A round up of the past few days.

At the moment it’s Saturday afternoon. I’m sitting in a sunbeam by the kitchen slider, with my knitting in front of me. Fraize is off wandering the house, and I’m considering running up to my office and playing with yarn and the loom.

It’s been a busy couple of days. I haven’t done much to document it, so this will be a bit of a meandering recap.

My Thursday morning Twitch stream went well. Among other things, we discussed weaving, and one of my viewers shared pictures of a vertical warp weighted loom she built. The woven fabric winds at the top of the loom, and it’s a fantastic way to weave longer length projects vs. how I tried it with my frame loom. It can also be a cheaper entry into the weaving world than purchasing any of the table top or rigid heddle looms that cost a couple of hundred dollars new.

After my stream, I continued knitting rainbow cloths to list in my Etsy shop, while watching several videos in the Essential Weaving course I signed up for at the School of SweetGeorgia. Lots of note taking, learning new things, and getting better acquainted with my rigid heddle loom. (I’m not affiliated with SOS; I just happen to like Felicia Lo’s content and teaching style. You can check out her YouTube channel and blog.)

Permanent sewing table, complete with BongoCat machine cover.

Thursday afternoon I set up a permanent sewing table in my office, which meant swapping out a decorative cabinet I really liked having in that space, and replacing it with an IKEA desk my dad gifted me when they were moving. I consider creating my sewing space a “make” in terms of the Year of Making — making space for furniture is as much a creative task as anything else. While I’ll miss the other cabinet, having a surface where my sewing machine lives, and not having to haul it out or put it away after each task, is going to be a time saver. And I can easily move from the loom table to the sewing table.

Weaving table, with the corner of the sewing table to the left.

This room is starting to feel cramped, so I’ll be looking at how to rearrange the storage and maybe space tables and desks more to provide some better flow. I have been struggling with how to redesign this space on the cheap, and regularly waffle between wanting to mount cabinets, or pay someone to build out a closet against the one of the walls to keep the room looking less cluttered, or build something like an IKEA PAX wardrobe system to contain all the yarn, fabric and crafting supplies. On my to-do list is to pick one and do it.

Friday morning I packaged some items to ship out, and continued setting up a charging station on a newly assembled shelf unit beneath the new sewing table. So many gadgets between tablets and gizmos that need power, and it’s difficult to find a place to house them all.

Power cords: You can’t see me.

^ They are hidden behind that white project board for now, until I get all the cables managed.

Friday afternoon I completed the Essential Weaving course, and I signed up for Rigid Heddle Weaving Basics. I’m also going to go month to month with my SweetGeorgia membership for now. I know there are a few weaving courses I want to complete. If I realize I also want to dabble in some of the knitting courses, I might consider transferring to a quarterly or annual membership.

And now it’s Saturday – the one day of the week I can goof off and chill. So far I’ve played about 20 minutes of FarSky on Steam — it’s an underwater survival video game that’s no longer available to buy. I play this more often than anything, because I can fire up an instance, play for 30 minutes, and delete the save. Really pretty visuals, too. I’m sad that it never grew bigger (even though the developers never had a plan to make it more than it was).

Fraize and I had Five Guys for lunch, and I watched my friend Freckled Fiber stream on Twitch from the kitchen table, while I ate, and then knit. Somewhere in my Saturday, I received my first Etsy order of the year, and some kind words on a previous order.

My weekend plans are a little looser. I need to dig out the beeswax polish for the 10 and 12.5 dent heddles I ordered for my loom (the heddles, and the shuttles I ordered, all come as unfinished wood). And I have some tax prep to complete related to my home based business – the less fun part of owning a business.

But for now, I think I’m going to reheat some coffee and find a cookie. 🙂

Happy Saturday,
-H