Snow After Fyre

I finished painting the display pieces and took a whole bunch of pics! I think they look rather crisp, don’t you? See them now at my etsy shop ❄ snowafterfyre . etsy . com ❄

The first picture here shows one earring from all the pair designs that I make: four different rainbow options (details below), transgender, nonbinary, agender, genderfluid, genderqueer, aromantic, asexual, sunset aroace, alloaro, pansexual, polysexual, and community lesbian. They’re displayed on a cyan blue background painted with white speckles to look like snow and an orange cat in the bottom right corner.

The second picture is details on the transgender pride earrings on a plain white background.

The third and fourth pictures are on the same painted blue background. The third shows four different pairs of rainbow earrings: one in the six color pride flag, one in the eight color pride flag, one in the nine color pride flag, and one in the philly pride flag (with brown and black). The fourth shows the asexual, aromantic, sunset aroace, and alloaro flags.

please excuse my ignorance but is there a name for the this bit?

I've been eyeing looms for a while after getting bored of my little pin loom. I thought the looms that could do longer pieces of fabric tended to be bigger. this looks fairly compact. I'm googling but hopefully no harm in asking :)

so generally speaking that's called a "warping board". Traditionally a warping board is a large rectangular frame with pegs in it that you use for indirect warping (meaning you loop the threads around the pegs, remove it from the warping board, and then attach to your loom). You can use a warping board with indirect warping for any type of loom! Most people just find it simpler to use direct warping (the kind where you wrap the threads around a single peg in a straight line a certain distance from the loom) with a rigid heddle loom, but you kind of have to do indirect warping with a table or floor loom.

So it's normally an entirely separate piece, but this loom has it built into the frame, which is what makes it so cool. Having it built in means you get to do hybrid warping- the kind of warping that is in between direct and indirect. One of the Ashford models of rigid heddle loom has the option to turn the loom into a warping board, but only for indirect warping.

This loom has a 400 cm (4.3 yards) maximum for the length of the warp threads (that includes loom waste). That's the most you can measure on the included warping board, although it may be possible to do longer warps if you do indirect warping rather than hybrid. I also (accidentally) acquired a Schacht Cricket rigid heddle loom, which I managed to get ~7 yards onto with indirect warping, although that was very much a stretch lol

About the loom-

I got a new loom!! this thing is SO FUCKING COOL!! It's the "Bloom Loom" from Clover and it's technically a rigid heddle loom, 40 cm (15.7"). It has so many neat features! (you can buy it from japan through amazon)

First- the heddle itself! How it's described in the instruction manual is translated as "feather". It is a triangular shaped piece that has slots where the yarn pops into. Rotating it is what makes the sheds. Since the yarn just pops in, you can adjust the warp in the middle of weaving! And you don't have to go back and thread the holes after you've threaded the slots while warping, so the process is faster.

Second- the included warping board. The cross beam stabilizer at the bottom of it holds pegs so you can wind the warp while threading the heddle. I guess people call that hybrid warping? It makes it so much more accessible for me! I can hold the loom in my lap instead of having to stand at a warping board or walk laps around the room with a warping peg.

If you're wondering "wouldn't the strings at the far left or right of the heddle be a lot longer because of trigonometry?" I included a picture to show the difference in length- it's honestly pretty negligible. (the picture with the blue cardstock)

Third- the back "apron bar" is clicked into place as you're warping, then when you're done, it slides down to rest against the back roller so you can pinch a piece of paper in there, which holds the paper steady as you begin to roll the warp up.

Fourth- the ... I guess you could call them shed sticks. They make a tensioning device!

Fifth- the knobs for advancing the warp are very large and easy to grab with my hands. I don't have any grip strength issues or joint pain with it.

Sixth- the front beam has a little bar and it rotates under rather than over the roller. This makes sure that your sheds are always the same height and aren't affected by how much cloth you've rolled onto the beam.

Seventh- the warp is secured at the front with clips that have combs in them. So you comb through the warp to evenly distribute it under the clips. They are fairly secure and the instruction book says you can wrap rubber bands around them if you're weaving with something particularly slippery. While the clips are very fast, I find it difficult to get even and consistent tension across the width of the warp. I plan to try lashing the warp to the beam next time instead.

The loom is sooooo much more accessible for me compared to other models and I would highly recommend it if you have arthritis or other disabilities. The only thing is it's heavier than some other looms- the wood frame is very thick and solid.

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About the project on the loom-

it's just a bit of practice with scrap acrylic. It was supposed to be like a test necktie? But ended up about 20 inches longer than expected? But I wove a cute little kitty cat motif!

I don't know what you call this technique, I only found a picture with no description and reverse engineered it. It's like log cabin pick-up? color and weave pick-up? How it works is that you thread the warp in alternating colors and the weft is mirrored to that- which makes stripes. Then find or draw a motif that is only two colors. Each pixel of the motif is two warp threads (over one and under one) and two weft threads (one pick each color). For each row of the motif, pick up the pixel by alternating which color thread to go over and then under and then do the same for the other color of weft. The motif will have stripes perpendicular to the rest of the weaving. It might be vertical or horizontal depending on which color weft thread you started with.

yarn 1

yarn 2

yarn 3

yarn 4

The Result

The evil is defeated!! Finally! This fiber has been haunting me since 2021, when I first went to Maryland Sheep and Wool. I got really sick part way through spinning the singles and had to stop. When I got back to it, two of the bobbins ended up with much thicker yarn than the first two. I asked reddit for some ideas and someone suggested running the thicker ones back through the wheel in the opposite direction to thin them out. Which worked, but wow did it take forever and was such a hassle. And then to make a 3 ply yarn, I had to split the bobbins by first measuring each one by winding it onto a new bobbin and then doing math and winding that new bobbin onto three other bobbins equally split. And then I had to be careful while plying to make sure I had two in the opposite direction of the ply and one in the same direction (to make an opposing ply yarn). 10/10 would never do again.

I managed to pack so much yarn onto this spindle! I started to have trouble with the single breaking so I wound it off onto a bobbin to spin some more. It's 1.87 oz of yarn! This spindle weighs only... I think it was 0.87 oz tbh? so that's quite a lot of yarn to pack onto there.

I've actually been doing a lot of spindle spinning lately because I started playing this new video game, Megaquarium, and some of the game is waiting and watching your aquarium until it racks up enough points to level up. I use that time to spin a yard or two on this spindle. I can easily pick up and put it down and I've actually been making a lot of progress that way. But it really does feel like spinning a whole braid on a spindle takes ages. I've been at this for a while.

I made socks :3 I got a skein of sock yarn in a mystery box and decided I needed some socks. I was hoping it would be a quick knit, but it took me like a month. Also, one leg is tighter than the other? I don't know what happened and it makes it hard to get the socks on and off ): But they're so nice looking! I love the design so much. The heel is super nice too (no holes!).

The pattern is one of the most accessible patterns I've ever read. They had multiple versions- one for printing, one with a medium contrast background, and one that's "print disability and screen reader friendly". It was my first time reading a knitting pattern that didn't cause any eye strain! Wild to not notice how much it hurt my eyes until the absence of that pain. The pattern was also organized very well with cute medieval marginalia (in the color version).

Pattern: Sunken Cathedral Socks by Cnyttan Cnottan (I used just about 300 yards but my gauge was slightly off- I knit one size smaller to get the correct measurements)

the other thing I got with my fancy etsy discount was a rigid heddle and shuttle. They're horse shaped!!! Look at the little shuttle!!! It's too cute. All the pieces are very very sturdy and well made. The seller (WitchInWizardsCave) is in eastern europe, but I did message them and they do shipping in such a way that tariffs are prepaid, so I didn't have to worry about any of that.

I'm trying to do a diy backstrap set up with it and it's not going so well... I'm using paint stirrers as the lease sticks x') I was trying to do a bandlock kind of situation, but haven't been able to get that right, need to experiment more. The weaving itself isn't difficult, but maintaining the right tension with the tools I have is less than fun. But I’m learning a new skill and it’s ok for it to not be perfect ☺️

SO, I got an email from etsy a few months ago offering me 20% off my next purchase. The cool thing about said discount is that etsy was covering the difference, it is etsy the company giving out the discount- which means that the shop owner gets paid full price. I see that as a win-win: I pay less, the shop owner gets paid the same, and it's all on etsy's dime.

I took this opportunity to get a spindle I probably would never ever otherwise- a Straddle Creek peruvian chac-chac spindle- because I saw it earlier that year and had been dreaming about it ever since. and it's GORGEOUS omfg. It feels so incredibly well made, I was in awe when I opened the package. A chac-chac spindle has a captive ring of wood in the whorl which makes a very satisfying sound when spun. It's so soothing. The spindle can be used either suspended or supported (it has a metal tip). Getting used to a half-hitch has been strange though.

decadent spin! This one really spoke to me at the local fiber fest. Something about the natural colors with just a whisper of purple. and it's SO SOFT omg it's one of the softest braids.

I was trying to spin it woolen style, but the silk (or something else?) keeps getting stuck and not drafting out evenly like everything else. I haven't spun camel before, but I know it tends to have very short staple lengths. So I was hoping it would be nice for a woolen spun, make it lofty and soft and cozy. The single so far is kind of bumpy and even, and it's a little disappointing.

My parents brought this back with them from their trip to alaska. It was rolled up and I thought it was going to be roving, so I opened it up and much to my surprise, it was a batt! I've never spun one of those before. I thought the stormy purple and pink and blues were super pretty, so I was also surprised to flip it over and find a trans flag!

I made rolags out of the batt (I guess they're more "fauxlags" as I used dowel rods). It was definitely rough going and I don't think I made them very even. But it was my first try and the fiber wasn't breaking evenly across the batt- I think the staple length between bits may have been different. Some of the fiber didn't draft well, namely the pink. It felt different, more like cotton, but the label only listed wool so idk.

I spun it long draw style so the single ended up suuuuper textured. I'm really into it! I don't know how to finish the yarn or what to use it for though. I was thinking of maybe using it as the weft for some weaving?

This was super fun though 😊 can't wait to try another batt in the future.

Struggling to figure out this loom, so I picked a twist neutral pattern to try. Picking out the colors, I was worried it looked too much like ketchup and mustard, but in the pattern it looks nice! I don't usually work with warm colors and wanted to try it.

Alas, I still can't figure out the loom and there's not enough tension when I try to advance the warp so it's on hiatus.

The loom is small with a vertical post at one end and a horizontal beam at the other. I haven't seen any other looms like it and thought it would be much easier to understand. But everything I've tried hasn't been enough tension for tablet weaving. I'm thinking of asking my partner to add a bandlock thing with bolts at the one end although I dislike the idea of permanently altering the loom. sigh.

yarn: rainbow 8/4 from Hobbii (and also some mystery cotton weft)

the draft is under the cut if anyone is interested in the pattern:

✨Total weight of fiber: 48 oz (3 lb)✨

in order from top down, left to right

4 oz of "Autumn Beauty", a merino/shetland/silk blend from HipStrings (my final post about it is still in the queue, but here is the fiber)

0.73 oz of "Azul", merino from Malabrigo (the post)

4 oz of "Laffy Taffy", polwarth from Cashmere&Coconuts (the post)

4 oz of "Coffee & Contemplation", targhee from Into the Whirled (the post)

2 oz of alpaca from Painted Sky Alpaca Farm

4 oz of BFL from Angel Locks Fiber (the post)

8 oz of "Never Gonna Give You Up" from Hipstrings in polwarth/silk (the post)

4 oz of merino/sari silk from Angel Locks Fiber (the post)

0.39 oz of "Sophisticat", merino from Winner's Circle Fibers (the first post / the second post)

1.4 oz of cormo/polypay cross from Harmony Fiber (in Alaska)

1.87 oz of "Old Lavender", merino/silk from BeesyBee Fibers (the post)

0.26 oz of "Aurora Borealis", coopworth from Hidden Valley Farm

1.35 oz of merino/baby camel/alpaca/silk so far, from Create Yarnworks

8 oz of BFL from Feederbrook Farm (not pictured, spun previously then respun this year from Z to S to make it thinner)

finished my halloween spin! I love love love the colors! It was outside of my comfort zone, but it turned out sooooooo cool! Very autumnal and gently spooky. This was my first time spinning targhee and WOW is it smooshy and bouncy. I'm so excited to spin more targhee! It's not quite as smooth/buttery as rambouillet, but it has the same bouncy quality that I really like.

I split the braid into three, then split one of the three in half again. I wanted to keep the colors mostly intact without having big stripes of one color.

I finished it by dunking it in hot water, then running it under a cold faucet, then back into the hot water to soak. Then i thwacked it a bunch and snapped it once or twice. I wanted to full it a little, add more loft and bounce, without really felting it up.

Before washing it was 14 WPI and 459 yards under tension. After washing it's more like 12 WPI and somewhere between 380 and 400 yards depending on how much tension was released.

Fiber: Coffee & Contemplation by Into the Whirled in targhee

See the braid and single here

I'm planning on spinning up some BFL (which is grey with blobs of green, orange, and wine-purple overdyed onto it) and knitting the Velvet Moss Vest (by Isabella Clark) with them, eventually.

plied that spin for a friend (: It's so super pretty! I love the way it turned out and I really hope they like the gift.

This ended up being 274 and 257 yards before washing. Each skein is exactly on target for 11 WPI, just like I was aiming for. I'm feeling really pleased with myself for that.

As for how I plied it- I took each braid and split in 3. I kept 1/3 as is, mirrored the other 1/3, and swapped the last 1/3 with the other braid. I think that blended up the colors and homogenized the braids very nicely. (They are the same color, the lighting is just different).

Fiber: Never Gonna Give You Up in polwarth/silk from Hipstrings

Made good progress with the sweater and moved onto the sleeve. But my smallest circular is just a bit too big and I had to do the colorwork on DPNs! 😱 it's a nightmare please save me

Pattern: Tata Matilda by marziasknit

Yarn: Wool-paca from Eddie Bauer

previous post here

Sweater I've been working on. I've started this over nearly half a dozen times because I couldn't get the right combination of needles. My gauge was off, the circular was too small, it was a mess. I still don't think I'm satisfied but I think perhaps some of that is I simply don't like where the pattern author placed the increases in the yoke. And maybe this yarn shows it off more than most because I never have trouble with tension in colorwork. Never like this. The first dozen rows of the yoke look so messy and bunchy and ugh. The gauge looks fine when there are no increases.

I'm also worried maybe there's not enough contrast between the pink and the blue? You can't see the flowers at all when you turn it to black and white.

oh AND my row gauge is so completely off that I had to break the yoke for the sleeves before the colorwork was done! I had to chart an extra bit for under the sleeve to make it look continuous which was an entire nightmare.

I like the design and the pattern is written clearly so I'm going to keep pushing. sigh.

Pattern: Tata Matilda by marziasknit