Creating craft websites

My daughter was visiting over the holidays and I had discovered my website had some broken links. What started as fixing the links lead to creating a brand new website. Why is it things always go that way - no such thing as a simple fix.

At the college I have taught FrontPage to my students for many years. Our main intent is to teach the students enough about webpages that they can edit webpages easily. Since I believe in students being encouraged to be creative I have always encouraged them to go a step beyond. I really liked the fact that you did not need to know much about HTML code. So my first website was developed in FrontPage from scratch and I did not use any templates. I was pleased with the website, however, my provider was a small company and updating was always difficult.

Last year I changed providers and when I went to update the website discovered that my new MS Office Suite did not include FrontPage. Ugh! It did however have Publisher. So last Christmas holidays I became familiar with Publisher and created a new site. Somehow in the transfer some of the links did not work.

My daughter offered to help fix the links - she likes HTML more than I do. Once we started looking at the code my daughter suggested just copying the web into a program like Dreamweaver. Of course no surprise this did not work. So off I went again this time learning Dreamweaver and have spent two days developing a new site. I have published the site and one page has a few alignment problems and a typo. However, it is the product page and that will need to be updated in the New Year as I hear prices will be changing.

Well the good news is that I now know all 3 programs and have a new website to boot. Tonight my youngest daughter (Alli) and I will bring in the New Year, my oldest daugther (Melanie) has gone back to California, and Alli and I will spend New Year's Day with Melanie's twin Heather.

Here is hoping anyone reading this will have a Happy New Year!

Using the Auto Denter

I have received requests to send a video out to weavers to show them how to use the autodenter. This is my first video and since I do not know much about editing it seems to pause every now and then but hopefully you will see that it can speed up the process of threading the reed.

View the video here.

More on Painted Dyed Yarns

The silk scarf (on the left) was the result of a workshop I took in Gibson's Landing, British Columbia. Several years ago I had played with painted warps and have always wanted to find the time to do some more. Two summers ago Doug wanted to take his Level 1 Spinning and I decided to take the dyeing course that was being offered. Our instructor Kris Abshire encouraged us to move out of our comfort zone. I am usually someone who plans and loves structure, so this scarf was a depart from my usual ways. The colours were randomly painted on the warp and the scarf is woven in a 1/3 twill so that each side has a totally different look. The random painting was a struggle as I kept finding myself trying to create some sort of guidelines to follow.

When I came to the Dye Your Own day I had a plan and am quite pleased with the results. I wanted the weft yarn to be a turquoise and a rose colour that blends into a shade of purple where they meet. This yarn will be used in a surface interest weave (picture on the lower right).

My plan for the warp yarn (upper right corner) is to have bands of a solid colour between the painted bands. It is painted in shades of green with touches of yellows and pinks. Painting yarns encourage me to work freely and to enjoy the unexpected! (even though I have reverted back to having some sort of plan)

Knit for Charity - Can we change that to weave?

My daughter sent me a poster advertising a Knit for Charity campaign. All the proceeds go to a woman's shelter and they were looking for knitted items such as hats, mitts, scarves, etc. While I knit only for survival (cuffs or trims for handwovens), I do have a few handwoven scarves left over from our guild sale and so I have contacted the lady organizing the event.

A few scarves is such a small contribution that most of us are capable of and hopefully it will help someone out this Christmas. I do hope the drive is a success and bless the people who take the time out of their busy lives to organize these events.

Painting on Yarn

Our guild, had a "Dye Your Own" day. We could bring in projects or ideas and 2 talented members, Kathy and Carole, shared their knowledge. It was a great time!

Since the 70's I have kept a binder of ideas and things I like. They can be a style of clothing, colours, or piece of fabric - anything I see as inspiration. Last year the online guild I belong to created mood boards and although I did not have time to take part in the workshop, I reorganized my binder creating mood pages. Then came the Friday when I realized I did not have an idea for the Dye Your Own day. Binder to the rescue.

I showed Carole and Kathy my idea - one for a painted weft and another for a painted warp. In my younger years I worked in the dye lab of Ciba-Geigy and never really did get into all the measuring. I love colour and prefer to let my eyes tell me what I like. Two summers ago a did a very bright warp in a workshop and so this time I wanted to try a pale warp. The warp and weft were not for the same project but two different ideas. When I first did the painting I was afraid the colours were too bright, but Carole and Kathy assured me they would lighten and they did.

The weft is a pale pink and turquoise that I plan on using in a surface interest weave and the warp will be used in bands with bands of a plain colour in between. Unfortunately the yarns were not dried in time for our last guild meeting but hopefully I will remember to show them off in February.