Tuesday, March 7, 2017

My Year Of Therapy Has Arrived.......................

It is a year of knitting techniques from Arnall-Culliford Knitwear
This will be a great adventure through 2017 and I'm looking forward
to what we will knit along the way.

I opened the bag and pulled out all these goodies!
I think I got a good bang for my buck!
lovely yarns

luxury yarns, like baby alpaca and silk!

wonderful sock yarns!
For March, our first assignment is Helical Stripes!
Here we go......... using the Zauberball--we are off
and knitting!! 

Monday, March 6, 2017

UFOs Bite The Dust!!

I always have a good day when I can say I accomplished something in the studio--
finished!  UFO!  Out of the bin into the world it comes!

I've had this one waiting in the wings for awhile--this was to
be made for the WOW weavers basket for CHT
June conference--my contribution--
I like making these hot pads.   I use indigo dyed woven fabric
for both the lining and the main.  These are some yarns that
I dyed and wove several months ago--and sometimes I hate to cut it up--
but I'll weave more--some day!  And this will go for a good
cause.  I also used my indigo dyed fabric for the bias tape trim.
One down!!


The other pattern that has been sitting around for awhile
is this!  I have made several of these--kept two and gave
many away for gifts.  I found this kit in the bottom of 
the UFO bin--so, it must be sewn
This is also using my handwoven indigo dyed yarns for
the outside and indigo dyed cotton cloth for the lining

Perfect blocks for this!

Great for storage of scissors, thread, pins, etc.
It is also a catch all for any loose threads

So excited! To finish another UFO!


Oh, then there is this kit!  Holy Smokes--I have
no idea how old it is--but, I had done all the
stitching on the wool front and back

This is the back

This is the front

Here are the handles--the whole kit was complete except for
assembling--why do I procrastinate with something that is
al------most finished!!
Okay, finally the handles are attached to the front

and the back!  And I have a great carrying bag for my sewing
supplies--another UFO bites the Dust!!
wonder what else is just waiting for a few
simple stitches to be finished??


Sunday, March 5, 2017

Weaver's Delight!

We are photo laden today!  And that's a good thing!
Our March WOW (Way Out West) Weavers met at a local library
to share their past adventures and weaving tidbits.

It's is so difficult to show off this lovely table square--
and it is square!  Since we are responsible to fill a basket
of goodies for the June CHT conference--our group chose
a kitchen theme.  This was woven by Marion C--

It is Spot Bronson weave structure--she felt that since we
are a weaving group, our basket should include wovens, hence
this lovely piece!  

It is woven with 8/2 cotton, sett at 24 epi

She even fringed all sizes and hem stitched to
add a polished note to the piece.
Wish I could win this basket!

Our other Marian C also decided to add something woven to
the basket--a linen table runner!

She finished it off using a Finnish technique to
soften the linen--she found the article in older 
Handwoven magazine--it's also good to keep those
old magazines around--never know when you'll find
something that will add to your knowledge

Such a nice finish on the hem--just too
marvelous for words!

Three of the gals took a recent workshop with Sarah H Jackson
She presented her Color Confidence workshop
Color is one of the most exciting components of weaving, and… learning to use colors confidently can be challenging. Mixing yarn colors doesn't work like mixing colors with paint, and even experienced professionals with in-depth color knowledge are often surprised by color effects in woven cloth. In these workshops, participants will explore fresh ideas for developing color studies, learn how various weave structures impact color interaction, and understand how to effectively translate color combinations into woven cloth.

There was some wrapping of yarns to see how design in
color works

Then the samples came out on the table.
This one, according to the weaver, was not
successful--she didn't like the way the 'tracking'
showed up in the structure.

I liked it!  Simple plain weave--and you get this pattern
just from warp and weft

Each weaver chose a colored warp from ones
that Sarah had pre-wound.  I'll take any warp
that is already pre-wound!!

Then the warp was crossed with various treadlings--


Here is another weaver's warp--8/2 cotton
sett at 18 epi

A glance at plain weave structure with
different warp colors


There are many elements to this runner to be liked

And this one--you can see the difference that color
makes

Oh yeah!!


This was an interesting workshop for those who enjoy color

To top off the meeting, Marian C, pulled out this
exquisite weaving she is doing for Complex Weavers,
fine threads group!  Oh, WOW!
She used four colors in this runner--can 
you see the color differences?  Neither could she

Her selvedges are perfect and there you can
see two of the colors

Alas, this lovely runner will be cut into sections
to share with the other members of the fine threads
study group.  We can't wait to see what others wove for
this challenge--and our Marian said she was not 
happy with this!  Can you believe?

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Knitventure Society

 Here is an opportunity to improve your knitting skills.  All next week you can enter the skill studio and see daily demonstrations on knitting this fabulous Celtic Cables Cowl, designed by Lucy Hague.



This monthly learning skills study is presented by igKNITion.  The pattern is located on Knitty.com.
But, by signing up to igKNITion you can learn these skills in the week of March 6-10 and
knit along on Niennir the month of March.

March 6: Provisional Cast Ons
March 7: Celtic Cable Increases & Decreases
March 8:  Creating Cables: 2 & 3 Stitch Cables
March 9: Creating Cables: 4 & 5 Stitch Cables
March 10: Grafting In Pattern

I have downloaded the Niennir pattern and am ready to learn a new/different technique to add to
my knitting basket. 

Friday, March 3, 2017

Black and White!


I'm working each month of couple of quilting blocks of the month.
This one is strictly black and white--as that was my 2016 birthday
fat quarter request from my expatcher group.

It's amazing how many black on white prints there are 
available.  This is the Winter Solstice project designed by
Pat Sloan.

182 days to create a quilt with 25 blocks--set is interesting
and totally unique!
I just had to throw in some red for this block!

square at 36"--you could make a baby quilt from this pattern--
use up lots of scraps too!  


Thursday, March 2, 2017

Texas Independence Day!

The Texas Declaration of Independence was produced, literally, overnight. Its urgency was paramount, because while it was being prepared, the Alamo in San Antonio was under siege by Santa Anna's army of Mexico.
Immediately upon the assemblage of the Convention of 1836 on March 1, a committee of five of its delegates were appointed to draft the document. The committee, consisting of George C. Childress, Edward Conrad, James Gaines, Bailey Hardeman, and Collin McKinney, prepared the declaration in record time. It was briefly reviewed, then adopted by the delegates of the convention the following day.
As seen from the transcription below, the document parallels somewhat that of the United States, signed almost sixty years earlier. It contains statements on the function and responsibility of government, followed by a list of grievances. Finally, it concludes by declaring Texas a free and independent republic.
The full text of the document is as follows:


The Unanimous
Declaration of Independence
made by the
Delegates of the People of Texas
in General Convention
at the town of Washington
on the 2nd day of March 1836.
When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression.
When the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted federative republic, composed of sovereign states, to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every interest is disregarded but that of the army and the priesthood, both the eternal enemies of civil liberty, the everready minions of power, and the usual instruments of tyrants.
When, long after the spirit of the constitution has departed, moderation is at length so far lost by those in power, that even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the forms themselves of the constitution discontinued, and so far from their petitions and remonstrances being regarded, the agents who bear them are thrown into dungeons, and mercenary armies sent forth to force a new government upon them at the point of the bayonet.

Official State Flag of Texas

The Texas state flag is the 1839 National flag of the Republic of Texas, which features the famous Lone Star (also seen on the Texas state seal and the U.S. mint's commemorative quarter for Texas). The red, white, and blue of the state flag of Texas represent bravery, purity and loyalty. 

When, in consequence of such acts of malfeasance and abdication on the part of the government, anarchy prevails, and civil society is dissolved into its original elements. In such a crisis, the first law of nature, the right of self-preservation, the inherent and inalienable rights of the people to appeal to first principles, and take their political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases, enjoins it as a right towards themselves, and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such government, and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their future welfare and happiness.
Nations, as well as individuals, are amenable for their acts to the public opinion of mankind. A statement of a part of our grievances is therefore submitted to an impartial world, in justification of the hazardous but unavoidable step now taken, of severing our political connection with the Mexican people, and assuming an independent attitude among the nations of the earth.
The Mexican government, by its colonization laws, invited and induced the Anglo-American population of Texas to colonize its wilderness under the pledged faith of a written constitution, that they should continue to enjoy that constitutional liberty and republican government to which they had been habituated in the land of their birth, the United States of America.
In this expectation they have been cruelly disappointed, inasmuch as the Mexican nation has acquiesced in the late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers us the cruel alternative, either to abandon our homes, acquired by so many privations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the combined despotism of the sword and the priesthood.
It has sacrificed our welfare to the state of Coahuila, by which our interests have been continually depressed through a jealous and partial course of legislation, carried on at a far distant seat of government, by a hostile majority, in an unknown tongue, and this too, notwithstanding we have petitioned in the humblest terms for the establishment of a separate state government, and have, in accordance with the provisions of the national constitution, presented to the general Congress a republican constitution, which was, without just cause, contemptuously rejected.
It incarcerated in a dungeon, for a long time, one of our citizens, for no other cause but a zealous endeavor to procure the acceptance of our constitution, and the establishment of a state government.
It has failed and refused to secure, on a firm basis, the right of trial by jury, that palladium of civil liberty, and only safe guarantee for the life, liberty, and property of the citizen.
It has failed to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources, (the public domain,) and although it is an axiom in political science, that unless a people are educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity for self government.
It has suffered the military commandants, stationed among us, to exercise arbitrary acts of oppression and tyrrany, thus trampling upon the most sacred rights of the citizens, and rendering the military superior to the civil power.
It has dissolved, by force of arms, the state Congress of Coahuila and Texas, and obliged our representatives to fly for their lives from the seat of government, thus depriving us of the fundamental political right of representation.
It has demanded the surrender of a number of our citizens, and ordered military detachments to seize and carry them into the Interior for trial, in contempt of the civil authorities, and in defiance of the laws and the constitution.
It has made piratical attacks upon our commerce, by commissioning foreign desperadoes, and authorizing them to seize our vessels, and convey the property of our citizens to far distant ports for confiscation.
It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience, by the support of a national religion, calculated to promote the temporal interest of its human functionaries, rather than the glory of the true and living God.
It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defence, the rightful property of freemen, and formidable only to tyrannical governments.
It has invaded our country both by sea and by land, with intent to lay waste our territory, and drive us from our homes; and has now a large mercenary army advancing, to carry on against us a war of extermination.
It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the tomahawk and scalping knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our defenseless frontiers.
It hath been, during the whole time of our connection with it, the contemptible sport and victim of successive military revolutions, and hath continually exhibited every characteristic of a weak, corrupt, and tyrranical government.
These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, untill they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. We then took up arms in defence of the national constitution. We appealed to our Mexican brethren for assistance. Our appeal has been made in vain. Though months have elapsed, no sympathetic response has yet been heard from the Interior. We are, therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican people have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therfor of a military government; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of self government.
The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal political separation.
We, therefore, the delegates with plenary powers of the people of Texas, in solemn convention assembled, appealing to a candid world for the necessities of our condition, do hereby resolve and declare, that our political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and that the people of Texas do now constitute a free, Sovereign, and independent republic, and are fully invested with all the rights and attributes which properly belong to independent nations; and, conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme arbiter of the destinies of nations.

Signers of the Texas Decl. of Ind.
Richard Ellis, President
of the Convention and Delegate
from Red River.
Charles B. Stewart
Tho. Barnett



John S. D. Byrom
Francis Ruis
J. Antonio Navarro
Jesse B. Badgett
Wm D. Lacy
William Menifee
Jn. Fisher
Matthew Caldwell
William Motley
Lorenzo de Zavala
Stephen H. Everett
George W. Smyth
Elijah Stapp
Claiborne West
Wm. B. Scates
M. B. Menard
A. B. Hardin
J. W. Burton
Thos. J. Gazley
R. M. Coleman
Sterling C. Robertson
James Collinsworth
Edwin Waller
Asa Brigham


Geo. C. Childress
Bailey Hardeman
Rob. Potter
Thomas Jefferson Rusk
Chas. S. Taylor
John S. Roberts
Robert Hamilton
Collin McKinney
Albert H. Latimer
James Power
Sam Houston
David Thomas
Edwd. Conrad
Martin Parmer
Edwin O. Legrand
Stephen W. Blount
Jms. Gaines
Wm. Clark, Jr.
Sydney O. Pennington
Wm. Carrol Crawford
Jno. Turner


Benj. Briggs Goodrich
G. W. Barnett
James G. Swisher
Jesse Grimes
S. Rhoads Fisher
John W. Moore
John W. Bower
Saml. A. Maverick (from Bejar)
Sam P. Carson
A. Briscoe
J. B. Woods
H. S. Kimble, Secretary



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Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Lent--Time To Reflect



MILLIONS of people all over the world are going take part in Lent and are choosing things to give up for 40 days. But there is a lot more to the religious celebration that ditching chocolate or bad habits before Easter – so what exactly is Lent?  Lent is a season of the Christian Year where Christians focus on simple living, prayer, and fasting in order to grow closer to God.

What is Lent?

The Lent fast is a Christian tradition, but many non-believers also take part.  On Ash Wednesday, people over the globe give up certain foods or habits to improve their health or demonstrate self-restraint. It lasts for 40 days until Easter, but this is without Sundays being included in the amount (if there were counted it would be 46 days).

Why is Lent for 40 days and what is its meaning?

The Lent period reflects when Jesus fasted and suffered in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, before he started his ministry. According to the Bible, he was tempted by Satan during this time, but each time he managed to refuse his temptations.
People follow Jesus’ example and give up vices in a bid to grow closer to God as Easter approaches.
Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day occurs the day before Lent begins, symbolising when Christians would eat up foods such as milk and eggs before fasting.

Where does the tradition of fasting come from?

Lent and fasting go hand in hand for many in the Christian church. Many followers abstain from certain food or temptations, following Jesus’ 40-day fast in the desert in preparation for his public ministry.
Fasting has been practiced for centuries within a number of religions and culture, and is featured within Jewish culture in the Old Testament. For example, Queen Esther asks the Jewish nation to come together in prayer and fasting, and Christians often combine the two practices nowadays.

Road trip continues

 Crossing over into Tennessee, we are now on interstate highways: lots of 18 wheelers, less green nice scenery, some dogwood trees and redbu...