Now What am I Going to Do With You?

Thank-you all for the help with my rainbow scarf. I'm happy to announce it's long since finished, but sits on the desk in my kitchen mocking me for it's lack of finishing. I still need to do the fringe, wash and press it. Soon though.
Yesterday I pulled out some fiber I've had sitting since SAFF last year. An absolutely beautiful Merino/Seacell braid dyed by the amazingly talented Urban GypZ. Her use of colour to create wonderful depth and dimension in her fibers astounds me. Plus the fiber is always wonderful to spin, light, airy with zero need to do any sort of pre drafting. I know we all have favorites, based on colour and application, and Urban GypZ is easily one of mine.

Started out as this fiber:

 Top fiber named Morrel. Very badly photographed unfortunately. (The Bottom is Little Giraffe, which was also a wonderful spin) It's almost like an impressionist painting, lots of spots of colour combined to make one larger colour palette and overall experience.

Bit of a dark photo while spinning. Still a single at this point.

Finished 2 ply worsted weight yarn! My husband claimed the fiber the second I brought it home, and I'm glad I finally sat down to spin it up. It's hard to tell, but it's probably the nicest yarn I've ever spun. Nice and even, smooth (spun worsted) with a good ply. I couldn't wait and took pictures while it is still wet. Hubby was so protective of it when I brought it back inside he exclaimed "Did you bring my yarn outside?" Very cute. It's nice to know he likes it.
Now I have to figure out what to turn it in to! Hat perhaps? Gloves?
Any pattern suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Newbie Weaving Issues

Help!

I'm working on my second ever project. I have a book that helped with figuring out yardage and how to set up for a specific length/witdth item (In this case a scarf) and no issues warping the loom (yay!). Now I'm weaving along, but noticed that where ever the scarf winds along the front bar is warping my weave! It's getting spaces and waves, causing where I'm working to be out of whack and not straight across. I'm going  slow and trying to get a balanced basketweave, but then when it winds on it looks like it's all going to heck in a hand basket.

Here are some pictures. It's harder to see in these, but in person it's really obvious how wavy and warped it is.

Click the pictures to make them larger.
The yellow used to be as nice and straight across as the green above it... but now it's just... ugly.
What am I doing wrong/how do I stop this from happening? Is it something I should even worry about or will it settle down once it's off the loom? It seems most dramatic at the place where the knots are under the weaving, creating holes and large waves.

Thanks!

Edit to add more photos:

I decided to take it off the front beam and see if the weaving went back in place when it wasn't under tension... and it's actually even WORSE when it's off the bar.
This was a fairly balanced weave with just a tiny bit of warp showing through.. now it's ugly and wavy and full of holes and issues that started once it was wound on to the front bar.

 You can see where the yellow was wound on to the bar... and how the green wasn't.

How yuck is that? All the holes and warping. Ugh. I'm going to go to bed and try not to obsess, but this is pretty frustrating. Can I fix this, or do I have to start all over again? (Please say I don't have to start over, please?)

I've been using my fingers to try and fix the problem areas, and I added thick freezer paper when winding on the front. Seems to be doing the trick- is there anything else glaring I should be doing from here on that I haven't been?

The Glass is Always Half Full!

Still some great fibers left in the shop! The Tallulahs are gorgeous, (if you're on the fence) and there are more colours in Inlet then I could properly photograph. Plus it's not everyday you see hand painted Lincoln Longwool!
If you're looking for yarn, Life Aquatic is my favorite of the bunch (although it's like picking between children at times) with a great amount of yardage, and more blues and greens then my little point and click could capture.

Thanks for all the support so far everyone! I think I'm finally finding a flow at the gym. In the evenings I've been a lump, but I'm starting to lose the soreness and consider picking up a project. I have dreams of warping my loom with rainbow soon.
Anyone else getting in shape? A friend sent me this link and it made me stop whining about how slow the weight was coming off. Such a cool blog post eh?

Don't lose interest in my blog! I've had a run of bad computer luck lately but I have a new one coming on May 4th. Yay!

Pretties Left!

Plenty of pretties left, but also close to being able to put my shop on vacation mode for a bit while I work out like a fiend.
I got my new workout plan from the personal trainer at the gym today. It's less time at the gym, but much more intense when I'm there. Eep!

Anyways: Pretties! Help me clear out, pretty please? With the discount the falkland braids (2 of my favorites) are under $11! Nevermind most of the hand painted hand spun yarns being like $20.00. That is ridiculous. Seriously. Christmas pressies perhaps? Use code GNOMEBREAK

Etsy Dyeingforewe

Just so people don't think I'm going to turn in to a workout blog. I'm not. I may mention how things are going from time to time, but I'm still concentrating on knitting/spinning/dyeing/weaving, but less shop stuff. That'll be good though, promise. Less hawking of wares, more appreciation for the art!

Operation Gnomebreak

Operation GNOMEBREAK (that is the 30% off discount code btw) is going really well!
Check out my poor for sale roving tub:

Normally that is over flowing and I have more tubs with batts, yarn, undyed, addins etc. that also hold the dyed roving overflow. I love everything left, and it always surprises me when personal favorites are the last to go. You can get the Tallulah's for under $11 a piece, for falkland! The merino/silk blend of Teddy Bear Picnic is like.. um.. *math skills lacking* under $13.

The majority of the handspuns turn out under $20.00 with the 30% discount. That's an amazing price on handspun, especially hand painted.

So yeah. I'm done with my spiel. Help me spring clean!

Huge Discount Because I'm Taking a Wee Break From the Shop

Hi guys! 
You may have noticed that I haven’t had a large update in some time? I’ve been working really hard on getting healthy. It’s been something I’ve let slack these past few years, and I woke up one day and realised that I really had to do something about it. 
Now I’m going to the gym for minimum 2 hours a day, and I’m hoping to add in some classes and such as well.

With that said, I decided I’m going to take a wee break from my shop. I’m not closing, mind you, just finding a new equilibrium.

What about all my existing stock? Check the shop! Buy what you like and use the code: 
GNOMEBREAK 
to get 30% off your entire order when you checkout. Don’t forget that I also refund any shipping overages asap, and always ship within a day (some times the day of) mon-fri. Please please please take advantage of this and help me clear some items out!

I’ll still be blogging, knitting, spinning, weaving and dyeing. I just can’t spend as much time with it for the next while. 
I have some other things I may put up on destash as well. Namely a large raw mohair fleece (let me know if you’re interested, it’s lovely white, great for dyeing- but still dirty and with a moderate amount of VM) and some raw llama fleece as well. Bits and bobs of carding mats may show up as well. I’ll keep you all updated!

I've been so tired lately I don't have any new projects to show for myself- but I have my one day off a week from the gym tomorrow, so that may find me putting a new warp on the loom. *happy dance*

Note: I have zero clue why www.dyeingforewe.com isn't working. I'm trying to get to the bottom of it, promise! Never buy a domain when you know nothing about websites... trust me in this.

My Very First Weaving Project Completed!

I finished my weaving sampler! I must admit that it dragged on a bit, and then got pushed aside while I knit a bunch of socks. But I pulled it back out the other night and finished last night! Well, finished the warp, but I still have to figure out what I'm going to do with the ends. 

Specifics are vague. I just warped on a super long warp that ended up being just over 1 foot wide and I think it's nearly 8ft long! I used three different yarns. It's warped with a light fingering/lace weight red wool, weft with the red, a blue of the same yarn (I think it may be handspun? I received it as a gift from my Mum already in cakes) and then at the end I used up the last bit I had remaining of the fingering weight Chroma in the Prism colourway. This is all on a 15" Schacht Flip rigid heddle loom.

Keep in mind this is my first ever solo weaving project pretty please? I'm quite happy with it. (Although I have zero clue what to do with such an oddly shaped item) Tons of mistakes, but I like that I leaned from them and eventually got the edges and weave density (is that the right term for how hard I beat the weft?) worked out. I have no clue what to do with the ends yet lol. 

I'm hooked though! I don't know what to warp next, some thicker handspun or that ball of Chroma I have. I loved how it worked up at the end there. I'm also gratefully accepting any tips and criticism. I love to learn! I have a rigid heddle book waiting on me to give it a good read, but I wanted to have a handle on what was going on so I could understand what I was reading.

 I love the rainbow at the end!

 Here it is, I almost couldn't get it all in one photo.

 I was playing around with my pickup stick and figuring out what happened when I put it up and down. I ended up with the little stripe pattern there.

 Hard to see, but that is a really open weave there, almost netting- with my hand underneath.

 I was beating REALLY tight. It's pretty much solid weft for quite some time. Then I realised I needed to lighten up, which if I recall correctly was my problem when I was 16 as well.

 Tight tight, but I was figuring out how to change colours without gross spaces and such.

 Pickup stick section.

 You can see how I went from super tight (top solid blue) to looser beating so you can actually see the warp red coming though.

 More netting interspersed with too tight beating. The edges are getting better!

 Looser, yay! I was getting the hang of not beating the poop out of my weft.

 Tight red. That is super tight actually.

 Rainbow Chroma! I loved weaving with it. Using a fun yarn really makes things more enjoyable for sure.

 The end. What do I do with it now? How do I get the weft not to loosen like that?

 The beginning, look at that gross edge! Oh and the grey yarn just to start off. Um.. Do I pull that out now?

 Showing off my edges. Not too shabby!

 Edges on one side. (The better side.)

Bad edge. Booo. Go away bad edge.

So that's it! I'm hooked now, but I don't know how much yarn I need to do a handspun scarf, or the warping dimensions. So I'm going to read up on that (tips welcome) so I know what sort of yardage I need to have on hand to finish a good size scarf. Is 396 yards of fingering weight Chroma enough for a scarf perhaps? I'm thinking of using some cream palette for the warp.