My Little Lillstina

Lillstina Counter-balance Loom - Sweden

Well, not so 'my' is my Lillstina! It belongs to my friend, Maria, who lives in Reykjavik, Iceland. Since she couldn't move it with her, due to lack of space, I'm the current foster parent. I'm saving up for when the day comes and I have to purchase my own. Eek!

And not so little is 'my' Lillstina! It measures a wide 46" across! The widest piece I have ever woven on the loom so far has been my rug, at 24".

A few of you have asked about pictures of my loom, which is something that I never thought of, and I don't know why. I'll take more at a later date, once the studio has been cleaned up. I'm trying to decide on a shelving unit and paint colors.

And that horrible green scarf. Ugh - since you can see the warp on these pictures I think it fitting to show you the disaster. The colors were just awful together and my beating wasn't right on.

I played a bit with another color yarn, treadling for the Earl's Canvas - getting ready to weave my scarf. Back to the loom to tie on the new warp...

The Dye & Fiber Garden

  Japanese Indigo Growing In The Garden

Of the 72+ indigo seeds I planted this spring, I got a whopping 17 plants that actually grew. Something tells me this isn't nearly enough to do anything with, but I'll tend to them anyway and see what happens. Maybe I can dye a finger or two.

What happened? I was not paying attention is what happened. I thought I was purchasing one packet of fresh seeds. When the box arrived, I was wondering why it was so large - I mean I thought I had ordered a small packet of seeds. But when I opened up the box - there was one lonely indigo plant. Ugh. I went back to the supplier's website and sure enough - it was one plant that I had ordered. They didn't even have seeds for this year. So where did I get my seeds from? From the same supplier, but it was the previous year. From what I understand, Indigo seeds (Japanese Indigo seeds at least), must be fresh in order for them to germinate. I found out the hard way.

The cotton is growing nicely - one plant is huge, one plant is medium, one plant is small and one plant is dead - LOL

Cotton Flower Bud Forming

They are certainly getting enough heat and sun. I recently had a tree removed from the other side of the fence because it had been so badly damaged from the monster snow storms we had this past winter. Now the garden gets so much light. The plants love it. I just noticed the other day that the large cotton plant has flower buds forming.

I'm growing the four three cotton plants just for fun, and to see how they fare in this part of the country.

Acid Green Disaster!!! :(

Ugh! What have I done? The scarf for Melissa was turning out horribly hideous so I stopped! Perhaps a picture or two in a later post.

I'm seeing her for dinner tonight and again tomorrow for a picnic lunch with the (former & present) gang from Icelandair.

I have recently joined an online study group for crackle weave and I will talk with her about a different design using this technique. I'll see what she thinks about getting rid of the royal blue and red and picking up orange and purple.

I do still have the one scarf for myself to complete, which is the same threading as what is on the loom now, so I'll bust that out and then get on with the crackle.

So, more on that, later...