Friday, March 16, 2012

knitting and weaving update

Esme and I had a nice day out in the 'world' today, looking at rocks and plants and visiting her Grandma up the road. I have been working a bit more on knitting Esme's blue sweater and thinking more about weaving again.



I am down to one sleeve to finish making, sew the sleeves on, then to make the extra ribbing around the bottom and the cuffs. I have already done the collar and buttonbands. I think it is coming alnog nicely and the part that is done fits her well on the try-on.



This can be a loom. I know it can. I rescued it from a pile of display items set to be thrown away - it used to hold sprinkler wands for garden spraying. I know there is some way for it to hold a very long warp wound up. That is why I have not woven anything in a while - I have graduated from 'placemat' size to not wanting to start anything that doesn't have the potentiality to be larger than 18 inches by 3 feet long. This may be another project that will come up soon - or it may have to wait until after our planting is done.

I am oogling the kilims at marla mallett's site with awe. There is even one there called 'Esme' on the small kilims page... how odd! Sometimes I think my heritage must have a bit of nomad in it - but the Native American heritage I do know about is actually more agrarian ;). My grandmother was born on the Turtle Mountain reservation in the 1920s (only to be shipped to an orphanage in Blue Earth Owatanna, where all other family records except the actual birth certificate were lost or are 'unavailable'). Her father's surname 'Lipe' was told to me to be Russian, but I think I have found it in Ellis Island research as German (not him, just others sharing the name). That is about as far as I get into genealogy... bits and pieces, here and there. My grandfather (her husband)'s family actually has a very long record going back very far in England and Germany. Someone in our family has a very thick heavy book about it. In any regard - weaving strikes a tone with something in me, whether it be genetic or simply a found kindred relationship with the yarn itself ;)

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