Room Reveal (Sort of)

There are few things in life that neccesitate complete room re-dos. The ones that come to my mind are babies and floor looms. Yes, I acquired a floor room and had to rearrange most of the house to accomodate it. The bright side is that now I have my own fiber studio. The down side is that I can't find room in it for everything. Strange, I thought this room was much bigger when I started....

I am still in the organizing stages and finalizing some stuff, so perhaps I will put a few pics up when that happens.

But what about the loom you might ask. I think I will name the loom Red because that was the color I became while waiting for it. I went to a surplus auction and waited all day long with the other fiber junkies for our chance. The university stopped offering weaving classes several years ago and were getting rid of the looms. I know, it is a crime. This particular loom is a 4 shaft, 36" weaving width. I am not positive on the brand as there is no label. I think it may be a Kessenich. I have cleaned it up and need to do a little lubrication. Of course I also need to decide on a project to weave.

Time for a room re-do. One day I will count how many rooms we have in our house and how many have been redone. I forgot to take pictures of what the room looked like as our current guest room. I only remembered to take a few pics after most everything had been moved out.

We pulled up the carpeting and found a little surprise:

It's a little pleasant surprise. It is destined for a new coat of paint. This may shock some but perhaps one day I will refinish it. It is pine plank. I think it may have been varnished, but I can't tell for sure. I don't have the time or energy for a flooring refinish at the moment. Besides, the modern layers come right off, it's those that are closer to the 100 year mark that are hard to remove. The paint I picked out is called Mt. Olive and I think that it might look cool having the scuffs showing the creme color underneath.

So what is the reason for all this effort? All shall be revealed when the time is right.

Three Little Kittens

Here are my Latvian-esque mittens that I finished the last day of May. I am hoping to get some mittens and socks done this summer--they are good to take to the pool and while shuttling the kids around. These were based on the child's mittens in Latvian Mittens. I did modify the thumb opening to put it on the side, which happens to be my preference. I really enjoyed the loop and the braid stitches. I am hoping these will fit the recently turned 4-yr-old when it comes time for fall. She did try to wear them to the store already this summer, so she does like them. My goal (I have two years) is to make mittens for the daycare workers who have been steady fixtures in my children's lives.

She is the reason for the title of the post, the nursery rhyme is one of her current song favorites. She emphasizes the 't' in the words and is ever so cute when the kittens cry. Instead of soiling the mittens, in her version the kittens have sold their mittens.

yarn: KnitPicks Palette in petal and black

needles: Clover Bamboo 1 dpns

My New Rug

We took a mini-vacation to Sioux Falls this weekend for a pharmacy convention. I was able to download the kids on my SIL for awhile and make a trip downtown to Warp and Weft. This is a rug store where the owner brings back the rugs from Turkey twice a year to sell in the shop. He was in the Twin Cities picking up a shipment when I was there, so I didn't get to meet him, but I am told he is very knowledgeable and a hoot to boot. I have been wanting to go there for a couple of years after reading an article about the store in the newspaper, but have never had the chance. Since taking the tapestry class and even before, I have been doing a lot of reading about different styles of tapetry weaving. I have never had the chance to view handwoven rugs before, so this was a real treat for me.

The lady who was working was very helpful and kind to a begining weaver who wanted to study real rugs, rather than just pictures. I think the thing I enjoyed the most was the variation in color. This was also my first chance to see knotted pile--not mechanical rugs. The most amazing thing I saw was an antique silk knotted pile Persian rug. It was so amazing, I have never seen anything like that before. Since seeing this, I have been thinking when does craft become art? I used to paint a lot as a young adult and was very talented at it. Many wondered why I chose to enter the field of science instead of art (I find myself asking myself this now as well). Since begining to dive into the fiber arts, my father hasn't been real excited (it got better when I started spinning and dyeing). He has often asked why I don't go back to painting. I am looking forward to working with tapestry this summer.

Oh yes, back to the rug. I did buy a rug, I really liked the colors. My husband actually questioned whether or not it was indeed from Turkey. When I repsonded that is was, he said he thought it looked to Southwest to be from that area of the world.