Weaving Season

I love winter.  Many people complain, but I do not.  I sometimes express amazement like last year's constant snow cover and deep piles of snow or when in January 1994 the thermometer was below the 40 below mark!  Each season brings different activities on this homestead.  Late winter Ken starts planting full season crops like onions.  Spring brings planting and transplanting in greenhouses.  Summer starts harvest and preservation.  Fall brings harvest and storing crops in the root cellar and cold storage.  

So what does winter bring?  For Ken winter is a combination of planting mini greens, clearing and cleaning spaces, and making pottery.  For me winter brings tax prep, seed orders, root cellar and window box harvests, cleaning and clearing space, and weaving.

 

I fell into weaving - a friend called to tell me about a loom in the Twin Cities going cheap.  We went in and bought it.  I enjoy sewing and other tasks with fiber, so why not?  Ken put it together, a friend showed me how to make string heddles, Ken made some missing wood pieces, I took a class at the Weavers Guild in Minneapolis and that was it.

Now I am working on my second loom acquisition a sturdy rug loom with the capability of a long warp to weave many rugs.  I had LOTS of denim so I warped it in a series of colors I thought would enhance denim and I took a dyeing class at the Weavers Guild and over dyed some denim.  Last year I had a bad rip in the apron I patched and patched again recently and it seems to be holding.

Here are some views of what I am working on right now.  Denim and over dyed denim on an ORCO rug loom Ken got for me by bidding a bit higher than I was willing to bid  at an auction years ago