Kelly Casanova Weaving Lessons

Kelly

365 project

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 Last week I joined the 365 project. I thought it would be a good way to form the habit of picking up the camera every day and challenging myself to make the photo interesting. I’m on day 8 and loving it so far! Here are some of my photos from the week: 

Night Beach – my first proper attempt at long exposure for a landscape.

Rainbow Lorikeet – A pair of them have been enjoying our plums. Fortunately we have a bumper crop this year, so plenty to share.

Tomatoes – they are ripening by the dozens each day and make a delightful mouthful.


One of our beautiful girls – I love this portrait!

If you are interested in the 365 project or want to follow my project, you can find it here.

Happy NOT back to school day!

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Today was an awesome day.


We got up early. Not because we had to, but because we wanted to.


The girls did lots of bike riding. They’re practically obsessed with riding – horse riding as a first choice, but when there are no horses around the bikes will do just fine, thank you.


We visited the library.





We spent time in our garden, soaking in the warmth of the sun.


We read.



We studied. A little šŸ˜‰

We followed our own interests. 

Oh, and there was plenty of fun thrown in for good measure!


Yes, it was a great day. And the best part is that we can do it all again tomorrow. Lord, I am so grateful that you opened our hearts to homeschooling. I am so grateful that you have given me the privilege of being with our children all day, every day. And I am so thankful to be able to learn and grow right alongside them.

Hand woven dish cloths

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Over the weekend I wove some dish cloths with some beautiful Australian 10ply cotton that I rainbow dyed. I’ve been wanting to try out waffle weave and thought that kitchen cloths would be perfect.
All of these were woven on the same warp on my rigid heddle loom. Did you know you can do that? Warp once, weave many, much easier! Just leave a gap of 5 – 6 inches between each cloth, towel or whatever item you’re weaving. I hemstitched each one on the loom and left a short fringe at each end.

They sold like hot cakes with an order for more and I’m not surprised. If you’ve never tried a handmade cotton kitchen cloth (either woven, knitted or crocheted) you really should, they are far superior to any commercial cloth. I use mine as a multi purpose kitchen cloth for wiping and washing. They last a long time and can be thrown in the wash and line dried. My next order is for re-usable baby wipes – another great idea.


These are some other cloths I wove last year in plain weave so the baby wipes will be similar – fairly thin and very soft for baby skin.
The next thing for me to look at is tea towels. I really wasn’t happy with my last lot – I think the cotton was too thick, I need specific weaving cotton. 

If you’re interested in trying waffle weave on your own rigid heddle, there is a great pattern sequence HERE, look specifically in the comments section for the sequence.
You need one pick up stick but it’s very easy to master.

Specifications for my cloths: 
10 ply cotton (warp & weft)
7.5 dpi
60cm rigid heddle loom
Hemstitched on loom.
Wet finished, laid flat to dry.

Linking up with Creative Friday on Natural Suburbia.

Encouragement

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A few days ago I received a letter from my beautiful Nanna who is now in her late 80’s. Nanna raised 5 children under financially and emotionally challenging circumstances as her husband went off to war. 
When we began our homeschooling journey 10 years ago she didn’t understand and was very skeptical. But over the years, seeing the “proof in the pudding” she has become a great supporter. Her frequent letters never fail to tell me what a marvellous job I’m doing as a wife and mother. This means so much to me.


About the same time as the arrival of Nanna’s letter I also received my copy of Above Rubies, an American evangelical magazine I’ve been subscribed to for many years. When my girls were babies and toddlers and things were really tough, this magazine gave me great encouragement. I only had my husband for support during these years and he had to work a good deal to meet our mortgage and living expenses. Many family members (not all) and other associates looked down on our decision to homeschool and raise our children in our faith, so we were essentially left alone to figure it out for ourselves without support.


Above Rubies is written by mothers, for mothers. It’s a sharing of knowledge and experience and although it’s not a Catholic magazine I find a lot in common with the mothers featured. Homeschooling, contraception free, faith filled and home grown. Aiming for Heaven and taking others with us. Good stuff. 


The last few issues I hadn’t appreciated so much and though I made time to read I didn’t feel that I came away with much. But reading this recent edition made me realise something major. I need encouragement. Desperately. When my Nanna – mother to 5 during a depression and war times says that she “really admires me for what I do” it brings tears to my eyes. It means that much.


If you see a Mum struggling in the supermarket or trying to keep her kids quiet during Mass or looking completely frazzled with more kids hanging off her than you can count, ENCOURAGE HER! And if you are a Mum in this situation and no one encourages you, ENCOURAGE OTHERS all the more! You can completely turn a mother’s day around with a simple smile and “you’re doing a great job” or “keep up the good work”. 


Mothers do such an essential and important job that at times can be desperately hard. All it take to help is a little encouragement.

No stress this Christmas (re-post)

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I thought it about the right time of year to re-post this one from last Christmas.

As we have been going about our regular errands and appointments I’ve noticed a change in my relatively busy outer city suburb. This change happens about this time every year. It starts with rushing, pained expressions, the inability to obtain a car park and by this time next week will have worked itself into a frenzy. Yes, it’s Christmas.

The junk mail piles up almost daily in my letterbox, the traffic is terrible and people are stressed. People are pre-occupied with who is coming, how many to feed, what gifts to buy on credit to increase their debt just that little bit more.

That is how “the world” celebrates Christmas. But we do not need to be part of that, and that is not part of us. We celebrate Christmas because we love Jesus, and this is His birthday. It is also a time for relaxing, enjoying family and a few treats. What is so stressful about that?!

This year my husband is working right through the Christmas period so we have decided to keep things as simple as possible. Mass on Christmas Eve, a few presents for the children on Christmas morning before husband leaves for work, plenty of fresh fruit, a few special food treats, our traditional fruit punch and my husband’s clootie pudding. When husband returns home we can have our usual Christmas concert (sharing of poems, songs, plays and talents) and just enjoy being together.


If you are feeling stressed or anxious about Christmas I ask you to dig deep and ask yourself why. Because the most important thing about this Christmas is that your words and actions bring glory to He who is the reason for the day itself – Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The Angels of Abbey Creek book review

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I suggested to my 9 year old daughter that she might like to review the book by answering some questions and she eagerly agreed.

How long did it take you to read? 
A couple of days. It was hard to put it down.


Describe your favourite part of the book?
I can’t pick a favourite part because it was all really good.


What was different about the book?
It’s hard to find a novel about a Catholic family.


What ages do you think would enjoy this book?
Probably 7 – 12 year olds


Would you recommend this book to others?
Yes, definitely! I’m reading the book again now.


I agree with everything my daughter said, it’s a terrific book and a breath of fresh air to the young Catholic reader. The book is available from Amazon, Fishpond and the Book Depository. Sue has another book “Grief, Love and Hope” about the loss of her son Thomas, which you can read more about here.


You can find out more about Sue and her unschooling family on her blog. 

Woven lap blanket

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A lot of the things I make by hand are a labour of love these days and this blanket definitely falls into that category!
This was my first double weave project on the rigid heddle loom. A brief explanation: The loom usually has one heddle to weave cloth a certain width and in a single layer. Add a double heddle kit (giving you now two heddles instead of one) and you can weave double the width of cloth. The idea of this really appealed to me, as my loom is 60cm wide which is not wide enough for a blanket.


Well, what a steep learning curve! There is not a lot of information about double weave available and it took me a long time (hours in fact) to get the loom warped (normally takes 20 – 30 minutes) and getting all the heddles threaded was a strain on my back. Did I mention my back injury has flared up again? Anyway, once I got to the actual weaving I encountered more issues and re-started twice before I felt comfortable with what I was doing.
The weaving took a long time too. When I finished and took it off the loom I found a lot of floats (threads that didn’t catch in the weaving pattern and so just “float” on the surface of the work) on the underside which was disappointing – they don’t look good and take a potentially professional looking piece to a somewhat amateur piece. 
The story ends well. The blanket isn’t what I hoped it would be but it was an excellent learning exercise (not to mention one in patience!) and it’s a terrifically warm and cosy lap blanket that has been used nearly every day. Success? Sort of!

The specs in case you’re a weaver – 
10ply woollen yarn (didn’t record the amount, silly me)
7.5 dpi
60cm Ashford rigid heddle loom

Will I make another blanket? Oh yes I will! Will it be double weave? Oh no it won’t! It will be panels which I will join – I know the seams will show but it has to be easier than double weave!

Linking up with Ginny’s Yarn along šŸ™‚

Progress

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I submitted my fifth assignment during the week for the photography course I’m doing and am happy to say that I’m powering along, soon I’ll be to the half way mark. 

This was a challenging “low key” image. I’m loving trying new things with the camera.

We have had so much rain over the past week that the garden is like a different space now. It’s so great to be going into Summer with a green garden and full rain tank.


The vegetable garden is an assortment of things mostly grown from seed. Tomatoes are coming and we just ate some of the first dwarf beans today, good stuff!

The first week of Advent

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I love Advent, it’s a time of much hope, promise and renewal of faith. It’s also an opportunity to change the home environment in preparation for Christmas and I find our home becomes joyfully active!

We invited some friends for an Advent craft morning during the week and it was a great success. I thought I would share with you some of the activities we did.
These little nativity silhouette jars worked a treat and are easy and cost effective to make.

All you need is a jar with a lid and a battery operated candle to fit inside. I got my supplies at an Asian discount store. You can choose what to put on the outside of the jar to create the silhouette. One of my girls cut out the letters for Jesus, another one cut a nativity scene out of card stock and another printed the nativity scene from here, coloured it in and glued it on. You can add ribbon, stars or whatever you like just by glueing or tying on the extras.

Another activity we did was saint ornaments for the tree. We don’t have a tree yet, so they’re just hanging for now. I neglected to take a photo of our friend’s ornaments, but here are some of ours. I bought the PDF for this activity from Catholic Icing and it’s well worth the few dollars spent.



During the week my 9 year old daughter (who loves to draw but mostly within her comfort zone) did a video tutorial by Shoo Rayner for drawing a gingerbread house. Shoo has heaps of great tutorials for drawing and has a relaxed, humorous style. My daughter was reluctant to try the tutorial, so I said I was going to do it myself – pretty soon she had her drawing pad out and was immersed in the activity. Her drawing turned out better than mine! (Mine is on the left). 


I wonder what Advent fun we will get up to next week?