The Ruthie
While scrolling through Instagram in January, a post popped up of a lovely tapestry loom which I have long admired.* The Crisp Ruthie loom is a high-warp tapestry loom which is no longer made and hasn’t been since perhaps the 1980s. I know a couple tapestry weavers who have one (Joan Griffin and Tommye Scanlin) and love them. So my scrolling stopped when I saw the Ruthie and when I read the post, thought, someone is going to be the lucky new owner of that loom! After reposting to my IG Stories, I had a shocking thought. What if I bought that loom? Certainly it is somewhere far away and who wants to ship something so heavy across the country… but I looked again anyway.
I realized that the loom was in Denver and that I knew the owner. Some unknown force possessed me, I took down the repost and soon the loom was mine. This week I drove down to pick it up. Sadly I don’t have room to put this loom back together in my current studio, but I have plans. I definitely have plans. This loom was owned by someone I know from a local guild who is moving. Her husband did a fantastic job refinishing the loom and I am itching to put it back together and give her a run for her money. The Ruthie has a counterbalance mechanism and a beater that actually works. I’m thrilled about the treadles and honestly, I’d better stop now or I’ll be taking apart some other loom to make room for her right now.
This is proof that this huge loom fits in a Subaru Crosstrek. There was definitely not room for a passenger however.
COVID has so curtailed my movement that twice now in the last two months when I went out to start my car, the battery was dead. Fortunately I now own a jump starter that reaches an outlet right in the garage and I feel quite smug about being able to jump it myself without having someone help me push it out next to another car (which might well also have a dead battery… ask me how we came by the jump starter). In fact, my left forearm and thumb are sore today and I couldn’t figure out what on earth would have caused that… it was the driving. Three hours on the freeway is more driving than I’ve done in 10 months and I was controlling the steering wheel with the thumb of my left hand. Can we call this a COVID injury? (Just kidding, it’ll be fine tomorrow.)
Knitting rules
I’ve used knitting as a way of keeping myself in one piece during COVID. Not that I was in danger of shattering, but this pandemic thing is stressful. I’m lucky that I already had a job that I did from home. Others definitely have much higher stress than I do. Nevertheless, knitting always helps.
I’ve been working on Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s Patreon Color-Stacking Cowl project and I have finally finished mine. I was thrilled with this project. Not only did it work out in the way Steph promised it would, but the knitting of it from videos instead of a printed pattern was a fun experience.**
Here is the cowl. I might have slipped two skeins of the yarn for it in my basket, so I’m thinking that a second one is coming soon now that I have it all figured out. Look! The colors stack up! This is knitted with one skein of yarn. A skein dyed in sections and a little math helps you figure out how to make the color changes line up so instead of getting a cowl that has random bits of color in each row, you get these lovely ikat-like vertical stripes.
Color Stack Cowl
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s Color Stack Cowl (on Patreon)
I was watching another recent video by Stephanie about Knitting Best Practices related to patterns. I’ll just leave you with this knitting gem. She was talking about how you think you are going to knit right through a project and of course you won’t forget what size you’re making.
“You’re a knitter. That means that every time, no matter what your intentions are, it means that every time you get up to go to the bathroom, you could be gone from that project for 7 years.”
Circle the size you’re making.
Also, in tapestry, I’ve taken to putting the yarn for one project together in a special bin and sometimes I even label the bin for what tapestry it goes with. Because I get distracted and then I can’t find the yarn I used. There is so much tapestry yarn in my house that there is no hope I’d ever find the same colors again to finish a tapestry if I let them walk away or get pulled into another project.
Also, I’m still knitting bunnies. Just keeping myself in one piece…
Pattern by Julie Williams, Little Cotton Rabbits.
Visiting the fire
I finally gathered my courage enough to walk into the burn area from the Cameron Peak Fire. I’m easing into this a little at a time. The fire crept close to a trailhead we were hiking from this week and so we hiked several extra miles to experience the edges.
The fire spotted a lot around Red Feather Lakes, CO and the area we could get to this day was full of these spot fires spread out over several miles. The trail had been used as a fire break so it was bulldozed to perhaps 15-25 feet wide with some mitigation clearly done afterwards to try to cover up some of the damage. The fire was contained to one side of this road and I can only imagine that there were crews in this area as it was burning to put out the spots and keep the fire from jumping this very narrow distance to the trees on the other side, none of which were burned.
It was an interesting experience to be there. The burned trees are beautiful in their own way. I will make visits soon into the heart of the burn and I am sure a few more tapestry diary pieces will come out of it.
Rebecca Mezoff, Cameron Peak Fire burn area, February 2021
Tapestry stuff
I’ve mostly woven samples for the new Design Solutions, Season 2 course over the last few months. I have some more to do, but occasionally I’ve continued working on the Handbasket tapestry. I feel like 2020 is now well in the rearview and that this tapestry needs to be finished ASAP. We’ll see if that translates into the many hours needed to finish it so that I can start something new on this loom. I’ve been working on it on Change the Shed on YouTube for so long now, you all are well-familiar with its eccentricities (as well as all the eccentric weaving in it).
Rebecca Mezoff, Handbasket (in progress)
Onward!
*Please don’t email me telling me about a loom you have for sale. There are great used weaving equipment pages on Ravelry and Facebook and you should go there and post your loom. I can’t help you sell it but I do appreciate that you thought of me!
**Stephanie’s Patreon is the best money I’ve ever spent on knitting. $6 a month. She is posting amazing videos about all sorts of things. The cowl project was really fun. She is doing a whole series about knitting best practices which is fun to watch but also amazingly useful! It feels like I’m taking a workshop with her. I’d probably be classified as an intermediate knitter. Occasionally I try patterns that say they’re “advanced,” but mostly I stick to easier things. This Patreon site is perfect for me though I think it would also be amazing for a beginner and I wish I had this info 20 years ago.