Blog – Yarns from the Lake

Friends RV Vacation #2

After a successful RV group vacation to Yellowstone and the Tetons last summer, the four couples were enthusiastic about another trip together in 2026. Over several zoom meetings, it was decided we would visit two of the Utah National Parks in September.

As the time got closer and gas prices got higher, driving 1,200 miles towing an RV was going to be very expensive. Wayne proposed a different itinerary of five nights at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, in the badlands of western North Dakota. Everyone readily agreed to this alternative plan, which included starting out with three nights in Otter Tail County in West Central Minnesota, at my family cabin on a lake near our house. We looked forward to having time with the group in our neck of the woods, followed by a seven hour drive to Medora, North Dakota, where Theodore Roosevelt National Park is located.

More zoom planning meetings were held, and soon the time was upon us. The other three couples all live in the Twin Cities, about three and a half hours from our place. To kick off the vacation, two of the couples towed their RV’s to our family cabin. The third couple drove to their family cabin, about a half hour east of us.

During our time together in Otter Tail County, the weather was a little iffy with some rain. There was time for relaxing and each couple doing their own thing. We all enjoyed a happy hour together at Outstate Brewing, overlooking the Otter Tail River in Fergus Falls.

We had agreed ahead of time that each couple would be responsible for one group meal. Glenda prepared pulled pork and sides for one dinner served in our cabin. Steve and Sally made a huge breakfast one morning in the cabin. We served fresh caught fish for one dinner at our house, courtesy of Wayne, Steve and Sally, who enjoyed fishing on the lake. I had backup chicken skewers just in case haha. Loren and Linda served a meal of pork loin at their cabin. .

On the last day before heading to Medora, Loren and Linda stayed at their cabin to prepare for the rest of the trip. They had sold their fifth wheel trailer since last summer, and for this trip rented a travel trailer to be picked up in Fargo on the way west to the national park.

Harvey and Glenda had down time and some RV maintenance to take care of. We took Steve and Sally on an outing to see some of the trolls in Detroit Lakes, and one of the many Otter Tail County giant birds.

You may have heard about the giant trolls by Danish Artist Thomas Dambo. There are installations of the trolls, made out of reclaimed wood and other recycled materials, in 19 states and 20 countries. In Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, about 40 miles north of us, there are five trolls and one rabbit. Seeing all the them requires driving to various locations, and then walking or hiking. More information about the giant trolls can be found here. The troll in the following photo is the tallest one at 36 feet high.

Getting to one of the Detroit Lakes trolls requires walking past a covered bridge, followed by a short hike on the North Country Trail. The following photo was taken from the covered bridge.

The farmer who owned the land before it became a park wanted a bridge big enough to drive a tractor across the Otter Tail River. He built a covered bridge himself using railroad cars as the road surface.

The North Country Trail is an almost 5000 mile long hiking trail starting in North Dakota and going east all the way to Vermont, maintained by the National Park System. Part of the trail goes through the Fergus Falls area, near where we live in Minnesota, and also through Itasca State Park, the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota.

Walking on the North Country Trail to find one of the trolls

After a short hike on the North Country Trail we came upon this troll.

We did not have enough time to see all the trolls, but we did see the world’s largest turkey in Frazee, one of many giant bird sculptures in Otter Tail County, Minnesota.

In the past we have taken visitors on a scenic drive to see some of the other giant sculptures in Otter Tail County, including a Prairie Chicken, a Pelican, a Loon, an Otter, and a Fish.

After the outing we came back home to the lake and worked on preparations for the next part of the vacation. We finished packing and got our fifth wheel trailer connected to the truck, so that we would be ready to hit the road first thing in the morning.

It was much easier to pack for this trip than either the Yellowstone RV vacation last summer, or going to Arizona in the winter. This trip did not involve any overnight stays on the way to the destination. For the first time ever, we connected the RV refrigerator to electricity a couple of days before the trip, so it could cool down while we were still at home. I loaded cold food into the refrigerator before we left, rather than buying it when we got there, or trying to keep it cold in coolers on the way. As always, I packed several knitting projects to work on, including the small Agi the Sheep stuffed animal that I posted about here. She came with us on some outings and to restaurants.

Wednesday, September 16: After three of the couples had various vehicle and trailer issues last year, we briefly talked about caravanning on the drive from Minnesota to Western North Dakota. That did not happen, but no one had any problems. I was glad to have a lot of time for knitting in the car, and I drove the truck towing our fifth wheel trailer for about an hour to give Wayne a break.

Everyone arrived at Medora Campground at different times from early to late afternoon. The campground is in a valley located near the town of Medora, just outside the entrance to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and past a new hotel. It took us the rest of the afternoon to get the RV set up. Following is our fifth wheel trailer, with Steve and Sally’s Aliner in the background, next to Loren and Linda’s rented travel trailer. We were on the end next to a road.

Wayne had reserved campsites next to each other, two on each side of a lane. They were a little close together, but otherwise nice with full hookups, trees and a picnic table. There was a newer section that did not have any trees. This was way nicer than some RV campgrounds that have sites jammed together on a parking lot. The campground also has some cabins, and a few Conestoga wagons for rent. The covered wagons get booked up way ahead of time.

There are at least 150 campsites total. There was a train going by regularly, but it was far enough away that I barely noticed it.

The next photo shows a different view of our four campsites with our fifth wheel trailer at the back left of the photo, next to Harvey and Glenda’s travel trailer. Loren and Linda’s rented travel trailer is in the foreground next to the road, and left of Steve and Sally’s Aliner.

Everyone had agreed that we would eat all the dinners out, rather than bringing a lot of food or buying groceries after we got there. As it turned out, there is only a small convenience store in Medora. The closest full service grocery store is 40 miles away in Dickenson, North Dakota.

After we were all set up, there was enough time to do a scenic drive while it was still light out, followed by dinner at Little Missouri Saloon & Dining.

On Thursday, September 17 Steve and Sally prepared a group breakfast at their campsite. Their ALiner trailer does not have a kitchen, but they are pros at cooking a full outdoor breakfast of eggs, sausage and pancakes.

After some time to clean up and get ready for the day, we stopped at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park visitor center. We noticed that TR’s horse in the following display is constructed the same way as the giant trolls with narrow strips of wood.

Theodore Roosevelt’s Maltese Cross Cabin from his ranching days has been moved around a few times from it’s original location about seven miles south of Medora. TR spent a few years in western North Dakota after both his wife and mother died on the same day in 1884. Today it is just outside the visitor center and open for self guided tours.

Theodore Roosevelt’s Maltese Cabin from his ranching days

After checking out the Visitor Center, we went on the 36 mile scenic drive through the park, with the four couples in two vehicles. The scenery was beautiful and we saw endless prairie dogs, large herds of buffalo, wild horses, a coyote, and possibly a fox. A couple of times we got out of the car for a short hike. Due to the big late breakfast, we brought a few snacks in the car but did not have lunch.

In the next photo I am wearing a pair of socks I made on my circular sock machine.

At one point we stopped with all the other cars on the road due to a buffalo walking across the road. There were many buffalo on both sides of the road. While we were sitting there watching, a coyote came trotting across the field on the left side of the road, walked across the road, and continued on the other side. A buffalo started chasing the coyote for a short distance until he disappeared into the woods.

After some late afternoon down time back at the campground, we went out for dinner at the Rough Riders Hotel. This is a cool building having a lobby like a cozy living room, with a massive fireplace and wall of bookshelves.

We celebrated Steve and Sally’s 48th wedding anniversary. Towards the end of the meal, the waitress asked us several times if we wanted to order dessert. Several times we said no, thank you. Finally just as we were about to leave, she told us that Steve and Sally would get a free dessert because of their anniversary. She brought out a large serving of chocolate lava cake with ice cream and eight spoons. We were a little confused, but gladly passed the dessert and spoons around. The following historical photo of the Rough Riders Hotel is in the lobby.

I took my own photo of the Rough Riders Hotel as it looks today.

On Friday, September 18, each couple was on their own for the day. We had a slow morning. There wasn’t any wifi at the campground, but the cellphone reception was good. I was able to use my laptop with a personal hotspot. I started knitting the sheep’s purse. We had lunch in the RV. The weather forecast was looking wet for the days ahead, so Wayne and I took advantage of the beautiful day to walk on a scenic path that went along the Little Missouri River right next to the campground.

In the afternoon we went on a tour of the Chateau de Mores, a large historic home just outside of Medora. I have been to Medora before, but I don’t remember this place or anything about it. A French Nobleman, the Marquis de Mores, and his wife, Medora, were there for a few years in the mid 1880’s at the same time as Theodore Roosevelt. The town is named after Medora. Her father was a rich banker in New York City. The Marquis and his father-in-law had the idea of raising cattle and processing the meat on site out west, and using ice from the Little Missouri River to ship it to Chicago on the train. The Marquis built a large meat processing facility, but in the end the venture was not successful.

The Marquis de Mores and his wife built a large 26 room summer country home in Medora. The house contains many of the original furnishings. The second floor has bedrooms used for their children, guests, and servants. For people of their class out east, it was not normal to put the guests on the same floor with the servants. There was only one staircase, without a second one in the back for servants, as would be expected. They would communicate this setup ahead of time to guests, explaining that it was a concession necessary in the wild west. Medora’s parents apparently were not comfortable with this layout. They had a house in Medora where they stayed when visiting, rather than share space with servants. I got a photo of the Chateau as we approached from the parking lot.

Following are photos of the family dining room, and the servants dining room which shared the wall to the left where there is a pass through window.

There was one 1880’s version of a bathroom in the house, which was used only by the Marquis. Even his wife was not allowed inside. One of the interpreters told me that they have not found any evidence of an outhouse anywhere on the property. Residents and guests were from upper class society, so they likely used chamber pots that were emptied outside by servants.

After touring the chateau, we walked around the small town of Medora. Being after Labor Day, many of the stores were closed. The famous Medora Musical was done for the season, but we had seen it before. It got up to 77 degrees Fahrenheit, which I think is way above average for the date and location.

For dinner, we ate leftovers from our restaurant meal the night before. After dinner we drove to Wind Canyon Trail for a short hike, and to view the sunset from an amazing vantage point. We saw wild turkeys, buffalo and prairie dogs.

Wayne expected that the campground would not be crowded, assuming that we would have the option of changing sites, or possibly add on an extra day after we were checked in. During the day many spots were open, but each night every RV site was occupied. We concluded it was because of the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library which opened this summer that has gotten excellent reviews.

Having watched the weather reports ahead of the trip, and hearing from several sources that it is recommended to buy tickets ahead of time, everyone in our group had purchased tickets to see the Library the following day.

Saturday, September 19: The forecast was for rain most of the day. Steve and Sally prepared another group breakfast at their campsite. It started out sprinkling a little, and then rained harder. Loren and Linda put the awning out on their trailer next to Steve and Sally’s, where breakfast was served on a picnic table pushed under the awning. I hope the other people did not think I was being antisocial, but Wayne brought a biscuit, egg and cinnamon roll to me in the RV. I stayed inside while eating my breakfast and drinking a morning mocha. He assured me later that it was OK, there was not room for another person at the picnic table anyway. One reason I like having an RV is to enjoy National Parks without sitting outside in the rain.

We all met at Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, but each couple went through at their own pace. This place is amazing, more like a high tech museum and not really a library. It is built into a hillside to blend in with the landscape, with natural prairie plants on the roof.

Approaching the entrance to the library/museum

There was an inviting breezeway area between two parts of the building.

Upon entering the main building, we got our photo taken and were given a token with an ID on a wristband, to be used for interactive exhibits.

Following are images from the paper visitor guide, with an index of exhibits and the ideal order to view them. There were displays about every part of TR’s life and family from his childhood, to his legacy and passing.

Map of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library

After posing for more photos and answering a few questions, AI produced an early 1900’s campaign photo and poster for me. Vote for me on Tuesday!

Included in the many excellent exhibits, there was a 3D campfire experience with stories about TR’s life out west, and 3D movie about a treacherous trip TR went on with his son and a few others to explore a river in the basin, when he was already late in life.

One of the most unique exhibits in the library was a simulation of Theodore Roosevelt in his office, using AI to answer questions from “constituents” in real time. Wayne partook by walking up to the microphone and scanning his token. TR greeted him by name and asked what he would like to know. Wayne asked a question about how TR felt about immigrants. “Theodore” said “um” and looked like he was thinking for a moment, but then came up with a reasonable answer consistent with what he probably would have said, something about immigrants being good as long as they learn the language and contribute to society.

When we were done touring all the exhibits inside the building, it was drizzling. We put our windbreaker hoods up and walked the one mile boardwalk path outside.

I learned a lot about Theodore Roosevelt during our time at the library/museum. He loved nature and science, and worked to improve his poor health with exercise. He got involved in politics in New York as a young man, was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and then soldier. He served as governor of New York. The big wigs of his time did not like his progressive leaning politics, so they thought they could keep him out of the way as Vice President for William McKinley. That backfired when McKinley was assassinated and Theodore Roosevelt become president.

As with other people who have made important contributions to our country, he is complicated and has contradictions. TR does not have a great record in regard to African Americans or Native Americans. On the positive side, he worked to reduce corruption in government and improve conditions for working people. He worked to preserve our natural resources by protecting 230 million acres of public land, including creating five national parks and the US Forest Service.

I highly recommend a visit to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. If you are not into camping, there are other options for lodging including a brand new hotel. After spending the afternoon at the library/museum, we regrouped back at the campground, and then went to dinner at “Boots” in Medora.

Sunday September 20 was our last full day at the park. It rained overnight and in the morning. During the night I heard a loud noise like something big, maybe a tree branch, falling on the truck. After we were both awake in the morning, it happened again. Wayne went outside to scope it out and found that pieces of bark were falling out of trees and landing on the RV and truck. They were not as big as the sound they made, and luckily there was not any damage.

We had a relaxing morning and early afternoon staying at the campsite. I worked on my knitting, and after the rain let up, I went for a walk around the campground, going up and down each lane. I saw every type of option for camping, from tents to giant motorhomes. There was even an ice castle trailer normally used for ice fishing, and a large horse trailer with a compartment for people.

Wayne watched the Minnesota Vikings football game on my laptop. I had forgotten that Wayne needed the hotspot on my phone to watch the game. When I got back from the walk, I found out that Wayne had missed part of the game due to getting disconnected. I would have come back with my phone, but it had taken him some time to figure out what was wrong. Oops.

After the game we went to the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame in Medora. They had a lot of photos and memorabilia from rodeos, and displays about cowboy life. There was a life size chuck wagon, made by the Studebaker company.

The four couples went to dinner at Beaver Creek Brewery in Wibaux, 35 miles west just across the border in Montana. Loren had been there before on a motorcycle trip with his brother, and we thought it would be a fun last outing before the end of our time together. It looks like the building used to be a movie theater.

Agi the Sheep with her clothes and accessories were complete by then, and came with us to the brewery.

We had not gotten a good photo of the entire group, so this was the last chance. It was not the best setting considering all the amazing scenery we had scene. One of the employees came outside and took a photo for us.

Wayne had fun with AI, changing the background to one of the photos he had taken at Wind Canyon Trail. We COULD have taken this photo!

On Monday September 21, Steve and Sally, and Harvey and Glenda, were heading to the Black Hills for the annual Buffalo Roundup at Custer State Park in South Dakota. This is about four and a half hours straight south of Medora. Steve and Sally had done all the preparations necessary the night before, so they pulled out first thing in the morning. Harvey and Glenda left soon after.

Loren and Linda got going early too, as they had a long day ahead of them. They had to drop their rented RV off in Fargo, and then continue all the way to their home in the Minneapolis area.

It took us longer than everyone else to shut down our 5th wheel trailer and be ready to go. We don’t use it often enough to have all the detailed steps memorized (disconnecting utilities and water, draining water tanks, closing slides, connecting to the truck, etc), so I held the checklist and guided Wayne along. We finally pulled out at 11:35 am, arriving home in the evening.

After we were back home, we found a fact based historical fiction series on Amazon Prime called “Elkhorn” about TR’s time in North Dakota. It was a little amateurish, but we enjoyed seeing what it might have been like for Theodore being a rancher and cowboy in the west. There is also an excellent documentary series on Netflix called Theodore Roosevelt.

One of the things mentioned in the Netflix documentary is that even though TR came from a privileged background, he enjoyed meeting all kinds of people and listening to their stories. He wanted to know what life was like for normal people, at a time when there was a huge gap between the wealthy and the poor.

In my mom’s memoir, she writes about her grandfather, Leonard Eriksson, who emigrated from Sweden at age 14 with $10 in his pocket that got stolen while he slept on a park bench. Later, after more challenges and hard work, he ended up in Law School at Georgetown. His congressman arranged a one-on-one meeting for him with Theodore Roosevelt, who was president at the time. It was supposed to be for 10 minutes, but lasted a half hour. After learning more about TR, this is consistent with who he was.

I think everyone in the group considered this another great vacation together. I expect there will be another one in our future, with the timing and destination to be determined.

Hand Dyed Yarn on a New Loom

In May I attended Fiber Day at the Ellison’s Sheep farm in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota. It is about a half hour from my house, and one of my favorite days of the year. I have written about this semi-annual event multiple times and taken many photos in the past you can see here and here and here.

This spring at Fiber Day I only took a couple of photos related to a dyeing project I worked on there. I had some skeins of cotton and cotton/linen blend yarn that I would be more likely to use if they were a different color. I gathered them all up and took a photo.

The yellow skein on the far left is Lantern from Purl Soho, described as “a creamy white cotton core wrapped with a colorful linen thread”. It is discontinued. The next yellow yarn is Leverett from Valley Yarns, also a cotton/linen blend. The two white skeins are both 100% organically grown cotton from Purl Soho, in different thicknesses. The natural color yarn next to the white is Nettle Gove by Plymouth Yarn. It is 45% cotton / 28% Linen / 12% Nettle / 15% silk. There are two skeins of Cotton Pure from Purl Soho in a color called “warm rock”. Lastly, there is some 100% natural color linen yarn leftover from a tube I bought on the internet years ago.

All of these yarns are made from plant fibers which use a different dye and process than for wool and other animal fibers. For dyeing cotton and plant fibers, there are many colors of Dharma Fiber Reactive Dye available to use at Fiber Day. I did not have a plan going in, but when I got there decided to dye all the skeins with Glacier Blue, because I thought that would work for all the different yarns, knowing they would each look a little different, or maybe a lot different.

The first step was to prepare the yarn so that the dye would bond to it by soaking it in water with soda ash for about 45 minutes.

I had brought some big jars from home that I have used before for dyeing, and that will not be used for food. After the yarn was prepared, it was put in the jars with water and dye. I took the following photo at Fiber Day.

The yarn was left to soak in the jars for about 24 hours. I took another photo back at home.

The next afternoon I took the yarn out of the jars and rinsed out the extra dye. I know when dyeing wool yarn, if you use the correct amount of dye, the water should rinse out clean. That is not what happened in this case, so probably there was more dye than needed, or maybe the fiber reactive dyes do not work the same way. I rinsed out a lot of dye, and then hung the skeins on a drying rack and left them outside to dry.

It looked like the yellow and white Lantern yarn was still yellow while in the jar, even the next day, but I guess you can’t tell what is going on until you take it out. That yarn is the very green looking yarn on the back row of the drying rack in the photo above. Up closer you can see that the white core of the Lantern yarn is blue, the linen component is green.

The yarns that were white to begin with turned blue, no surprise. The yarns that were yellow became shades of green. The natural colors changed to shades of teal. Some of the yarns came out variegated, where the dye was not evenly distributed inside the jar.

I accidentally left behind one of the natural color skeins of yarn that had soaked in the soda ash, but had not been dyed. When I was loading up the car at the end of the event, somehow the plastic bag with the wet yarn got left behind. I went back and got it the next day, and put it to soak in one of the jars that I had removed yarn from, that still had dye in it.

I was reminded that after dyeing the yarn should be washed in Synthrapol, which helps to remove excess dye. I had a tiny amount on hand, and instructions online said you should use 3 tbsp for 8 pounds of fabric. I might have been able to get away with the bit I had, but ended up ordering another bottle.

The Cotton Pure yarn is very soft. It is more of a knitting yarn, but can also be used for weaving. I tried using it for weaving a dish towel when I was a new weaver. The finished towel looked nice, but the fabric did not wear very well. Now that I have more experience weaving, I think this yarn will be better with more yarns per inch for a tighter weave towel, or for a lightweight loose weave scarf.

My friend Mary Lou has been learning to weave on my 15″ Schacht Cricket Rigid Heddle Loom. I got her started with a project last fall. She took the loom home with her and finished some towels on her own. This summer she brought the loom back when visiting for a weekend. I had been thinking about wanting a wider rigid heddle loom. Mary Lou was thinking about getting her own loom. We agreed she would buy my 15″ Cricket loom with all the accessories for half of what it would cost her to buy it all new. I put that money toward a new Schacht 25″ Flip Folding Rigid Heddle Loom. It works the same way as the smaller loom, but is wider, has an option for a second reed for more complicated projects, and can fold and fit in a bag for portability. It is much bigger and take up more room than the 15″ loom.

I bought the optional stand, so that it can be used without taking up space on a table. Also the height when on the stand is more ergonomically correct for weaving than the table. The following photo shows the parts of the stand before assembly.

In the photo below the 25″ loom is all assembled and ready to go, with a handy tray on the front for accessories used while weaving. I did not think about the fact that it would be deeper, as well as wider.

After finishing the Toolara Cardigan flat knitting machine project in August, I was ready to start something on the new loom, using the yarn I dyed at spring Fiber Day. I came up with a plan using the teal yarn, documenting the details with a spreadsheet available at the School of Sweet Georgia.

The first three yarns in the photo below are the Purl Soho Cotton Pure. The yarns on the right of the photo are 100% linen. I ended up using the linen yarn that is the fourth from the left, but not the other linen yarns.

For direct warping a set of towels, I took the loom off the stand and clamped it to the dining room table. For the warp yarn I selected the three skeins of Cotton Pure yarn. Two of the skeins were in the darker teal color, and the third skein was brighter turquoise. I used the three skeins by alternating two ends of each skein. The way direct warping works it is natural to add two strands of one skein, then go to the next one.

The following photo shows the yarn all measured out. There are 138 “ends” (warp yarns) that spread across 16.8 inches on the loom, using the 10 dent reed (10 ends per inch). It should be centered on the loom. I thought I measured before starting, but my warp yarn is not exactly in the middle, which is not a big deal.

The weaving goes fast once you get a rhythm going. The first actual towel starts after the darker green spacer rows, with two rows of hem stitch at the beginning of the towel, followed by plain weave rows.

Beginning of the first towel, after the green setup rows.

I did not have enough of the three cotton yarns left for weft yarn for weaving all three towels. There are any number of possibilities for how to design the weft colors with those three yarns plus the linen yarns I had dyed at Fiber Day. I decided to go ahead with the three cotton yarns for the first towel, and then figure out what to do about the other two towels after I finished the first one.

I thought I would copy the pattern with the weft rows with two rows of each color, but I also wanted to carry the yarns up the sides when changing colors without having to cut the yarn and weave in ends. I unintentionally ended up with alternating one row of each yarn, rather than two, which made a very nice pattern along the selvedge that matched on each side.

Carrying the three weft yarns up the side without cutting

For the second towel I decided to use the skein of 100% linen turquoise dyed yarn exclusively. I really like that yarn, and it was easy and quick not having to change yarns. With only one weft yarn, the pattern comes out with vertical strips.

Second towel with all the same weft yarn

For the third towel I wove three large blocks of each of the original warp yarns. They each started with a full skein, so I knew that if I could weave 1/3 of the towel with the first color, then I would be able to weave 1/3 of each of the other two colors. Following is a section of the first two blocks of color. The third block was not as much of a contrast from the second color.

The first two color blocks on the third towel

The 100% linen weft yarn is a little thinner than the Cotton Pure yarn, but the woven cloth using it was wider than the other two before washing. It was narrower after washing. I don’t know why this third towel with the three blocks of color was so wrinkly when I unwound it off the loom, even though there was a layer of paper on the cloth beam.

After weaving in ends, washing, and ironing, I laid the three towels out next to each other.

Back when I was a very new weaver, I made towels using Purl Soho Cotton Pure yarn on the 15″ rigid heddle loom. Those towels had 8 ends per inch, which is what the pattern from Purl Soho said to do. They came out with a looser weave then the current towels, which were woven with 10 ends per inch. The looser weave would be nice for a scarf, but is not ideal for a towel. The photo below shows one of the current towels next to the looser towel woven earlier.

The three finished towels are on display in my kitchen in the next photo.

I hope to make another set of towels on the wider rigid heddle loom yet this fall, before we leave for Arizona at the end of December. I also want to make more towels on the floor loom, and work on some other projects. With several trips back and forth to the Twin Cities on the calendar before the end of the year, plus other things going on, that may be too much. What I want to do and what is realistic to accomplish may not be the same thing.

Testing a Sock Machine Pattern

October is Socktober in the knitting world. I have not spent much time with my circular sock machine this fall, or knit any socks by hand since I bought my CSM two years ago.

Over the summer I was contacted by the School of Sweet Georgia team to see if I would be interested in testing a new pattern for a circular sock machine sock. Yes, absolutely! The pattern is called Classic Cabin Socks, a slouchy sock with a wider and looser hung hem, and contrasting colors in the cuff, heel, and toe. They sent me a draft of the pattern, which of course suggests using Sweet Georgia Tough Love sock yarn.

I could have tested the pattern with any sock yarn, but I found one skein of Tough Love Sock Yarn in my stash. The pattern uses smaller amounts of the contrasting color yarn.

I happened to also have a Sweet Georgia sock blank made out of Tough Love sock yarn. A sock blank is yarn that has been knitted into a tube or square for the purpose of hand dyeing it. Once dyed, it is unraveled for knitting. Sometimes sock blanks are made with two blanks on top of each other dyed identically, so a pair of matching socks can be made using custom dyed yarn. For some reason when I ordered the sock blank, I thought there were going to be two matching socks. In this case there was only one 100 gram blank. That is enough for two socks, but they would be cousins rather than twins.

I had been pondering what to do with the one sock blank. I could knit two socks with pretty colors that would not match each other. Or I could make something else. Since the test sock pattern used smaller amounts of contrast colors, that would be a good way to use the sock blank. First I had to unravel it and wrap it into a skein. It was super kinky from being knitted.

I soaked the kinky skein in water and hung it out to dry, with the goal of straitening the yarn out. It was still a little kinky after coming out of the water, but a lot better.

After the sock blank skein was dry, I separated it into smaller balls of each color. The color changes were gradual with different shades, so it was hard to get only specific colors in each ball.

For cranking the sock, I wound the main color and two contrast colors on to cones.

Making the sock was pretty straight forward. There were a couple of places in the pattern where I took a double take (the location of color changes), and one thing I had not ever done before (changing color without cutting the yarn in the corner of the heel). The pattern had you create the toe opening on the top of the foot, where my normal way is on the bottom. It is actually easier to do it on the top, so I went with that.

The first sock turned out well. There was not enough of the teal yarn left for the heel and toe of the second sock. It seemed like it would work and be fun to swap the two contrast colors, using the gold for the heel and toe of the second sock, and teal for the stripe in the cuff.

The second sock was going along nicely until I dropped a stitch while working the heel. I do not do this very often any more, but it happens. Given where the dropped stitch was located, there was not an easy way to fix it. I had a lot on my plate that day getting ready for a trip to the Twin Cities, so I left it as is to be dealt with after we got back. After I was back home and had thought through what to do, I removed most of the gold heel stitches from the needles.

I was able to put the stitches from the last purple row back on the needles and get it to the part of the sock just before I started the heel. It took some time and patience to get it ready to start over with the heel, and involved raising needles out of work, and moving the yarn carriage around so I did not lose more stitches.

There are different ways to change colors or yarns when using the CSM. When doing the heel, a preferred way if you have a slotted yarn carrier is to take the yarn out of the yarn carrier and tuck it down inside the sock without cutting it. You can then knit the heel with contrasting yarn. After the heel is done, the still attached original yarn is threaded back in the yarn carrier. There are tails for the contrast heel yarn, but no break in the main yarn. I did this method successfully for the first time.

The second try on the heel went smoothly, and I continued on with the foot.

When switching color for the toe, a couple of rows of the contrast colors are knit before starting the toe for a smooth transition. I forgot to put the heel spring back on. I noticed the stitches were loose, and stopped just before actually starting on the toe. Again, I was able to remove those two rows, put the purple stitches back on the needles, and start again with the heel spring on. After that I finished the toe without any issues. The color of the remaining contrast yarn for the toe morphed from gold to a more mustardy color.

I do not really like the way the colors of the second sock turned out, but I guess all-in-all as a pair they work okay together.

I found one statement in the pattern that I thought needed to be edited, and a few that could be more clear. Two other pattern testers shared suggestions also.

Later I received a revised version of the pattern incorporating information from the three testers. I cranked out another pair of socks with three different yarns I had on hand.

I received a $25 gift certificate for yarn at Sweet Georgia Yarns as a thank you for testing the pattern. In August there was a 15% off back-to-school sale, so it was a good time to order a skein of yarn. Sweet Georgia Yarns and the School of Sweet Georgia are based in Vancouver, Canada. The yarn is hand dyed, the shipping is expensive, and there is currently a tariff. Using the gift certificate, I ordered a skein of yarn called Mohair Silk Sock, which is a blend of Merino, Mohair, Silk, and Nylon, and at $36 is more expensive than the standard Tough Love Sock yarn. Even with the discount and the gift card, the total was around $28 after adding in shipping and tarif. It would have been about $50 without the deal, which I would not have paid. The yarn is very soft and luscious.

I was impelled to crank up socks for myself using the Mohair Silk Sock yarn right away, using my normal basic sock pattern. They feel super soft, but should also be durable. Mohair and silk are both strong fibers that can be used in place of nylon to provide strength in a sock, if someone does not want to use nylon, a petroleum based product.

At the beginning of October, the Classic Cabin Socks pattern was published for Socktober.

It is fun to be credited with the other two pattern testers on the back of the pattern. Our names are listed on the lower right on the last page.

My next sock machine project will be a new pair of Vikings football team color socks for my husband. The pair I made before were in an overnight bag that got left behind at an Airbnb that we never got back 😟.

Agi the Sheep

I liked knitting the little Mouche & Friends bunny so much that I bought the author’s book. I chose the ebook version, so I could print off a paper copy of the pattern I am working on. There are many ways to follow a knitting pattern and keep track of where you are, but I like a paper copy to write notes on and add check marks for completed steps.

After reviewing all the different animals in the book, I decided to knit Agi the Sheep.

Mouche & Friends pattern for Agi the Sheep

One factor in selecting the sheep pattern is that I had some white fingering weight 100% wool yarn that would be perfect. Also, she is adorable.

As with all the patterns in the book, knitting starts at the nose and works outward from there. Yarn markers are added in the places where the eyes will be added and ears knitted on.

Starting at the nose, adding yarn markers where the eyes will go

This is not a beginner pattern, but for me the hardest part of the whole project was embroidering the face on after the head was done. I had to rip out my work three times. I almost decided to leave off the nose and mouth. In the end I was happy with the way they looked after my fourth attempt.

After knitting the neck rows, I washed the head so I could put the stuffing in while the small opening was easily accessible.

After blocking and stuffing the head, I noticed the ears were facing different directions. I considered removing one ear and reknitting it to match the other one, but everyone I showed it to said to leave it as is. Don’t we all have at least one part of us that does not match?

I kept plugging away and got the arms and upper body knitted.

Blocking is suggested so that the wool yarn “blooms”. You could skip blocking altogether, or wait until the knitting is complete. Or stuff as you go but block at the end, in which case the stuffing would get wet and take a long time to dry. I chose to block the knitting in sections as I completed them, and then stuff that part. I Watched a Sweet Georgia podcast interview with Kim Werker while stuffing the arms and body. Kim started Nine Ten Publications, a Canadian publishing house dedicated to “non-fiction books by residents of Canada on topics related to art, craft and creativity” (from their web site).

Sweet Georgia podcast interview with Kim Werker

It takes more stuffing than you think it will to fill up the tiny body parts, put in by small bits to avoid lumps.

I had some tan yarn for the feet, leftover from a pair of socks.

After finishing the legs, Agi got a bath again, from the waist down.

I started knitting Agi’s dress before I finished the rest of the stuffing. The pattern suggests using size two needles, two sizes up from the main body needles. A contrasting color is used to knit horizontal stripes in as you go, and then later chain crochet on vertical stripes. I started out using the same color as the feet for the stripes, as that looked like what they did on the pattern.

After getting as far as the photo above, I was not liking it. The white yarn is light fingering weight, which is a bit thinner than fingering weight. With the size two needles it was coming out pretty loose and big relative to the size of the sheep. And I was not excited about the color of the stripes. Since I was not far along, I ripped it out and started over with smaller needles for a tighter fabric, and a different color for the stripes.

Meanwhile we hosted Wayne’s sister and her family for a cabin weekend. Our nephew, Erik, had fun staging some photos of Agi. She did not have all her stuffing in yet, or any clothes, but they are still Instagram worthy pictures.

Following are photos of the dress using size zero needles, with pinkish yarn for the stripes instead of the tan.

The dress knit on size zero needles instead of two

The vertical stripes are chain crocheted on in the channel where there is a purl stitch all the way down. In the photo from the back show below, the channel farthest on the right does not have a stripe yet.

The back of the dress with most of the vertical stripes crocheted on

I should have used size one needle for the dress, not sure why I went down two sizes. It is a little tight.

Knitting the loopy vest was somewhat tedious. Rows with long loops in the middle of a stitch are alternated with plain knit rows. The method for making the loops was like a “knit in the front and back” increase, with the long loop added between the front and back stitch, and then putting the front stitch over the back stitch on the needle. The first row was excruciatingly not fun. The second row with loops was a little easier once I started to get the hang if it. Subsequent loopy rows were easier, but still took longer than a normal knit row.

I brought Agi the Sheep along on an RV camping trip with friends to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. There was quite a bit of knitting time in the seven hour car ride to get there, and during the vacation. The next two photos show the vest from the front and back, before joining at the shoulders.

Front of the vest before joining at the shoulders

Back of the vest before joining at the shoulders

After the vest was finished, Agi came with us to a restaurant in Medora, North Dakota.

Instructions for Agi’s bag begin with casting on eight stitches, then knitting 20 rows, followed by picking up stitches along the three sides that are not on the needle. I do not like picking up stitches, and this seemed very much like the beginning of the Novus Knit Pouch.

To avoid picking up stitches, I used Lola’s provisional cast on using a pick up line, and then Lola’s pickup method to pick up stitches at the beginning of each row, going up the sides. At the end of knitting the 20 rows, the “picked up” stitches were already waiting on the pickup cord.

Using Lola’s pick up line to start Agi’s bag

I transferred the stitches from the cord to double pointed needles.

Stitches transferred from the cord to double pointed needles

Rows were knitted in the round to complete the tiny purse, using a pattern to make it more interesting.

There was a very rainy day while at the campground that was great for knitting. Most of our group ate breakfast outside under the awning of our friend’s rented RV. I hope they did not think I was rude for declining the offer. One reason we have an RV is so we do not have to sit outside in the rain.

Watching the other people eating breakfast outside in the rain

The bag has eyelets knitted into the top edge for a chain stitch cord, and a knitted Icord handle.

After soaking the bag in water, I hung it to dry on an RV cupboard handle.

I finished Agi the Sheep with her clothes and bag towards the end of the trip. In the following photo she is lounging on the back of the RV sofa.

My Agi dress is a mini dress. The dress on the sheep in the pattern looks longer.

Back at home, Agi is displayed above the fireplace with the Mouche & Friends bunny I made earlier. The bunny is bigger due to both the pattern and thicker yarn used.

I have printed off the pattern and assembled yarn to make the Mouche & Friends pig. Meanwhile, I started a different hand knitting project, and I lost the size zero needles I will need for the pig.

The Library

In 1940, my mom was a preschooler and her sister Kati was 2 years older. She told me that they walked by themselves from their house to the library and back in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, one mile each way. Kati was a prolific reader. When she found out you could check out multiple books at one time, they went back the next day with a wagon. After checking out (and reading) a few wagon loads of books, the librarian changed the rule to limit how many you could check out at one time.

In 1906 a library building was completed in Fergus Falls using plans by local architect Vernon A Wright, and a $15,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie. My family is distantly connected to the Wright family by marriage. My great-great-great Grandfather Charles Clement’s second wife was Elsie Johnson Wright, the widowed sister-in-law of Vernon’s father, George B Wright. George is considered by some to be the founder of Fergus Falls.

Andrew Carnegie contributed almost $1 million towards construction of libraries in Minnesota in the early 1900’s. Following is a photo I found on the internet of the library in Fergus Falls as it would have looked in 1940.

In 1961, a horrible addition was built on to the front and sides in a completely different contemporary style. Later the library moved to a different location, and the original building was repurposed for office space. The following photo is what the building looks like today from the front.

The building currently houses the local newspaper, a law firm, an insurance agency, and a school of dance. I drive by there regularly and cringe every time. Who thought this was a good look? The next photos show the building from the side and back. The semi rotunda was not part of the original library, but at least the materials used are similar.

I went inside to see what it looks like and take a few photos. It was fun to see that some of the original interior features have been preserved.

In 1966 the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) was passed by the United States Government which created the National Register of Historic Places. Buildings on the historic register cannot be remodeled or added on to in a way inconsistent with the original design. This prevents remodels and additions that ruin the original look, as in the Fergus Falls library.

The house where my mom and aunt lived in 1940 is on the National Historic Register. It was built in 1882 by C.C. Clement, my 3rd great grandfather mentioned above. They always called it “the Big House”. We have a photo of the house taken around 1922, with a group of people in front that include my grandfather James Eriksson at about age 12, his father Leonard Eriksson, and Leonard’s parents visiting from Sweden.

The following photo of the C.C. Clement house taken from the Wikipedia article shows more like what it looks like today. There is a big park across the street. It always made for a great view, until last summer when a new community swimming pool was built there. Now the view from the house is the parking lot for the pool.

Around the corner from the C.C. Clement house is the C.J. Wright House, also built in 1882 and also on the historic register. C.J. Wright was the nephew of George B. Wright. The photo is from the Wikipedia article.

There is a drawing of the neighborhood from my mom’s memories of 1940 in her memoir “The Red Cottage“. The Big House/C.C. Clement House is in the upper left. Cousin Elsie’s House in the upper right of the drawing is the C.J. Wright house. Cousin Elsie was Elsie Wright Brown, the granddaughter of Elsie Johnson Wright, Charles Clement’s second wife. The big park where the swimming pool was recently built is off to the left on the other side of Burlington Street.

The neighborhood in 1940 from my mom’s memoir

There is another building in Fergus Falls on the historic register, built between 1888 and 1906, that was originally an “insane asylum” (using a term from that time). It was later a Regional Treatment Center and State Hospital. It is referred to by all these names, as well as the Kirkbride building, after Thomas S. Kirkbride, a 19th Century mental health physician. The following photo of me in front of the Kirkbride building was taken several years ago when Wayne and I went for a bike ride in Fergus Falls. It only shows a small portion of the whole building.

The following paragraph is from an article about Mr. Kirkbride, which you can get to from the green link over his name.

“Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride was an influential advocate of an asylum system based on the tenets of Moral Treatment. In his annual reports as the superintendent of the Philadelphia Hospital for the Insane and in his published treatise on asylum design and function, Dr. Kirkbride promoted a set of detailed principles that influenced the construction and operation of many American asylums built during this period. Seen by Kirkbride as active participants in therapy, the asylum buildings and their surroundings were a central component of his concept of treatment known as the Kirkbride Plan”.

There are other Kirkbride buildings around the country, including one in Traverse City, Michigan near where my niece and cousin live. That building has been repurposed into office and retail space. Fergus Falls does not have the same demographics, and at least one attempt to redevelop the property has failed.

The complex consists of an administration building in the middle, with huge wings fanning out and back on each side. When I was in town running errands, I drove by to get some photos.

It is difficult to get a normal photograph of the entire back since it is so wide. I took a panoramic photo.

Pano photo of the back of the Kirkbride building

We watched the TV series “Vienna Blood” on PBS. It is about a young physician in Vienna in the early 1900’s who works at the local “insane asylum”. He solves crimes with a police detective, using psychoanalysis he is learning from his contemporary Sigmund Freud. The scenes in the asylum seem to me what it would have been like in the Kirkbride building at that time.

There are outdoor concerts at the back of the Kirkbride building now. We went to see the tribute band “Forever Simon and Garfunkel”. It was a a fun concert, a beautiful evening and a great use of the space.

Concert at the back of the Kirkbride building

In addition to food trucks, there was a table sponsored by the Friends of the Kirkbride, a 501c3 non profit. The group is “dedicated to the saving, preservation & rehabilitation of the former Fergus Falls Regional Treatment Center in MN” (from their Facebook page).

I just read in this article about a new effort to repurpose the building. I don’t know what will happen, but I hope they do not tear this place down. If I win the lottery or inherit billions of dollars from a mysterious benefactor, I will donate money to remove the awful addition on the old library building and restore the Kirkbride building.

If I could time travel (and then come back to today), I would want to go to 1940 and get a peek at what all these buildings and neighborhoods looked like before all the changes that have happened since then.

Toolara Cardigan

I found a sweater pattern that would be good for practicing with my flat machine machine. The instructions are for the specific machine I have, the Silver Reed LK150. It looked cozy and practical. I thought this would be “easy” because it was all knitted on the machine, with no hand knitted parts as on the colorwork sweater I made last winter. The only hand work would be the side seams joined with mattress stitch.

I planned to use the same yarn as the other sweater I made using the knitting machine, but in a different color. I liked that yarn a lot, and I had already figured out the gauge and machine settings to use. The pockets are cute, but that was too much fuss for my purpose this time. I ordered the yarn online in a color called “Acorn”. The color turned out to be more gray than I expected.

It was easy enough to figure out adjustments for the stitch count, using the gauge from the other sweater. It turned out to be more challenging than I expected to adjust the pattern for rows per inch.

The pattern had a schematic chart with measurements in centimeters. There is one back section, two fronts, and two sleeves. I copied that out by hand, and figured out the number of stitches and rows based on my own gauge in stitches/cm and rows/cm. I kept getting confused between pattern gauge and my gauge, the stitch and row gauge, and between inches and centimeters, but eventually I was comfortable with my calculations.

Determining the number of rows to get a certain length for the sleeve or main body is straightforward, but the short row shaping on the shoulders was tricky. I figured it out after first making various mistakes. In retrospect, it might have been easier to use a different yarn that gave me the same gauge as the pattern. But oh well, once I had it converted the rest was straight forward.

The following photo is the back section hanging from the machine. It is very stretched out. The blue yarn at the bottom is two “cast on rags” used to cast the project yarn on to and hold weights.

I was knitting along with everything going smoothly until the cone of yarn ran out in the middle of a row. BAD. Knitting without any yarn causes the stitches to drop off the needles. I noticed pretty quickly and only dropped about eight stitches. I was able to get the carriage off (not easy in the middle of a row) and restore the stitches manually back to what it was at the beginning of the row.

After finishing the back section in one day, I started on the two front panels. I ran out of yarn again on the first front panel, dropping off almost an entire row. I rehung that row and continued on. Not a disaster, but took up some time.

The second front panel went smoothly without any dropping of stitches, but when it was done I realized I had put the rolled collar extension on the wrong side. Oops.

Oh No! I knit the rolled color extension on the wrong side

I was able to unravel the incorrect rows and reknit them on the other side, so that they mirrored the opposite front panel. The purple at the top is waste yarn to hold live stitches that will be used later for joining the fronts to the back.

Fronts fixed so the rolled collar extensions mirror each other

The next step was joining the rolled collar extensions on the two front pieces at the back of the neck. I wet blocked the two front sections first. The only other time I wet blocked a sweater it was a disaster, but I decided to go for it. I found some instructions in a School of Sweet Georgia class called Fundamentals to Finishing Knits. I had bought the blocking mats last winter, but not used them yet. It felt like I had to really squish the panels to fit in the target measurements, based on my gauge and stitches. It looked better after it was dry.

The pattern included instructions for hanging the rolled collar extension on the machine, knitting them together, and then binding it off. That would work, but leave a lumpy seam. Instead I used the kitchener stitch I use to graft the toe of circular sock machine socks. It worked beautifully and make a smooth join.

Joining the rolled collar extensions using kitchener stitch

The next step was joining the fronts to the back at the shoulders on the machine. That involved first “hanging” the stitches from the shoulders across the machine, and then hanging the stitches across the top of the back on top of the stitches from the front. Once both the front and back shoulder stitches were on the machine, I knit a row using the largest stitch size, according to the instructions. The stitch size turned out to be too loose. When I showed my friend this photo, she said it looked like a piece of modern art.

Sweater in progress OR piece of modern art?

Seam joining back to fronts was too loose

I tightened up the joining row manually, starting in the middle and pulling each stitch tighter.

Manually tightening up the seam joining the back to fronts

The seam looked better after tightening up the stitches. The sleeves were made by hanging stitches from the side, and then knitting on rows with decreases to made it narrower as you got down to the cuff. In the following photo near the bottom, you can see a ridge where the sleeve stitches start. The stitches hanging on the machine needles are the cuff ready to be cast off. As always, it looks unnaturally stretched out. My laptop is open to a School of Sweet Georgia machine knitting class showing how to do the castoff.

I finished the machine knitting before we left on a short trip to the Twin Cities for a wedding. This project is not very portable, but I planned to work on joining the side seams by hand while away from home. Good thing this was a car trip, not an airplane trip. For a project bag I used a tote I got from my niece, with the logo from their business in the Traverse City area of Michigan, Falling Waters Lodge. It is a fun and unique hotel. Check it out if you are in the area.

Using my Falling Waters Lodge tote for a project bag

We had my sister’s house to ourselves for the weekend, while she and her husband and friends were at the cabin. I spread the sweater out on the carpet there to take a photo, before starting the first side seam join.

Following is what it looks like when the fronts are folded over the back.

I got one side seam done, and about half of the other side joined over the weekend.

After we got back home I finished the rest of the side seam, and wove in many, many ends. My sister Betsy and our friend Mary Lou were still at the cabin, so I modeled the sweater for them. I found the closure in a box of stuff that came with my purchase of The Yarn Shop inventory in 2018. The following photos are curtesy of Betsy and Mary Lou. I still needed to do some blocking, especially on the sleeves.

It seemed very big, and not the color I had in mind. But looking at the photo on the pattern, the style is intended to be loose and comfy, not fitted. This is a watching TV sweater, not a going out sweater.

Another look is putting the closure closer to the bottom rather than near the neck.

After more blocking using my steam iron, I measured the gauge and final dimensions. Amazingly, they were all close to the original targets.

Even with all the mistakes I made and parts I had to do over, knitting this sweater on the machine was way faster than it would have been by hand. I achieved my goal of practicing with and feeling more comfortable using the knitting machine. I may end up giving this sweater away to my daughter or niece, or someone else who wears this color and fills the sweater up better than me.

My next knitting machine project is going to be another colorwork sweater. I have other things to work on first, including a weaving project and finishing some other hand knitting projects already in progress.

Tour de Fleece & Summer Guests

If I talk about spinning with people who are not familiar with wool and fiber craft, I usually have to explain that I do not mean on a bicycle. And when I talk about fiber, I am not talking about food. When I spin, I am using my spinning wheel to transform wool and other animal or plant fibers into yarn.

There is an annual world wide virtual spinning event called Tour de Fleece, coinciding with the Tour de France bicycle race. The first Tour de Fleece started in 2006 with 16 participants. Since then it has grown exponentially to over 10,000 spinners, loosely organized with teams and individuals. Spinners are encouraged to spin every day for 21 days with a personal or group goal. It could be to spin every day for a few minutes, try a new techniques, finish a project, spin a certain number of yards, or whatever you decide. You do not have to be part of a group or sign up anywhere, you can participate individually with your own goals. Following is a link to an article with more information on the event: https://spinoffmagazine.com/tour-de-fleece-coming-ready/

I have been aware of the Tour de Fleece for years. I am often very busy with houseguests and trips in July. We have our annual reunion at the family cabin in July, which requires my time getting things organized and hosting guests. Last year I tried to participate in the Tour de Fleece for the first time, but I was only able to spin for a few days and then I gave up. This year I tried again with a more attainable goal.

Since I got my circular sock machine, I have an ambitious longer term goal of spinning yarn for socks, but it seems impossible as I have never spun anything remotely that thin. Last year I spun this hand dyed four ounce Corriedale batt that I bought at a Fiber Fair in St. Cloud. It came from Greenstone Fiber Arts in Chisago City, Minnesota. I tried to spin it thin.

It seemed to be coming out thinner than past yarns I have spun.

As usual after plying two singles together and washing it, the yarn “bloomed” and became something like DK or worsted weight. In order to have yarn I can use on my sock machine, it has to much much thinner, and preferably with three plies. Not sure what I will do with this.

Most sock yarn is wool with some nylon for strength and durability. There are people who would prefer not to use nylon, being a petroleum based fiber. Alternative natural products include mohair and silk. Sweet Georgia Yarns had a special on a new colorway and fiber blend that is suitable for socks, composed of a blend of wool, mohair and silk. I bought some and will save it for a future time when I “achieve” spinning yarn thin enough for socks.

Last year, toward the goal of spinning sock yarn, I did a School of Sweet Georgia virtual class called “Spinning up a Level”. Meanwhile, Tour de Fleece 2025 started over the 4th of July weekend, a busy time with guests at the cabin that we wanted to hang out with. It was very hot and humid, and our air conditioning was not working. Instead of spinning in the house, I dug out a drop spindle and some fiber to bring over to the cabin. I am not good at spinning with a drop spindle. I have always preferred using a spinning wheel. However, drop spindle spinning is very portable, so gaining proficiency was a good goal to add for the Tour de Fleece. I had a small amount of the following fiber that I used with a drop spindle, and for making samples for the Spinning up a Level class.

Following is a photo of me spinning with the drop spindle at the beach.

I did a little bit of spinning the rest of the weekend, and completed some samples for the Spinning up a Level class,

I was distracted with visitors, the family reunion, and summer activities for the rest of July 2025. Our daughter and her boyfriend visited from California. We did a side trip to Lanesboro, a very cute touristy and artsy town where our niece lives in southern Minnesota. We had a nice visit with her, and got in a bike ride on the Root River trail.

Right after that was the family reunion at the lake which involved time on the water.

My Tour de Fleece participation 2025 was a failure. Skipping ahead to November 2025, I brought my spinning wheel for a weekend at the Nome Schoolhouse . It was a good time to work again on the Spinning up a Level class.

The last page of samples was very intimidating. You were supposed to spin various samples at exact wraps per inch, some with two or three singles plied together. For most of years as a spinner I was happy to get something that was actually yarn, without any thought of getting a particular thickness. I would read articles about someone spinning yarn at a certain wraps per inch and think “what”? This sample card asks for a singles yarn at 60 wraps per inch. Are you kidding me?

Amazingly I made samples that were very thin, even thin enough for socks. There is another class specifically on spinning for socks that I want to do next.

For Tour de Fleece 2026, I tried again with a goal of spinning a little every day, but without trying to do a class or anything complicated. This year was also going to be very busy, but I thought I could manage to spin something a little bit every day on my spinning wheel when at home. I also spun some cotton on a supported drop spindle while we were out of town for a few days. Some rolags I made years ago on my blending board were a good candidate for mindless spinning.

The following are a total of seven ounces of a blend of fibers. About half is wool, the rest is a camel silk blend, angora rabbit, alpaca, a pop of orange merino.

I had worked on spinning these rolags a little in April after we got home from Arizona, before I had the sock machine unpacked or a weaving project set up. After a few days my shins were sore. At first I could not figure out why, and then I realized it was due to treadling the spinning wheel. I guess I had not been using those muscles for months haha.

Tour de Fleece 2026 started over the 4th of July weekend again, when I had some friends visiting. I was able to sneak in about 15 minutes of spinning each day. In addition to hanging out at the cabin, we had fun having our morning coffee at Outstate Brewing in Fergus Falls.

We also drove up to Detroit Lakes to see the giant Trolls by Thomas Dambo, a Danish artist. This art installation includes five very large trolls and a rabbit made out of recycled materials. One is in the city park in Detroit Lakes, the others are scattered around and involve driving to other locations and short hikes to find them.

On this outing we only had time to see two of the trolls. One of them was at a sculpture park that had some cool giant ladies.

After my friends left it was time to prepare for the annual family reunion. I got the house all clean, and about 10 minutes after our son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughters arrived this is what the living room looked like.

It is all good, we loved having them. I did not take many photos but I did get one of my uncle’s famous pizza on the grill at the reunion.

The weather was good and much time was spent outside. Who needs expensive toys when you can be occupied for a long time putting rocks in a bucket and then taking them out?

I only missed one day of spinning when I totally forgot in midst of the family reunion. By the end of Tour de Fleece I had filled up a bobbin with half of the rolags spun into singles.

There are two “rest” days as part of Tour de Fleece, so if you count the one day I forgot as one of the rest days, I achieved my goal. Later, when I finish the second half of the rolags on another bobbin, I will ply them into a two ply yarn. It won’t be thin enough for socks, but it might work on my flat knitting machine.

The rest of the summer involves more visitors, and one short trip to the Twin Cities for a wedding. I hope to continue spinning as many days as I can, while also completing another weaving project and a flat knitting project. As usual, summer flies by way too fast.

Sock Machine Studies

I have made dozens of pairs of wool socks with my circular sock machine in the last year and a half. I do not need to look at any instructions or notes any more, and usually I do not make any mistakes (knock on wood). Lately I have been cranking socks with some different fibers, and making a few things that are not socks.

Some people do not want wool socks. They may or may not be allergic to wool, or want something for warmer weather. Personally, I wear my wool socks most of the time, except for the hottest days of summer. And although I am sensitive to wool sweaters or pants, even with another layer underneath, I do not have any problem at all wearing wool socks.

I have used a wool and cotton blend sock yarn, but that does not help the people who are actually allergic. I found some sock yarn online that is a cotton and nylon blend, without any wool. Cotton does not have any elasticity, so I was not sure how this yarn would work on the circular sock machine.

It turned out to be a challenge using my swift to wind the skein of cotton sock yarn into a ball. It was a mess.

The skein of cotton sock yarn was a mess

In the middle of winding, I came to a dreaded knot. I do not want to find a knot in the middle of cranking a sock. It is better to cut the yarn than risk not noticing it later.

After cutting the knot out, I started a new ball. The bigger ball will be enough for two shorty socks.

In the background of the cotton yarn photos are a set of three ceramic foxes that my mom made. I love them, and had them on display at our house when we lived in the Twin Cities. There are so many other things she made all over where we are now in my parents house, that I could not find a good place for them. Over cabin work weekend, my sister noticed the foxes in the basement work area, and decided she would like to have them. I was glad to give her a turn, and clear out more stuff from the house. Following is a photo of the foxes on display in front of her fireplace.

I wound the cotton yarn onto a cone for using with the circular sock machine. I looked at other socks made with a similar weight of wool yarn to decide what tension to use. Hand knit or sock machine knit socks have less elasticity than commercial socks. Cotton yarn does not have any elasticity. This was going to be an experiment to see how a cotton CSM sock turned out, and whether I would need to make any adjustments to get sock the same size and fit as a wool sock.

I cranked the sock and knew right away that it was not right. It came out looser and bigger than a wool sock at the same tension setting. I cranked another sock with the tension one notch tighter and that one was closer to the size I expected. I cranked the mate to that sock, grafted the toes shut, and washed them both.

When I wash a pair of wool socks, I squeeze the extra water out with a towel and lay them out flat to dry. It usually takes less than 24 hours for them to air dry, unless we are in Arizona when it only takes a couple of hours. The cotton socks took about two days to get dry.

They turned out a bit shorter than wool socks made with the same number of foot rows. I think of wool as being scratchy and cotton as being soft. However the cotton socks felt very stiff, compared to a pair of hand made wool socks.

I had one skein of Rico Design Alpaca Luxury sock yarn made of 70% alpaca and 30% polyamide (nylon). It is fuzzy and soft. Alpaca is very warm, but also lightweight and breathable. It does not have the tiny scales that cause wool to be scratchy.

The alpaca yarn seemed like a candidate for fishing socks for Wayne, so I changed over to the 72 needle cylinder I use for men’s sized socks. The yarn behaved like regular wool/nylon sock yarn. They fit Wayne perfectly. It is way too hot for wool or alpaca socks right now, but they will be ready for cooler fall weather.

While I had the 72 needle cylinder on the sock machine, I decided to try a style of headband I saw at the last crank-in I went to at Rocking Horse Farm in St. Cloud. Instead of the taco twist, it was gathered up with a button added for interest. I used a looser tension so the tube would come out wider. After taking it off the machine, I grafted the ends of the tube together, gathered it across, and sewed on a button. I like the way this headband turned out, but possibly it is too wide.

My next experiment was making socks using some blue Patons Kroy Socks yarn, which is sold as sock yarn, but is quite a bit thicker than most other sock yarn. I used the 64 needle cylinder with two different tension settings. They were both very dense, not right for a sock. I could have loosened up the tension a lot more, but instead I tried again with the 54 needle cylinder and a different colorway of gray, black and white Patons Kroy sock yarn. I have used this cylinder to make a sock with a smaller circumference. Since the needles are farther apart, it seemed like it could work for thicker yarn.

The first sock was OK but came out a little denser and narrower than what I had in mind. I loosened up the tension two notches and tried again. This time the density and measurements were good. When I was grafting the toes closed on this pair the stitches did not come out even. There should have been exactly the same number of stitches on each side but there were more on one side. I fudged and made it work on the first sock, figuring I made a mistake somewhere at the beginning of the toe. When it happened again on the second sock, I realized there was a different problem. It turned out that my one half markings on the sock machine cylinder were off, so that one side had more than half of the needles.

Sock machine cylinders are commonly marked in several places with nail polish or fabric paint at the 9:00, 6:00, and 3:00 positions, and for placement of heels and toes. I remember when I put the markings on that I might have been trying to make the number of heel and toe stitches come out even. Now with more experience, I know that it is more important to have the 9:00 and 3:00 positions marking exactly half of the needles.

I had put the markings on using 3D fabric paint. I thought they would peel off or come off easily but NO. It took some patience and rubbing alcohol to get the offending half and heel marks off, so I could re-mark them in the correct spots. In retrospect I guess fingernail polish is a better option if you need to remove the marks later.

Most sock yarn comes in 100 gram skeins, the right amount for two socks. The Patons yarn comes in 50 gram skeins. At first you think it is very cheap until you realize you have to buy two skeins, but it still a good deal compared to expensive hand dyed sock yarn. When I had finished both socks, I wondered if I had accidentally bought two different colorways. I checked the labels and they were the same.

I ripped out the first socks I had cranked with blue Patons yarn that were way too dense, and re made them on the 54 cylinder, using the same tension as the black and gray pair. They came out nicely this time, but they feel different than the other Patons pair. The yarn is not as soft.

The labels on the two yarns are a bit different, but the weight, yardage and fiber content are the same. The blue skeins have “FX” after “Kroy Socks”. I could not find any information on the label or online that explained the difference. It may be that the marketing team updated the label, but that does not explain why they feel so different. It is a mystery.

These two yarns feel different but the fiber content is the same

Sock yarn is in the “fingering weight” category, sometimes marked as weight “1” on the label. While the 54 needle cylinder was on the sock machine, I tried cranking some DK weight yarn, which is thicker than sock yarn. I bought this yarn from Northcroft Farm, the sheep farm where I attend Fiber Day twice a year, made at a mill from their sheep. It it 100% wool, a mixture of breeds and without any nylon.

I had to loosen up the tension quite a bit, but it worked. I loosened the tension even more in the middle of cranking the longest tube. I cranked the pieces to assemble a gnome. The cranked “fabric” seemed a little rough, but I think it was just the yarn, rather than the density. The stitches per inch seemed correct for DK yarn.

Instead of gathering the stitches up at the top of the hat, I picked up the stitches with a knitting needle and knitted on a pointy end. I also knitted on a ribbed cuff.

Gnome made with DK weight yarn, displayed in front of ceramic boxes made by my mom

The first gnomes I made were following a pattern exactly. Since then I have become comfortable with making up my own version. I think this gnome turned out cute. I added him to the shelf in the kitchen where my other gnomes live, or at least the ones I have not given away.

I can’t believe summer is half over already. First we were having a drought at the beginning of summer, then we had some big rains, now it is dry again. It is currently very hot and we have to water the lawn. Our small vegetable garden is flourishing. The first produce are some zucchini that are growing several inches per day. The weeds are out of control too. This reminds of me a Gilligan’s Island episode where they grow some ginormous vegetables, but then figure out they are radioactive. Our zucchini and weeds are not radioactive, but they are growing fast and furious.

The longest days of summer when it is still light out at 10:00 pm here are behind us, and the days are getting shorter. And smokier. We have an air quality alert in effect due to wildfires in Canada and the Boundary Waters area in northern Minnesota.

This weekend is the beginning of our annual family reunion at the cabin. We have family coming, so I have been busy cleaning and child proofing. It is a special time, but I have to set aside any expectations of getting any fiber crafting done over the next week.

Machine Knit Hat

My flatbed knitting machine was packed away in the box from the end of December until June. It is way too big to use in our fifth wheel trailer during the winter in Arizona, and I was busy with other projects and activities for several months after we got back home to Minnesota in the spring.

There are several things I want to make on the flat knitting machine, including some sweaters. I had to reacquaint myself with the machine first, so I made a hat using instructions and a pattern from the School of Sweet Georgia.

The hat is knitted flat and then seamed on one side. It involved learning some new machine knitting skills, including reforming stitches for ribbing, and decreasing every other stitch across an entire row. I used leftover yarn from the combination machine/hand knit colorwork sweater I knit in the winter.

I thought I would be able to jump right in and start making the hat, but I ended up having to review some instructions on how to get started with the knitting machine. It did not take long to get comfortable again. I was not concerned about the hat fitting anyone in particular, I just wanted to practice and learn the new skills, so I skipped the swatching part and made the smallest size.

The LK-150 knitting machine does not make purl stitches. More expensive flat knitting machines do have ways to make purl stitches. In order to get purl stitches on the LK-150, you have to knit them first and then undo them and redo them as purl stitches. For the hat, I started by knitting the right number of rows for the ribbed band. To get ready to form purl stitches manually I pulled two needles out of work, alternating with two needles left in place, all the way across.

Getting ready to manually reform stitches from knit to purl stitches

The light purple in the photos is waste yarn used at the beginning, before adding the darker purple project yarn. Normally the waste yarn rows would not have a row of holes. I messed up casting on with the waste yarn and ended up with only every other stitch on the machine, so I added another section of waste yarn on every needle. The following photo has all the needles with stitches that will be changed from knit to purl stitches pulled out.

Ready to start making purl stitches manually for the ribbing

To reform a stitch from knit to purl, the stitch is removed from the needle and unraveled down to the beginning row. Then using a latch hook tool each stitch is reformed into a purl stitch. There is a similar latch hook tool for the circular knitting machine.

Reforming stitches could also be done with a crochet hook, the same way stitches that are accidentally dropped while hand knitting are recreated. Once I got in a rhythm it went pretty fast.

The ribbing and main body rows are complete in the following photo, where you can see the entire machine set up in our nice three season porch. It looks much wider than it ended up as a finished hat.

Ribbing done after manually reforming some of the stitches from knit to purl

This hat has a closed cast on at the beginning, right after a row of rip cord row. When the project is removed from the machine at the end and the waste yarn removed, the edge is finished. Alternatively, there could be live stitches at the beginning which could be put on knitting needles in order to knit ribbing by hand. That is what I did on the sweater project last winter. Honestly I do not know which is faster, but maybe speed is not always the goal.

After completing the ribbing and all the rows for the main body of the hat, there are some decrease rows. Most hats I have knit by hand in the round have gradual decreases for a rounded shape. For the smaller sizes this hat has only three decrease rows with every other stitch knit two together. The larger sizes have four decrease rows. The result is that the crown is bunched up rather than smooth. It is just a different look. Alternatively, a more gradual pattern of decreases would also work using the machine..

To knit two stitches together on the knitting machine, one stitch is moved over to the next needle with a dedicated “transfer” tool, so there are two stitches on one needle, which then leaves a needle with no stitch on it. In this case every other needle is either empty or has two stitches. I did not get a photo with the stitches transferred and every other needle empty. Following are three different transfer tools that can move one, two, or three stitches at a time.

Transfer tools for moving 1, 2, or 3 stitches

Before knitting the next row, all the stitches need to get moved towards the center so there are not any empty needles. This is a bit tedious using the transfer tools, and more so the bigger the hat size. The stitches can only be moved over one position at a time, so the same stitch gets moved multiple times until there are no longer any empty needles.

There is another way to move the stitches to the center needles involving knitting a couple of rows of waste yarn, taking the hat off the machine, and rehanging the hat stitches back on the needles without any empty needles. I tried this for the first decrease row and it worked well. This method has the most benefit when there are a lot of stitches. For the second and third decrease rows, there were only half the number of stitches, and then half of that, so I moved them using the transfer tool.

After the last decrease row there were only 12 stitches left, as shown in the photo below. At this point, the working yarn is cut with a tail long enough to pull through the live stitches and seam the side. After using a darning needle to pull the tail through the live stitches, the project is removed from the machine.

Ready to remove the project from the knitting machine

The color in the photo below is not accurate, but it shows the hat removed from the machine and ready to cinch up the top and graft the side seam using mattress stitch. The row of rip cord that was knitted in between the waste yarn and project yarn can be easily removed which separates the waste yarn off.

Off the machine with waste yarn still attached

Ready for hand finishing after removing waste yarn

The following photo shows the completed hat, before blocking. The color is more accurate than the more blueish photos above.

Flat on the machine, the 82 total stitches stretched out to 20 1/2 inches wide. The final hat ended up being 13 inches in diameter. That is close to the finished circumference according to the pattern, but a little shorter.

I am not sure how much time it took to complete this hat, versus how much time it might have taken to knit it by hand (or if it will fit anyone). I think if I had knit a bigger size, the time savings would be greater. Time is not the only factor and I like knitting hats by hand. I learned new machine knitting skills with this project and got practice with the machine, but probably in the future I would not use the knitting machine for a hat.

The hat is a little big for this doll I bought for my granddaughters at a garage sale, but it matches her outfit. She did not come with any clothes on, but I found the skirt and top in a box of doll clothes I had saved from when my daughter was young. She is sitting in a child size rocking chair from my childhood.

I aspire to knit sweaters completely or partially on the knitting machine. Last winter when I showed my son and daughter-in-law the combination hand and machine knit sweater I made, they were impressed and said they would prefer to have me make them a sweater, rather than socks on the circular sock machine. They are not “makers” or crafters and have no idea how much time and effort is involved. The difference between a pair of socks on the circular sock machine and a sweater is huge.

One sock can be cranked on the CSM in about 20 minutes, assuming everything goes well. A finished ready to wear pair of socks including grafting the toe closed, weaving in ends takes less than an hour and a half. A sweater takes many, many hours, I don’t even know how many, including planning, figuring out what size to make, knitting hand and machine swatches, getting started and then stopping to check fit, making adjustments, probably redoing sections, hand finishing, weaving in ends, etc. Doing part or most of the knitting on the machine reduces the total amount of time, but does not eliminate many of the necessary steps. I do hope to knit sweaters for close family members eventually when I am more comfortable with the machine, but I am not there yet.

My head is full of all the yarn I want to spin, all the things I want to weave on my looms and knit by hand and on the sock machine and knitting machine. There are not enough hours in the day.

Waffle Weave Towels

Waffle Weave is a weave structure that looks like actual waffles with little indents, usually made with a multi shaft loom. It is commonly used for towels because it is especially absorbent. Before I owned a floor loom, I attempted waffle weave towels on my simpler rigid heddle loom using a pickup stick.

The School of Sweet Georgia recently added an online class for Waffle Weave towels on a multi shaft loom. After returning from snowbirding in Arizona and getting my life in order back home, I was ready to try Waffle Weave again with my floor loom and good instructions.

Waffle Weave towels next to an actual waffle

Last summer when we went on a trip to Michigan, I bought a souvenir tea towel with the idea of hand weaving matching dish towels. Picking out color combinations is not my strongest suit, but I know when I see something I like. Choosing colors that a designer selected is a winner.

I spent some time trying to understand the Waffle Weave towels pattern. I wanted to make it a bit wider, which meant figuring how many more warp yarn ends were needed to make the pattern come out right, and what color distribution to use.

Sometimes I am feeling thrifty and want to use yarn I have on hand. This time I chose to order the exact yarn specified in the pattern, in the colors matching the towel from the trip. Picking out yarn online is risky as sometimes the choices are limited and not exactly what you are looking for, or the colors you get do not end up being what you were expecting. In this case the colors of 8/2 cotton I got were pretty close.

Before I started measuring out yarn for the towels, we made a weekend trip to the Twin Cities for dentist appointments. Since we were going to be in “the Cities”, we bought tickets for a matinee performance of the play “Sleuth” at the Guthrie Theater, using a gift certificate our Son and Daughter-in-law had given us for Christmas.

The Weaver’s Guild is located within blocks of the Guthrie Theater in Downtown Minneapolis. At my request we left early for the play so I could buy some yarn at the Weaver’s Guild for future projects. It is nice to see the colors in person and not have to pay for shipping. I liked the cayenne color I had ordered online, but the Weaver’s Guild had a different orangy color that more closely matched the fish on the towel.

After we were back home, and I felt comfortable that my calculations were right for the warp yarn length, as well as the number and order for each color, I measured out the warp yarn.

Threading 392 warp yarns through the reed and heddles is slow, but I do not mind. That translates to about 16 inches wide on the loom with 24 ends per inch.

There was enough warp yarn for four towels. The pattern includes two different versions of the waffle structure, “big waffles” with eight rows, and “baby waffles” with six rows. The four towels were different combinations of colors, and of big and baby waffles. The first towel was all “big waffles”.

The second towel was baby waffles with a different pattern of colors.

The third towel was back to big waffles.

I was having a small problem with a “smile”, where the edge of the weaving formed a sort of smile shape with the edges not packing in as far as the middle. I tried to fix this by playing around with looser or tighter tension on the warp yarn, but it did not go away. I attended a School of Sweet Georgia virtual weaving meet-up where I got some ideas about this problem from the attendees. It was likely due to tension being tighter on the edges, so there was not much to be done at this point in the project. It was not terrible, and I thought maybe it would even itself out later when I washed the towels. I did not get a good photo showing this problem, but you can just barely tell on the following picture.

Towel four was a mix of big and baby waffles. After giving up on trying to fix the smile problem, I focused on getting the selvedges to be as even as possible and not draw in too much.

Each towel had 24 rows of twill weave at the beginning and end for the hem. The waffle weave is bulky, and will shrink up a lot and be narrower than it is on the loom. The twill is flatter and will shrink in a little more than plain weave. After finishing the fourth towel, there was still warp yarn left, so I wove some plain weave rows to see what that would look like. The photo below shows twill weave hem rows after waffle weave rows and before the plain weave section.

Twill rows for hem, between waffle weave rows and plain weave rows

There was an extra warp yarn on each side for a selvedge. For the first time, I hung an S-hook on each selvedge yarn at the back of the loom to keep the tension on that warp yarn from getting too loose. I cannot say this has been a big problem in the past, but I was interested in trying it. Some people even hang additional weight on the S-hooks. When I reached the end of the warp and removed the S-hook, there was a bunch of slack in the selvedge yarns. Interesting.

Slack in the selvedge end after removing the S-hook

I also noticed that the back beam where the warp ends were tied on was actually bent in the middle. I don’t know how this is even possible with a metal bar, but likely it was a factor in my “smile” issue.

After the weaving was removed from the loom, the back beam was straight.

Following is a photo of the entire weaving off the loom.

I used my serger sewing machine to separate the towels, while also finishing the edges so they would not unravel.

Serging the beginning and end of each towel

Next there were tons of ends to weave in, not my favorite thing. It is possible to weave the ends in as you go. Due to my smile problem I did not want to add even more bulk at the sides, so I left most of them hanging as I went. In a few cases when I was alternating colors I carried one color up the side, which reduced the total number of ends to weave in.

The next two photos show the four towels separated, with different combinations of big and baby waffles and colors.

The following photo shows the plain weave section at the very end of the warp.

I usually make fringe to finish the ends of towels. Hemming looks nicer, but it is a lot more work. The pattern said to weave 24 rows of twill pattern for each hem. With a perfectly balanced weave that would make one inch of weaving, since this project was woven with 24 ends per inch.

In my head I was expecting to have about a one half inch finished hem after the end of the waffle weave. Given the cotton shrinks and you have to fold it over twice, that was not possible. I could have done the math to figure this out before I started weaving. I had to either make a very tiny hem, or fold the hem over on top of the waffle weave. For three of the towels I folded the twill hem rows over the waffle weave rows and hand stitched it down. On the fourth towel I tried to make a narrower hem but there was not enough to avoid overlapping on to the waffle weave. If I make waffle weave towels again I will weave more than 24 twill hem rows. The following photos were taken after the towels went through the washing machine and dryer.

After going through the washer and dryer, the towels went from 16″ wide on the loom to about 12″ wide. In addition to the expected shrinkage from the cotton fiber, the waffle weave scrunches up more than a plain or twill weave would. My selvedges were evenish within each color, but not so much in the places where I carried a second color yarn up the side.

The towels got wrinkly in the dryer, and ended up with some crinkles that I could not get out with the iron. Otherwise, I like how they came out.

The next photo shows one of the waffle weave towels I woven on my rigid heddle loom in 2021, next to one of the current towels made on my 4-shaft floor loom. The yarn used for the towel on the left is 8/4 cotton which is twice as thick as the 8/2 cotton yarn for the towel on the right.

I do not remember where I got the instructions, but here is a link to the blog post I wrote about waffle weave towels on the rigid heddle loom.

If you want to try waffle or similar weaves with a pick up stick on a rigid heddle loom, there are a couple of options. The School of Sweet Georgia has a class called “Weaving Lace on a Rigid Heddle Loom”, with warp and weft floats similar to waffle weave. In November 2026 they will be publishing a new rigid heddle pattern for a waffle-like scarf. There is also a pattern for Rigid Heddle Waffle Weave from Kelly Casanova here.

I left the warp yarn waste on my loom for now, with the yarn ends tied so they will not accidentally get pulled out. I may measure out yarn for another set of waffle weave towels and tie the ends on to the leftover ends from this project. That takes time, but less than starting from scratch threading all the ends through the reed and heddles.

Leftover warp yarn ends waiting for another project to get tied on

All in all I am happy with the way these towels turned out. Even having a few imperfections and wrinkles, they are functional towels, they dry hands or dishes, they look nice.