Sunday, August 30, 2009

Long Rainy Afternoon

Now I'm really getting frustrated, this is try number three to post and save this blog which now is going to be really short.  The program refused the last two tries.  Mostly I was just reporting that I finished both pieces of trim today and did some work on the plain weave blanket on the Baby Wolf 4 Shaft Loom. 

Since I had no pictures of today's trim, I am trying to post a picture of the trim I made for the movie 1066, since some of the trim I'm making for this order is based on it.  These pieces were for the large actor playing "Tank Man" on Stamford bridge, big trim for a big man...

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Testing to see if I can add a photo

Well, after a very discouraging afternoon at the tablet weaving loom (I simply could not get a pattern to reproduce but I did get something I think the customer will be OK with) I've come back in and decide to play with this a bit more.  I added a bunch of photos to an "album" which seems to exist somewhere in Google land but does not really show up on the blog (yet anyway).  I also tried several times to add google webtools, carefully following the instructions to be rejected each time as unverified.  It seems that even though I have the blog from Google and have signed up with them, they can not verify me as the owner of the site I'm signed in with.  Nor, will their might web tool accept an exact cut and paste of their own code as verfication.  So either I am missing something obvious and/or the webtools installation is not quite as "easy" as it looks.  For now I shall stick to the very simpled editor that comes with the blog, until I can find someone who knows more than I do.

Meanwhile, on to the photo experiment, lets see if I can insert something here:

 
OK second try worked better if a bit large, this is me spinning flax at an Irish castle a few years ago.

 
OK and that's me looking very tired but dressed in hand woven Viking Apron that had just won Kingdom 
A & S for textiles about two year ago.
On the whole this looks like it works, so I'll finish playing for now and post.  Then I'll go visit a certain tiny Calico Kitten who didn't want to come back in when it got dark tonight and ran away from Mommy and Daddy.  After about an hour, she decided that alone and in the dark without supper was not really as much fun as she thought and yowled at the front door.  Parents, I'm not suggesting you do this with your smalls when they refuse to come in for supper but it does seem to work for cats, try at your own risk- lol

Disa catching the bath tub plug at about age six weeks.

Starting a Fiber Blog

Well, I've been reading several fiber blogs for awhile now and found them pretty helpful, so I thought I'd start one of my own. I will probably also drop in tidbits about life here at Kilmurry House in rural Ireland, the barn cats, my husband, Astaru, etc...but I suspect the main focus will be on weaving, spinning, knitting etc. I've tried blogging before, of a less focused kind, but found that to be a bit hard to keep up. Sort of like being a columnist without a pay check. I figure I can do that here if the issue get serious enough but I don't have to come up with something witty everyday. Just chat about my latest projects with others.

I can also plug great sites like weavolution http://www.weavolution.com/node/937 Which is a forum for handweavers. Since I'm also in the SCA and interested in survival stuff, I suspect there may be a certain amount of side information on history and making stuff from scratch. I also love to cook so I may through in the occasional recipe etc. Living in a rural area of Ireland, as an ex-pat American it can be interesting to try making things like tamales from scratch, or going in search of a washing machine large enough to hold more than a couple of tea towels.

But for now, my goal is just to keep up with what I'm up to fiber wise. Right now that means finishing a wool blanket on the Baby Wolf loom, some tablet weaving (which I sell via www.vikingladytraders.com) and continuing to wash out fleeces. Hopefully, more detail to follow on this and other projects during the next few days.