Category: Loom



YAY! My brother likes his socks!

He likes the arch ribbing like I do.

Just for review: these were Turkish cast-on. Chiaogoo needles Two at a Time socks. Then arch ribbing. Fleegle Heel, my favorite.

I thought I was finished at a 2″ cuff, but my brother needed a longer one for his boots. Otherwise, I would have been finished on his birthday.

Towards the end I had to rely on Advil and Aspercreme. But now my hands can rest a bit.

I found a bunch of unfinished WIPs. Here are a couple calling me:

Maybe I make me watermelon socks?
Or, should I make another pair from these?
Now I can finish the larger size basket weave hat.

I’m nearly finished with Smiling Turtle!

Just got the top little bit. I like this so much it may go on my bathroom wall. I think the blues will blend or compliment the vague color palette. Besides, that smile will make me happy.

I think next week I’ll record my favorite songs. I’m loving Going Home, God Bless The Child, Just the Way You Are, and a few more. With my new enthusiasm for improv or composition I now have a keyboard within reach of my every perch. (Recliner, bed, Dabbling Den)

I didn’t get ‘Dar’s Dabbling Den’ rearranged yet. I want to make more room for my Yamaha keyboard near my piano. Maybe this weekend?

I’d like to make it easier to switch gears, bring in violin, ukulele, recorders, art challenges, podcast or book narrations.

Since COVID months ago, I’ve not been able to get faster than 5 miles in 35. But I’m still trying. And now that spring may have arrived I need to find walking time. Still a work in progress!

Oh, and I am three book reviews behind.

Duolingo still plugs along. I seem more focused on Italian. It’s easier.  I still visit the other languages when the spirit moves me.😉


The basket weave hat is coming along.
I’m nearly finished with increased on the heel. My guess is by the end of the weekend the heel will be completed the hope is to finish these before my brother’s birthday.

Finishing the top of the smiling turtle diamond painting. This part is hard to reach on the light pad easel so I have to turn it upside down down. I hope to finish this by next weekend.

My music is coming along. I just don’t know how to quantify or make pics. Some of the times it seemed my eyes and fingers were on different people! So maybe that I got through the week mostly playing with practice hidden in there, and I didn’t kill anyone, I am still in love with the pieces I’m working on, and I look forward to my next sit down should count as progress. Right? I’m working on another Warts and All recording soon.

Oh, and by the way…

Finishing Friday


The beauty out my window takes my breath away. But take a look at the temps through next week. I think I am wishing for summer. I’m finished with winter
Just a couple strays in the middle section. Soon I will turn it upside down to diamond paint the top. Smiling Turtle makes me smile.
Maybe two more knitted rows and I’ll begin the heels. I have to do the heels in one day so I don’t get lost. So maybe in spite of arthritis these will be done by my brother’s birthday.

A bigger basket weave hat. I flat or U-wrap knit as it makes a tighter fabric than e-wrapping. And this CinDWood loom is comfortable to work with. At least my hands don’t hurt while loom knitting. I do miss crocheting.

I’m nearly finished with a couple books. I’ll share the reviews in a couple of days.

Meanwhile, I’ve started

So far it bores me and the font so small and tight it hurts my eyes. But I’m determined to learn all I can about improvising.

I still haven’t touched the violin or ukulele while my hands heal. I miss them and the learning process. Piano will have to keep my passions. Today not so much. Ever have days when you are so tired you just want to stay in bed? Those are rare for me, but today. Ugh. But hey, I still did a little of my routine. A little progress is still progress.


Your prompt for JusJoJan January 31st, 2025 is “fini.” Find a word that has “fini” in it and use that as your prompt word. Have fun!

Well, that’s easy! It is Finishing Friday! A great way to keep track of hobbies and passions. A way to see progress when, at times, it seems the end is as far as infinity. Row at a time, an inch at a time, a chord played right, or a rhythm that stays where it belongs is fun to keep track of. Many keep track of grievances or pain. I have. I probably will again and again. But I feel more fulfilled if I can see good and beautiful things done from the same place as the bird’s song. It feels right. It gives me pleasure. Not because I am looking for praise. I thank you for that, but it is more for me to feel like I am moving forward.

This felt good as it hit. Some days I do a lot of lessons. For others, I just do the one to get the points. I love languages, so it is fun for me.

The last two hats were for smaller heads. So I decided to make one a little bigger. I just finished the ribbing and started on the basket weave part. It is easier on my hands than crocheting or knitting, so while I am feeling the arthritis, I’m being gentle on the fingers.

My brother’s socks are coming along. Less than an inch to the end of the arch ribbing. Then, an inch to the beginning of the heel. I feel I am at the beginning of the end of this pair.

The middle section of the ‘smiling turtle’ diamond painting is almost done. It is a fun project. I love all the colors.

I have, in all essence, finished this book. Most of it was a review of things I’ve learned all my life, especially as a music major. But toward the end, it started meeting my needs. It has a lot of ways to improvise. I still find myself trying to play every single note rather than play, but I’m seeing ways to do it. I’ll be doing the review for this book soon. Mostly, at this point, I am in love with the last song presented. It’s called Coming Home.

So my favorite songs to play right now are Baby Elephant Walk, Just the Way You Are, God Bless the Child, and Coming Home. They drive me to the piano. I actually spent an hour there today. Remember in the summer or fall when I stated I could barely get five minutes in before pain or boredom pulled me away. Now, I have the joy of actually hearing and feeling the earworms that crawl through my head the rest of the day. My own music!

My ukulele, violin, and recorders sit sadly, waiting for my hands to feel better. I miss the learning process with them.

Well, that’s my Friday report. Fini!


Please visit June’s blog to read her posts and say hello. And follow her while you’re there if you’re not already.
Your prompt for JusJoJan January 24th, 2025 is “hobbies.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!
One of my hobbies is diamond painting. My ‘smiling turtle’ is coming along. I’d say about halfway.
Because crochet has been hurting my thumb, elbow, and shoulder, I went back to loom knitting. The ribbing is two-by-two knit/purl. I am not a fan of e-wrapping. It seems too bulky. But it’ll be warm for someone out there. I’ll make a top-knot puff to finish it.
My second loom knit hat is a basket weave. I only e-wrapped the cast-on. I’m using the green, 36-peg loom. The weave look is three knits, three purls, and alternating the order every three rows. This one needs a top-knot, too.
My brother’s socks are coming along. I hope he likes the ribbed arch like I do. Once the arch is done, the rest of the sock seems to come along quickly. Hopefully, they will be done soon.

My other hobbies are musical in nature. Having gotten back to piano this past summer, starting at one song or five minutes, only as long as it was fun. Now I can go as long as an hour but seem to average half an hour to 5 minutes.

After summer and fall, working on classical, suddenly winter brought some fun carols. I loved some of the more modern rhythms. So when I had to put them away, I made a bit of a resolution or goal to learn more modern beats. I want to be able to improvise and even compose my own music. So I started working through a few books like

Much of it is elementary. I assume I am of intermediate level. But my rhythm is horrid. Especially modern beats, blues, or jazz.

I pulled out another book and started at the beginning with the song, Just the Way You Are, from this book:

Version 1.0.0

It seems easy enough, but it sounded nothing like the beloved Billy Joel’s golden hit when I started. But gradually, the beat is growing in my soul.

I was trying other instruments to get back into music. Recorder, soprano, alto, and tenor. Ukulele. And finally, a violin. When my thumb, elbow, and shoulder started hurting, these also had to go by the wayside. I miss them, but the piano doesn’t hurt my arms or hands. My back, yes. But I am working on posture and yoga to help with that. Hence the shorter sessions.

I love being 75. Retired. Older than my piano teacher was when I was 12, older than my mother, who never got to play for fun. I’m trying to play for them now. And my inner sprites and muses.

I take it seriously!


This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt for today, Craft, comes from Astrid. Check out her blog here!

I love being retired. After a lifetime of crafts that I never had the time to dive in whole, even though I had a lot more money, there was no energy at the end of the day, nor the time. Being able to deep dive until the muse is used up on a topic or drive.

Diamond Painting is calling me back, and now that the bigger knitting project is finished, the Dragon from last year needs the sealant so I can send it off.

Oh, that’s the thing about these crafts; it is delightful to indulge deeply, but it is so much better to have someone to gift the finished products to. I know some actually sell their works. But I just can’t get to that point. I don’t like a timeline, and I get too perfectionistic the minute I think someone else will see it or pay for it. The minute ‘time is money,’ it is called a job. I can’t. I just can’t.

But yummy yarn, loom knitting, crocheting, Tunisian crochet, diamond painting, drawing, Zentangles, playing with my wig or my own hair (a throwback to my first career of being a cosmetologist), all my musical instruments recorders, ukelele, piano, singing, coloring, rainbow looming, writing, reading. There are many I’m afraid I’m leaving out, and I feel like a bad parent for neglecting them to the point of forgetting their names! And are they all considered crafts? Then there’s macaroni. Oh, yeah, that’s spelled with a ‘K’!

Photo by Ksenia Chernaya on Pexels.com

Making Monday


Didn’t go half as far today. Even at 11am it was too hot and humid. Tomorrow we need to walk far earlier or evening.

Instead, I thought I’d better capture the greenery while I can. We are green usually only early Spring. But here we are nearly July when yellow and hot dust is the norm for the desert Outback of Oregon.

Looking south. The hay barn has the first cutting of alfalfa.
Looking south-west.
The sagebrush is taller than me! But still green.
I don’t know if this is edible but it looks like wheat. All similar plants are green.
Looking northish. Just enjoying the green scenery.
Looking west towards Table Rock mountain. So green!
Another looking northish. Sky blue with green fields.
The yellow butterflies from the beginning of summer have faded away. Now we’re getting white ones. This one has spots and is showing off!
The science says this proves the high moisture in the air. But I’ll accept love and promise, too. But really, the humidity is part of why we had to cut the walk short.

~~~~

So, I think I know what I want to wear for my daughter and her fiancé’s October costume wedding.  Crone witch! I can make my own hat and cape! The crone part is built in!🤪

So at the beginning of the weekend I was working with Scarlett Royal’s loomknit witch’s hat. But I learned there would be a lot of sewing. 

I had socks on the Flexes so I transferred by way of a skinny set of ChiaoGoo Red-lace Circular Needles. I had started on the 12 peg  loom for the brim and the 36 peg for the hat. That was when I noticed I’d have a lot of sewing ahead.

In the past, I learned I could do a nice decrease using the Flexees. But for this witch hat I needed to get a good point. I didn’t feel I could figure that out. Here’s her YouTube if you want to try.

I have made a couple hats by her including a beret I was quite proud of. And I do love the picture of this hat.

I think this next one by PleasantSeas may do the trick. After tinking and frogging all weekend, I found and started working on it.

I read the pattern featured on the YouTube page. That I can do. I told myself. It starts similar to my Toe-up Two At A Time Socks. So I followed the pattern about 17 rows in. Then I noticed that it seemed the author got the numbering wrong. Once again, my tracking was off. Still I was liking how it was turning out.

Here’s what I should have done:

But here’s what I have at Row 17.

Yeah. I’m stuck with the Knitter’s Pride Royale circular needles. See how the cord coils up? Ugh! But all my other needles are in use.

Anyway, I think I’ll continue as I am going until the “wearable” part of the hat gets close. Then I’ll increase faster as PleasantSeas does. I think I want the point high or curly. We’ll see how that turns out.

Meanwhile, the socks I pulled off the Flexee looms, looks like this:

Two more inches before the Fleegle Heel. These would fit me right now. But these are for someone else.

Sadly, the Flexees are empty. Back to just needle knitting for now.

But now I need to drop the needles and hop on the stationary bike to see if I can make up the mile(s) we missed this morning.

Finishing Friday


Two pairs are nearly finished. I would guess this greyish brown pair will be done tomorrow. Yay!

Eight more rounds of ribbing and these will be done. Maybe Sunday?
These are weeks from being finished.
These might be a week or so from hot off the looms.
I know, not related to knitting but our weird dark cloudy days had the hay barn in a glow. It looked like angels were singing! I know, I’m a dork. It’s the little things, right? This was a couple days ago

Finishing Friday


I wish I were farther along than I am. But I’ll take what progress I can.

One finished two-toned sock done. The mate is nearly finished, too. Yay! Oh, these are cotton. The loom is the Flexee fine-gauge loom. Kitchener Cast-on toe. German short-row heel. Two-by-two ribbing cuff. The cast-off is a crochet type. I’m not so happy with only one chain between loomed stitches. I needed more stretch for this pair of socks.
Same cotton but a different pair. Knitting on ChiaoGoo red-lace circular needles. These are Toe-up Two At A Time Socks. Now I need to learn how to do wrap-and-turn heel. I now have three pairs waiting for my brain to catch up.
These, too, are cotton. A far finger thread. The needles are thin, I think size 1? Again, these are ChiaoGoo red-lace circular needles. I expect these to take twice as long as the thicker cotton socks. At least they are starting to be more like socks and less like bras.

I’m going to post this as a place holder. Our internet isn’t working. It is even spotty on my phone. Hitting publish now.

Edit: All I got into this post last night was the paragraph just above. The pictures came through only just this morning. Now I’ll label them.

My Stream of Consciousness Saturday may have to happen on Sunday.

There is no one in the office of our internet company to help during the weekend.😒

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