Milk Kefir

 This has nothing to do with what I'm weaving and everything to do with what I'm eating!  I have recently been looking at making soft cheese at home and while I was doing my research I learned about milk kefir.  A search on Craigslist was all it took to start this journey.

Milk kefir may be one of the strangest things.  It is probiotic milk that you may have seen in your local supermarket.  But you can easily make it at home.

It starts with small cream colour lumps called milk kefir grains.

Place about 2 tablespoons of them in a glass jar with 2 cups of milk.  Lightly cover the jar with a piece of plastic.  And let sit on the counter for 24 hours.

After 24 hours the milk has slightly thickened to the texture of thick cream.  Pour the milk kefir through a plastic strainer to separate the kefir grains from the milk.  Use plastic as the kefir reacts with metal.  Then it is time to make a smoothie!

This smoothie is 2 cups milk kefir, ½ cup frozen peaches, ½ cup frozen blueberries and 2 tablespoons maple syrup.  Yummy!

The milk kefir grains can also be used in full fat cream and the end product is crème fraiche.  The milk kefir can also be used to make cheese, but I'll talk about that another time.

Guild 25th Anniversary

Last year Ngaire and I joined the Qualicum Weavers and Spinners Guild which is about 72 kilometers away.  It is a beautiful ocean side drive down Island from where we live in Comox, and well worth it, it is a wonderfully active guild!
This May the Guild celebrates its 25th anniversary and so a challenge went out ~ make something for the May meeting using ‘silver glitz’.

Those who took up the challenge were provided with 20 grams of silver glitz plied with fine white cotton. I wanted to make something completely outside of my comfort zone.   I decided to try my hand at spool knitting; something I haven’t done since I was a child.  My plan was to make a piece of jewellery of some kind.  I was still vague about what at this stage!

I didn’t have a spool knitter, so Michael made me this one using dowel and nails ~ lovely and rustic, just like I remembered ... and the best part is that it worked like a charm!

As soon as I started I came across three major problems.  The first was that the silver yarn provided by the guild was too white ~ so I switched to this silver from my stash.

The second problem was that the silver yarn by itself was too thin, so I added a thread of silver Tencel for shine and bulk ~ luckily I had just a wee bit left after weaving this 12 Shaft Advancing Twill Scarf.

The third problem was that the spool knitted cord collapsed onto itself and was far to floppy and skinny.  So I bought a meter of silver cord and pushed it into the center of the cord to add bulk.

Once the meter of cord was knitted up I had to find something to make ~ this is when ‘google’ did its magic and I found these printable instructions for making a Bumble Bee Knot.

Since I had set off without a plan; I now had to find a way to finish the ends of the scarf.  I immediately ruled out tassels and found myself searching for jewellery findings that would fit the ends of the cord.  Ngaire found this in the mark down bin at Fabricland and it’s perfect!

This is my finished necklace, just in time for the celebration!

Final Garden Shot is a double flower yellow Japanese Rose (Kerria Japonica 'Pleniflora).

Diversified Plain Weave

After the Piano Scarves were finished I had fifty three inches of warp left on the loom.  It wasn’t enough to do anything with but I had an idea.

I pulled two chenille threads off the old warp and knotted them together and placed them on the warping board; I did this for all the other warp threads, ending up with half as many warp threads.  The other threads on the warping board are thin 2/20 Tencel in white.

To put some tension on the warp I put a small binder clips on the bottom of the threads to stop them from sagging on the warping board.  It worked surprisingly well.

At this point the warp is now half sized.  But I had a little bit of white chenille on the bobbin and some on the cone left.  So I pulled the rest of the warp normally.

It is my first time doing Diversified Plain Weave there is one thick thread to every two thin threads.  The thin threads are woven in plain weave and they are the back bone of the weave structure.  The thick thread is the pattern thread and is tied down by the thin threads.

I set up the treadles a little differently this time.  I place the two plain weave treadles right in the middle and the pattern treadles on the outsides.  Sorry for the tilted picture!

I created my own Diversified Plain Weave pattern, it used all twelve shafts.  It is a pretty diamond motif.  But for some reason my loom didn’t like weaving the pattern.  The treadles were very heavy but I had the treadles evenly balanced six shafts going up and six shafts going down.  Also my loom made some loud wooden snapping sounds.  It was like some of the shafts were crossing and sticking together.  I have no idea what was wrong.

But I like my loom more then I liked the pattern!  So I stopped weaving the pattern.  I unwoven what was there and I started all over again.  I went to back to the Handwoven article (May/June 2013) that I was using as a reference and used the draft.  It is large circles on eight shafts.

Diversified Plain Weave is a two shuttle weave.  Again one thick thread and two thin threads are used.  It was quite easy to get into the rhythm of using two shuttles.

The finished Diversified Plain Weave scarf has joined its friends the Piano scarves waiting to be hemmed and washed!

The Final Shot.  The Snowbirds Air Demonstration Team are back for the Spring Training session at the Comox Air Force Base.  They are here for two weeks and they practice twice a day.  You can go to the appropriately named Air Force Beach and watch the air show and listen to the commentary.  Next week the CF -18 Hornet demo team arrives and it is very loud!

Piano Scarves – Again

When Mum and I cleaned out the stash in January, we found some black and white chenille, which I only use for one thing – Piano Scarves!  There was only a little bit of white left; just enough for two scarves.

The warp is white chenille with a band of black on one side.  The draft is just a four shaft plain weave.  All the patterning comes from the clasped weft technique.

I use a large 15 inch boat shuttle made by Little Man Howell to hold the chenille.  It holds enough chenille on it for more than half of a scarf, about forty inches.  It is just amazing.

The scarves wove up quite fast this time.  But I caught the ‘flu and I have been sick for a couple of weeks.  So the scarves have been sitting in a pile waiting for me to hem them.  I’ll get to them soon, promise!

Whenever I do these scarves I always run out of warp.  I have had to add extenders onto the warp a couple of times.  So this time I added extra warp - just 18 inches - but enough I hoped.  Well somehow I ended up with 53 inches of warp left over!

Not enough to do anything with – or is it ?!  Find out in the next blog post.

Final Garden Shot is the first leaves and catkins on the weeping variegated willow.  So pretty!