Just before Easter I was fortunate enough to find a discounted loom for sale from the lovely Wingham Woolworks. I called about it and they shipped it to me really fast! I was very pleased! It’s a Kromski Harp, 16 inches wide with a 10 dent heddle. If that was all Greek to you, let me explain…

Kromski make all manner of crafty things, including spinning wheels and looms. One of the looms that they make is called the harp. It’s a folding rigid heddle loom. A rigid heddle is the bit which the threads go through. A 10 dent heddle is a heddle with 10 dents (or spaces) per inch (I think).

Anyway, it’s a lovely thing of beauty. I got some books to go with it, one of which contains some patterns for weaving bags. But first I had to do some practice.



I warped the loom (that means I strung on the long bits that go back to front and through the heddle) with some cotton which I have previously made baby jackets from. As it’s cotton it doesn’t stretch much and I’m told it’s a good fibre for a beginning weaver to use.
Then I used the same yarn for the weft (that’s the bits that go left to right, under and over the warp threads) and made a strip of fabric.

It’s great fun! And so fast! I’m working on a bag pattern from the book now. I have some other bits and pieces for the bag, ranging from cotton and fusible interfacing to lining fabric and buttons. Some of these are new (like the yarn) and some are from my stash (of fabric and buttons!)



Oh! I didn’t mention before, I also dabble in cross stitch! I’ve been working recently on a panel from the Quaker Tapestry known as “the co-operation donkeys”. I’m quite pleased with it (though the back isn’t very neat) and I hope to frame it.
(sorry, no pic yet!)

Over the long weekend we (me, hubby and the in-laws) did some gardening. We weeded a good portion of the garden out the back in order to plant some veggies. I’ve put two rows of potatoes in (one row of “early”s and one row of “main crop”). I’ve also built some wigwam structures for growing my peas up (they’ll also need something a bit thinner to grip, but this is good for now.)

I’ve got tomatoes, peppers, salad leaves and a chilli plant growing in the greenhouse,



and courgettes, butternut squash, peas, beans, chard and Brussels sprouts growing in trays on the windowsill



I’m also growing some decorative plants. We weeded a section in front of the wall and I’m going to plant some summer flowers out there. I’ve also planted some daisies in a propagator, and I plan to use those with some other decorative summer flowers to make a nice planter or two. It’s actually quite fun (well, not the weeding. Weeding is just hard. But the planting is fun!)

I’ve started knitting up that handspun from the last post. Keeping to my word, I’m making Argosy.



Sadly for hubby, this scarf is prettier than his (grey) slippers, so it’s getting all of my crafting time that isn’t weaving at the moment. On the up side I am almost finished with the scarf so it shouldn’t be long before I get back to the slippers. They were trucking along before I started the scarf, so I anticipate them taking only a short amount of time to complete.

Of course, all of these things can be entered into Nerd Wars for round three! I’m still waiting to get my official cube-melting badge for round two, but I am scored for 6/6 challenges! Brilliant! The scarf, slippers, woven bag – that’s three projects! Giving Geeks this time is about disasters, so I’m thinking about donating to MSF, but I’m unsure about that. Then I only need to think of one more new thing to make because the final challenge in round three is all about WIPs (works in progress) I reckon I’ll spin some more yarn and maybe finish knitting the baby jacket I’ve been designing.