Updates on a few things

Weaving~
The loom arrived this week, w00t! Lucky for me the weaving books I bought from the Interweave Hurt Books sale also arrived this week. There's a lot more planning and math that goes into weaving than I realized, but it's still doable. I made my calculations and decided on the yarn. If I have time tonight I'll try my hand at warping the loom. Too bad the video instructions that came with the loom were on a VHS tape! The newer versions come with a DVD. I decided on using my KnitPicks Palette yarn since it was cheap and I've got several bags of it. Even if the project goes blech, the yarn was only $2 a ball. It probably won't take as much yarn as I'm imagining. For 2.33 yards at a width of 15", I'm only going to need 336 yards for the warp, which is about 1.5 balls of the Palette.

I haven't decided on the yarn for the weft yet. I may continue to use the Palette. I may use a different color of Palette. I may switch it up a bit to mix the colors. That may not turn out very good as the only colors I have a red, blue, and green (garnet heather, marine heather, & verdant heather). Why can't I pick out more complimentary colors instead of one color at each extreme of the spectrum?? I may end up using some of the other yarns I have in my stash. I have a bunch of thin boucle & chenille that I bought of eBay several years ago. This could turn out to be a multi-part super-experiment. I plan to keep a detailed journal through Google Docs.

Rag Knitting
Fail fail fail. I tried doing what the book showed...snip a bit into the edge of the fabric and rip straight down. That did not work very well for the first strip as it ended up deforming the fabric because I had to pull too hard. I ended up cutting and that gave me tons and tons of frayed edges. There were lots of little fiber bits all over the place, sticking out of the edges of the fabric and all over the floor. I spent a lot of time cutting holes & knotting the strips together. It was okay to crochet with once I figured out I needed my giant crochet hook. I had just enough to finish the bag with, but I'm not so sure it's usable. There are just too many little bits of thread sticking out everywhere and it looks SO messy. This may go straight into the trash.

Fabric from Japan
So I ordered some fabric from an Etsy vendor in Japan because I knew Japanese fabrics come in all sorts of cute and I wanted something really cute for my crochet hook holder. They got here yesterday! The fabrics are totally awesome and cute. Two of them are a little thicker/coarser than I thought but they're still really cute. A thicker fabric may bulk up the crochet hook holder too much, but uh...good thing I made the ties extra long. :D Before warping the loom tonight I will probably finish up this project.

More Goodies from Japan
I bought some things from another Etsy vendor. I ordered several Hamanaka crochet hooks from her because they came in every size I need, they're double ended so you need fewer hooks, and they come with extra padding in the middle so they're easier on your hands. She also sells tawashi yarn and books, so I bought 1 book and 3 balls of acrylic anti-bacterial tawashi yarn. I also bought some cute little animal stickers and a set of pom pom makers!