Weaving with Noro

I've written in the past about how I am a little leery of Noro yarn.  When I first saw it, I didn't really understand the fascination.  I decided I should knit with it before drawing any conclusions and started these socks:

I began to understand the wonder of Noro yarn, but still wasn't ready to fill my stash wall with it.

When looking for ideas for weaving projects online, many of my favorites happened to be made with Noro yarn.  With as quick as weaving projects go, I figured I could try it out in a woven garment.  Despite being advised against it, I decided to warp my loom with Noro Sekku, a lace weight yarn.

Warping the loom was amazing.  Colors started unfolding before my eyes, I never knew what to expect next. 

I started weaving- it clicked.  I finally understood the beauty of Noro yarn.

Warp and Weft: Noro Sekku in Red, Green, Purple

Done on my Schacht Cricket Rigid Heddle Loom

Life and Other Fibery Things

 As I mentioned last week, life has changed a bit since I was last blogging.  What was once a sweet little baby who would sit nicely and watch us go about our business:

Has become a little ball of energy who never stops moving (or putting things in her mouth!):

                   

                   

Life is always exciting with a little one around.  She keeps us more than busy, but I have been finding time for some knitting lately.  When I went on my little knitting strike a few months ago,  I didn't go totally without fiber.  For Mother's Day,  Elise gifted me a Cricket Loom and I was quickly wrapped up in all things weaving.  In fact, in the first week I received the gift, I learned to warp my loom and completed 3 scarves.  

I will now share some pictures from my first two projects... just remember that it's a learning process!

My first project was a plaid scarf from yarn leftovers.  I believe there was some bamboo silk and also some cotton.  I know... weird fiber combination. Learning lessons with every project!

As you can see in this close-up pictures, I am still learning about tension of weaving- those edges are a far cry from perfect.

Next up was a simple scarf with variegated wool.  Since I'm not one to typically use variegated yarn, I went shopping specifically for some multi-colored fiber to work with.  My warp was Stonehedge Fiber Mill's Shepherd's Wool and my weft was the variegated wool I went shopping for that I can't recall the name of.

I do love the look of a woven garment, but I have decided that I will use my multi-colored picks for the warp from now on.

Ok, so these were my learning projects.  My next project looks a little crazier than I would normally pick out, but I'm excited to share it with you... tomorrow :-)

Elise's Nursery

Ok... after some late-night internet searching I was able to 'fix' my posting situation.  I've been excited for the nursery reveal, and I'm glad I will get to share it after all.

But first, go take a look at the inspiration room over at Me and Wee.  You'll quickly see that my creative juices were not actually flowing, I just did a decent job copying :-)

I used a few leftover from my baby shower as decorations (you can spot the ABC poster and pinwheels above).  Both framed pieces on the bookshelf are from my good friend Kelly.  You can find the name collage in her Etsy shop.

And of course there is the chair.  The dreaded project that halted this whole project.  I wish I would've focused a little sooner- we've had some good times cuddling since the chair has made it upstairs (not that Elise is a cuddler- she's always on the go...not sure where she gets that from!).  

I love hoe Elise's Clara dress fit perfectly in with the room decor.  Her little friend agrees, but also thinks there should be more hand knits in the room.  We'll see what we can do about that.

My sister got me these prints on Etsy.  Wish I could tell you where from... (Amanda, do you remember?)

And finally one of the reasons I fell in love with our house- the window seats.  Truth be told (and you can probably tell), I still need to cover the cushion properly.   For the picture, we did a little fabric wrap magic.  Who am I kidding, it will probably stay like this for some time. Oh well.

I'm a little torn as to what to do on these walls.  I do have many pictures that are waiting to be framed, but would it be too much to add to the space?  What do you think?

Help!!

Any tech-savvy readers out there? I have a bit of a problem with my blog posting and figured this may be the best way to find help. A few months ago, when I would post on my blog, it looked something like this:


















Now it looks like this and is extremely more difficult to use:






















Basically every post involves copying and pasting code every time I want to put a picture in, because it only pastes pictures to the top. Anyone have any idea why this happened and how I would go about getting it back to what it was? Thanks!

Nursery Chair Reupholstery

As promised, a little catch up. Although knitting fell by the wayside for a few months, crafting wasn't totally forgotten. Sometime in early July, I was consumed with a chair redo. Somehow, I managed to change this:

To this:


And finally to this:



I searched for months for the perfect chair for Elise's nursery. After many hours of looking, I finally settled on a custom chair and was all ready to order. When placing my order, we discoverd that the fabric I wanted had been discontinued. Discouraged by the mere thought of all the hours wasted, I decided I would do it myself.

Big. mistake.

It's not that I don't like how it turned out- it's more the fact that my daughter was seven months old before her room was really put together. Interested in how it looks in place? Stay tuned!