Handwoven Patio Pillows in their Place

As you may remember way back on June 6,  I started

this weaving project which consisted of two 18" square

 pillows and one 12"x16" pillow

The colors were inspired by this
mosaic I made a couple of years ago.

I provided the statistics of hours spent on the
June 16th post.

In addition to that, I spent one hour on each pillow
blind stitching the "opening edge" together.

Sure makes those $20.00 pillows at Home Depot
look like a bargain if you consider my cost of
yarn and the $30 cost for pillow forms and
backing material, not to mention all my time.   
However, then I wouldn't be able to say 
"I wove them", which always starts another interesting 
conversation; "what to you mean you wove them?"

And yes other weaving projects are materializing
in my mind as we speak...

More Fun in the Sun...

Tuesday was a BBQ Chicken Dinner, in the 

air-conditioned Ballroom, 

with entertainment by a local singer and violinist - Great

Wednesday was Gym day… in the air conditioning!!!

Thursday I headed out about 8:20 for a quick 2 mile walk 

from one end of the park to the other via the center greenbelt. 

I kept my eyes peeled for rattlesnakes on the way to the 
south end of the park.  Fortunately there weren't any, just lots
of birds and 16 cottontail bunnies who always  
sat motionless in the shade till my camera got too close!!!

After one mile, I turned around headed north. I was 

glad to see that the Superstition Mtns 

were clear of smoke for the first time in over 2 weeks.

And, it was a pleasure to get sprinkled as I

 continued to seek out a shaded route.  By the time I finished 

my 2 miles at 9 a.m., it was already 92 degrees.

Thursday night more fun in the air-conditioning...

and today at 8:30 it was the TRX  class for me. inside.

(Total Body Resistance Exercise) 

So much for “Fun in the Sun”… loving it!!

Today it's going to be clear and 107.  ( 112 in Phoenix.)

A Mixed Bag..

Cooling Temperatures in Gold Canyon

encouraged us to play catch up while the

high temperature was forecast to be below 95 degrees
for a few consecutive days, unheard of for June!!!

One morning at 6:50 a.m. ( and only 74 degrees),
I jumped on my bike and headed off to play some Pickleball
at our neighboring resort, Montesa, via the back gate.

We only had 10-12 players.  After all it is
the "off season".

Some played, while others

sought out the limited shade and
watched and/or waited for their turn.  By 9:00 a.m.
it was 85 degrees and I was "done", literally - so
I jumped on my bike for the short 1.2 mile return trip.

An indoor project shows the kitchen counter once
again being used for non-cooking.  Here you see some of the
tools of the trade for threading a serger.

If you've done this before, you know what
I mean, if you haven't, don't!!!
As I started the process I discovered a
thorough cleaning and new needles were in order.
 So we headed off for another "outing", this time
to Mesa.

Mulqueen's is a 16,000' sewing, quilting & embroidery shop that has everything
imaginable including a great display of antique sewing machines with hand cranks, in
addition to 15,000 bolts of fabric and even "self threading" sergers... boy was I tempted.

My only acquisition was a sturdy serger
storage case which fit nicely in Don's
storage area, right next to my sewing
machine.  I'll be giving both of them
a good workout when the serger comes home
in a few day and I start construction of my new
handwoven patio sofa pillows...

Weaving continues...

On June 6th I introduced you to my current

weaving project and I've had lots of time

for this indoor activity since then.

Weaving involves many steps starting with measuring the
threads that go on the loom (shown previously) and then threading
the reed which keeps the warp threads evenly spaced.
And as you can see I've actually started throwing the shuttle
and weaving the fabric.

If you need an update on the vocabulary, check out June 6ths post.
And you'll see that the mess of threads hanging under the loom
has been magically straightened out!!!

This diagram tells the weaver how to thread the loom.
Those horizontal lines show circles on different "harnesses".
I am only using 4 for this project, but my loom has 12...

The little square grid to the right tells me which harness
gets tied to which foot treadles, and the vertical lines under that
box tell me which foot treadles to step on in which order
to create the desired fabric.  As you can see, from my pencil
notations, I am already making up some of my own "I wonder
what it would look like if I did this" instead.  

It took me over 12 hours to get the loom ready to weave...
mainly because it involves 624 threads across the width,
"sett" in the reed at 30 ends per inch.  This morning
I wove 21" (for 1 pillow top) in
30 minutes.  Only 2 more to go.
As you can see, you spend way more time designing and
getting the loom ready than you do actual "weaving".

Hot... in More Ways then One...

The Resort hosted a Summer Kick Off Party

with a beach theme, Karaoke, line
dancing and "beach ball tossing".

On June 8th Don was sitting on the lower covered patio
to see if he could tolerate102 degrees... when he saw this.

We took the stairs to the upper deck for a better view
of the Woodbury Fire.

This human caused fire that started 

June 8th has burned over 23,000 acres and is 

ZERO % contained as of today.

Adding to the heat, the Mountain Fire (11 miles 

NE of Gold Canyon… near Cave Creek,

 North of Phoenix) is fortunately 55% contained.

It too was human caused!!!

That’s not all that’s hot in town…  

temperatures in Gold Canyon have been above 99 

for the last few days, and on the 9th it hit 102;

the 10th,106; yesterday 108 and today 106.

Phoenix topped that with 112 Wed and

 110 Thur.    If  the forecast is correct,

 looks like Phoenix will have 25 days in June

 over the 100 degree mark.

 “Cookin” has been put on the back burner since it's cooking outside.

  No BBQing - to hot; no crockpot or Geo Foreman, so the microwave

won out... Eggplant Parmesan with a cool salad

and Vino that wasn't too hot with ice cubes.    AHHHHH

I took this panorama from our rooftop yesterday,
looking east...  

And hot spots are still billowing.

Even the pool water in both of our pools

is "cookin" and not too refreshing!!!

Maybe a trip to beautiful Canyon Lake is in order. 

Be great to swim in the cool clear water with some
of our fine feathered friends - NOT.    Road closed due to wildfires!!!

Ahhhh - Finally Time to Relax

The best thing about a high kitchen counter is not for cooking UGH,
but for measuring the yarn for a handwaving project!!!

This project is quite complicated as it needs groups of
natural colored fine cotton and also colored cotton threads.  

Total width of the warp (threads placed on the loom)
 for our patio pillows project, calls for a total of 620 threads,
 each 2 1/2 yards long.  Using a warping board makes it easy
to keep track of the color order and the length of each thread.

Don's way of relaxing was to take the new Honda CR-V
on another test drive.   He drove and I took pictures
as we visited Florence AZ, about 30 miles away.

Florence is the county seat of Pinal County (in which we now live), and is one
of the oldest towns in the county. It  is a National Historic District
with over 25 buildings listed on the Nat'l Register of Historic Places.

And in addition to many colorfully remodeled houses,  it is home to
the Florence Military Reservation,  an Army National Guard Training site
which is part of the Department of Emergency & Military Affairs.

The AZ Dept of Corrections also manages
several prison facilities in the area that can
only be seen from a birds eye view!!!

Back to my type of "incarceration".  This shows the warp
threads secured to the front of the loom (with flat sticks
and shoe laces) to keep things in place.

The fine cotton yarn is threaded thru the "reed" which keeps
the warp threads spaced evenly in the correct color order order,
if I do my job correctly!!!

Since my project calls for 30 "ends (threads) per inch",
I am using a 15 "dent" reed.  Dents refer to the # of spaces
per inch in the reed...
so I am carefully placing 2 threads thru each "dent"...
15 x 2 = 30!!!  See, that's not so confusing is it???
  After a little more therapy,  (that's weaving therapy),
I'll be back when it's time to start weaving.