The Heat Retreat

 Starting off, here is a shot of the Rio Grande Kit Loom with stabilizer feet added to it. Much better! I got all the cords on and the sectional beaming rakes as well.

 So then it was time to test out the loom.   Using knit cotton rag strips I am weaving some twill placemats.  I think the walking of the treadles is fun and easy to get used to.  As I practise I see that some improvements to the cords can be made. And I may have to hit the rollers with sand paper.

 The not-so-elegant tie up of the treadles could definitely be improved.   In my haste to try out the loom I left the white cords in from previous owner's. They seemed too short so I added a jumper cord.  But I will maybe try the tie up without the jumper and see how it goes.  It could be that some knots are catching on one another and preventing the shafts from always rising nicely.

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 In the knitting basket is a project I am calling Kilauea.  Last winter I purchased the three semi-solid wools and on the very same day a friend gifted me several items, including a skein of crazy novelty yarn.  Thank you C.A. The synthetic core material is punctuated by frequent flags of a paper type fabric!  The colours in the novelty yarn were perfect to match up with the three wools.   Note: in reality the colours are deeper and richer than how they appear in this photo.

 I found a pattern for a short ruana or serape and I started to follow the design idea (loosely). Well it seems that I won't  have quite enough of the novelty yarn to fulfill this plan and so I am contemplating other things.  My knitted lava flow may become a throw over a wing back chair.  Or it may become a cushion top. Time will tell.

 This hat is a pattern from a book by Marchant. It is a brioche knit and was a fun thing to do.   There were a lot of different stitches to learn and many similar looking abbreviations, and so here are a few small boo boos.  Cleverly in this reversible hat, I could hide the mistakes to the inside.  BS has claimed this hat for himself. It is actually two shades of blue, not purple.   And it looks like I grew quite the Pinocchio nose in this selfie.

This scarf is knit of a luscious sock yarn in merino wool.   The stitch pattern is  "graceful leaves". Each leaf is truncated by one above it, an effect I had not seen before.

With the recent heat I made a retreat into the always cool garage, aka The Lake Shore Studio.  There, I have been threading the computer dobby loom.  Also some spring cleaning madness has taken hold. I have reduced the book department by a significant amount.  Next up - knitting magazines!  This could be difficult.  😮