vanna’

Here’s Jenni at her lappy and Christine at her huge screen computer.

The camera is digital, and cabled across to Christine’s computer so we could see the pics up on the screen.

And, here I am, getting ready for a ‘how to’ shot.

Another shot of the tables full of bags…. sorry!

Can’t show you the bags yet…..

We worked reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally hard all week….

but- there were some fun and goofy moments, too:

Our brains got all scramblie, so, suddenly, Christine and Jenni decided to dance the tango!

We got a huge hysterical giggle out, and then got back to work.

More pics tomorrow!

Image source: Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

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I’m so excited! They have confirmed that the title is: (drumrolls, puhleeze…….)

The Woven Bag: 30+ Projects from Small Looms

I am publishing it with Krause Books, which is part of  F & W Media. And, yep, the publisher chooses the title of the book.

I am really happy with it because they’ve nailed it. yay!

I am sad though, because the release date has been moved to November of 2009 from July of 2009! boohoo!

anyhow……….

Last week, I was in Cincinatti (finally learned how to spell it!) working with my WONDERFUL editor, Jennifer Claydon, whom I adore, and the fantastic photographer and totally delightful person, Christine Polomsky.

Let me tell you about my editor.

Having a great editor who is smart, funny, feisty, and knows her stuff AND that you really click with is a HUGE bonus!

Happy happy happy happy me!

So, I am THRILLED to bits to be working with Jennifer Claydon.

Not only is Jenni a fabulous editor, but she is also an author.

Her book: Spin, Dye, Stitch  is being published by F&W Media and will be released in June of 09.

She is a spinner extraordinaire – her handspun silk has to be seen to be believed. I swear, you will swoon when you see the pics of the knitted cobweb shawls that Jenni makes…. unbelievable!

She’s just written a fantastic article for Spindlicity on spinning silk.

Check it out: Jennifer Claydon’s article

AND!!!! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Jenni blessed me with a skein of her hand dyed roving…. ohmigosh….it’s too beautiful for words!

I am just squeezing and fondling it like crazy.

I don’t want to start spinning it, because then, I won’t have it as roving anymore.

Know what I mean?

Okay, this is getting really long, so I’ll sign off for now, but will be posting lotsa pics of the photo shoot. Soon!

Image Source: Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

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The Journey loom is a lovely small frame/tapesty style loom that was designed by Susan Barrett Merrill. The loom came to her in a dream and she’s been working with her husband to create it in many ways for a number of years.

The first thing that struck me when I put it together was that it looked so much like the wall dollhouses that my dh, Jim, makes me!

The second thing that just blew me out of the water, was reading the chapter in Susan’s book, Zati, The Art of Weaving a Life, about Grandmother Tree. Why did it have such an impact on me? Because I have also written about Grandmother Tree in my book, Soul Mate Dolls: Dollmaking as a Healing Art. I love the synchronicity of that.

I didn’t start weaving instantly…. I decided that I needed to spin some special yarn and complete a doll’s head that I’ve been working on for awhile.

I’ve posted pics of the doll head .

(Jim finds the doll head to be really ‘dark’ …. he thinks it looks really fretful. Well, the truth of the matter is, I sculpted it when I was making the Cornstarch Clay worry dolls, and ‘worried’ energy certainly did come through with it. I put all the worry into it, instead of the worry dolls. )

And photos of spinning the yarn for the doll

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