"Chazen Museum of Art"

A few weeks ago, Don and I went to the Grand Opening of the 2nd building of the Chazen Museum of Art. You are able to see both buildings in this photo. The older/original building is on the left, which houses a large art collection, is now connected to the new building, via a bridge. The new space also houses a large art collection, easily doubling the gallery space.

A close up.....

Members of the University of Wisconsin band played some tunes to the pre-opening crowd........

The first photo of the main foyer......

Number 2 taken to the left of the first......

And the 3rd showing the gift shop area......

I took this of Don in an upstairs alcove. There are a number of nice areas similar to this one, as you'll see, throughout the new building. This one faces the courtyard and the original building of the Chazen.

This one faces University Avenue.

This is light from the window in the last photo......

In the 1st photo, you saw the bridge connecting the 2 buildings.....this is the opposite side of the bridge....total windows. The view stretches all the way to Lake Mendota and beyond. Union Terrace is to the left where the land meets water.......

The new building is truly beautiful and yet another asset to Madison.

"Griffin's 1st Birthday!"

Neighbor's, Lonny and Charlie, hosted a 1st Birthday party for their son, Griffin. It seems unbelievable that Griffin is a year old already, but time does march on.

Charlie, as "Dorothy" from the Wizard of Oz, and Lonny, our own Indiana Jones, greeted party guests as they arrived.

The guests included Baby Ducks.....

Little Cows......

Little Puppies, with their Big Dog Daddies and Mommy Witches.....

Little Red Riding Hood.....

Little Witches and undressed Ice Cream Cones......

Tiny Lady Bugs and Princesses, with Cowgirl Mom......

Monkey's.......

And Griffin, the Birthday Boy......a Lion.....Grrrrrrr (his words, not mine!) ;)

As you can imagine, getting "most" of the kids together for a group photo was quite the chore. It truly was a fleeting moment.......

Some little ones came as themselves and politely sat and watched the festivities.

Lonny baked Griffin's Birthday Cake.....very cute, eh?

Mom Charlie and Dad Lonny help Griffin with blowing out the candles on his little "Number One" cake.

They even got to sit down and quietly eat their cake and ice cream, too.

Griffin had a very nice birthday party and everyone had a great time. The weather cooperated, although a little cool, but otherwise, it was bright and sunny. A truly memorable birthday for Griffin (especially with all the photos taken!).

"2nd Woven Sock Yarn Scarf......"

As I mentioned yesterday, I measured out this warp, dressed the table loom, and wove this scarf all in one day.......although, twisting the fringe took place following morning. :)

Here is the warp ready to be threaded. I had hand dyed this skein a while back and just hadn't used it. I guess it was fate that I'd held onto it and not cranked a pair of socks using it, eh?

My first look at how it was going to weave up......

A GIANT time lapse from the beginning to the finished (although untwisted fringes yet) scarf. I'm pleased with the "feel" of the scarf after using the Merino, alpaca, nylon blend yarn. Unfortunately, this blend of yarn is no longer available, but I did place an order yesterday for some other yarns to try that had a higher percentage of Merino, with nylon added for strength. Merino is one of the softest wools on the market, so I'm pretty sure it will work well.

I warped the loom once again with another skein of the same Merino, alpaca, nylon blend yarn and will begin weaving today. It too, is hand dyed and I "think" will look somewhat "Heathery" when woven. I guess I'll know soon, eh? ;)

"My 1st Sock Yarn Scarf......."

As I mentioned yesterday, I did "customize" the loom in several ways to make things easier for myself. I used Texsolv cord instead of the strings provided by Ashford, to secure the cloth rod to the cloth beam. I also used a similar arrangement on the warp beam, threading Texsolv cord through the warp beam, but keeping the warp rod accessible and free. I did replace the warp rod, which is fairly thin (it matches what is shown here in the photo), with a cut down broom handle. It's not pretty, but I think it works better, as it is stronger with no give/bending. I might buy steel rods (Home Depot will cut them to size for me) to replace the broom handle and front cloth rod........we'll see. ;)

I was VERY pleased to see that the loom stand could serve another function to make measuring warp easier. It is the perfect height for clamping the warping rack onto it, which allows me to measure warp without having to reach up too high or down too low. :)

The sock yarn I used for my 1st sock yarn scarf, is what I use for cranking pairs of socks on my circular sock machine. It is 75% wool and 25% polymide. This was more of an experiment to see if 1 skein of sock yarn was sufficient to weave an entire scarf. I can happily report that it is quite sufficient. ;) Unfortunately, I was not happy with the "feel" of this particular sock yarn after it was woven. It is "OK", but not as soft as I would like for wearing around ones neck. Further experimentation was called for......and I'm happy to report, I believe I have found a sock yarn that fits the bill for me. It is Knit Picks "Bare" sock yarn, which is 50% Superwash Merino Wool, 25% Superfine Alpaca, 25% Nylon. I had a hand dyed skein on hand, which I experimented with yesterday. I will post about it tomorrow. **(It seems, this particular blend of sock yarn is no longer available, but similar blends of Merino with Silk or Nylon are. Hopefully, they will give the preferred "feel" when woven. I'll try some and report back.)

In this photo, I am spreading the warp along the warp beam. This is prior to my customizing the rods and beams with longer Texsolv cords.

Here I am using a permanent marker on the Texsolv heddles. Each shaft has a different color of marker, helping make it easier to follow a pattern when threading.

The loom came with 480 heddles, so I decided to concentrate on the front 4, allowing each shaft to have 80 heddles, and the back 4 shafts given 40. Eventually, I will be purchasing more to "fill out" each shaft.

The sock yarn threaded through heddles and reed, tied to the front rod, and ready for me to begin weaving.

This is what the warp looked like after being tied up and under tension.

I'd not used the "hem stitch" until I began weaving scarves. It is used after 3 "picks" or rows of weaving at the beginning of a scarf, and also used at the end of the scarf to help bind the warp threads together in groups. I like how it works very much. I'm sure I am missing many little tricks of the trade by not having attended/taken many workshops. One is never too old to learn, eh? ;) In this photo, I'm following a tutorial video of "Laura Fry's Hem Stitching", on You Tube, using Don's iPad. Technology is wonderful!

I was very pleased with how the pattern developed when the hand dyed yarn was woven. It reminds me of wet pavement reflecting a multitude of white lights.

After taking the scarf off the loom, the next step in finishing it was to twist the fringe. This photo shows "my set up", which works for me. I'm sure others have their own way of doing this.

One end of the scarf completed.

Don modeling the finished scarf. I'm pleased with how the scarf turned out, but will keep this one for myself, as I would prefer giving a softer scarf as gifts.

Customized set up using Texsolv cord on the warp beam and rod as I begin scarf #2, using Knit Picks Merino, Alpaca, and Nylon sock yarn. I also made myself a little 2 board platform to lie behind the shafts to make it easier for me to "dress" the loom. I don't like to deal with the lease sticks sagging, etc. when I am threading warp. A quirk of mine. These boards are removed prior to weaving.......

I started AND finished (except for twisting the fringe) scarf #2 yesterday. Don has a computer class on Tuesdays, leaving the house around 6 AM and not getting home until after 9:30 at night. Without having to think about making any dinner for the 2 of us, I spent the morning, afternoon, and evening working on the table loom, taking the completed scarf off the loom around 8 PM. It was a very pleasant and productive day. ;) More on that tomorrow......

"My Ashford 24" Table Loom!!!!"

I'd ordered my new 24", 8 shaft, Ashford Table loom, with Stand, from Susan's Fiber Shop, in Columbus, WI, and it arrived late Thursday afternoon!!! I immediately began my adventure into assembling them by opening and unpacking the stand first. Don, of course, caught this happy moment. It was very well packed and everything that was supposed to be in the box, WAS in the box. ;)

The direction booklet was VERY well illustrated. The stand includes a 4 treadle kit, but I chose not to use those parts, not wanting to have it work with anything but the top levers. The treadles may work for a shorter person, but for someone my height, they would not be conducive to a comfortable weaving experience.

Here is the box unpacked with parts laid out for assembly.

In very little time, due to excellently illustrated directions, the stand was assembled. I later reversed the 2 side shelves so that the closed end was in the back. It was easily done after assembly by removing 2 screws, reversing the shelf, then replacing the screws once again. It was done in a matter of minutes.

Then began the unpacking of the loom itself.

Once again, everything needed was neatly packed and in the box. Here are all of the parts prior to assembly.

The main frame is easily assembled (great illustrations!). Hints, such as using candle wax on each screw prior to insertion, made the job easier, too.

The castle pieces assembled.....

Frame and castle assembled........

The "in-between step" not photographed, was the assembly of the 8 shafts. It, too, was an easy job. 16 screws were inserted into the 16 tops of the wooden end pieces, Texsolv heddles were slid onto top and bottom shaft rods, which were then inserted into the wooden end pieces, screw side up. ;) The small screws are what were soon to attach the Texsolv cord around, after being threaded through the upper castle, and attached to the front levers by threading the cord through the castle front. After the Texsolv cords were all attached, then it was a simple process of adjusting the height of each shaft, using the holes in the Texsolv cordage.

Lastly, the hanging beater was attached and the loom was completely assembled. Admittedly, I did make a few changes on the front and back cloth rods/beams. I didn't want to use the string provided, so instead, I used some extra Texsolv cord that I had previously bought, to attach the cloth rods to the cloth beams. I made further alterations with those, after weaving a scarf, which I think will make it work better for me. I'll show what I did in tomorrows post.

I also wanted to show a photo of just how nicely the loom and stand fold up for storage. The loom is supposed to fold this nicely with a weaving project on it, too. Due to the size and amount of various fiber equipment in my fiber room, I will definitely have an opinion on that soon. ;)

Tomorrow: My first sock yarn scarf.