What I've Been Doing - Part 2

I've been working like mad on the blanket I'm embroidering. The person it is intended for informed us that they are leaving the country, hopefully within the next week or two. Not sure how that is going to work out for them, but I decided that I'd better get busy and, well - get busy! So, I've been cross-stitching like crazy in any of my free time.

However, when we were at Nova Linea, I picked up a handful of small nails, as well as the fountain (and a 12 pack of TP). Over the past few days, while I cross-stitched I did a lot of praying - and that will continue until I'm finished with the blanket. But inbetween prayers, I did a lot of thinking, too. :) :) And one of the things I thought about was how to make a new 4x4 inch loom.

The one I have, a little green plastic Weave Easy Hand Loom, is falling apart. I've used it alot. I like using it. A lot. Little woven 4x4 inch blocks just seem to leap off this loom. I looked all over the internet and could not find a replacement - besides which, I figured a replacement would soon wear out, too. I looked at 4x4 inch looms for sale, but they are all different styles than this one and I have already made several blocks and want them all to be the same. So, I made my own loom.

HA HA HA! It is a funny looking thing, don't you think? But I made it. All by my lonesome.

I looked for wood at Nova Linea but didn't find anything that struck my fancy. Mel reminded me that we had that old shoe caddy at home that had fallen to pieces when we put shoes on it - it was make of wood. He'd used pieces of it to prop the window a/c stuff and hold it in place,

but there were several other good pieces left that I might be able to use. And I did. I measured the little green loom (about 50 times over the weeks I've been thinking about this!), and I measured the wood. I drew lines, make little marks, thought about it, muttered aloud about it, wondered about it, nagged Mel about it. He finally found pieces for a hacksaw in his tools, put it together for me, and went and cooked dinner for us both. I went out on the balcony and began sawing. Hack saws apparently do not cut straight down... or maybe it's my technique? Then I came back in, propped a stool on top of my legs and began nailing the 4 pieces together on top of the stool, measuring here and there every few hammer blows to make sure I was getting the right size. Why did I do it on the stool propped on my legs? :) :) :) Even writing that sounds weird. Well, because I didn't have any other surface to work on and bending down over that same stool to saw the wood killed my back. So, I propped the stool on my legs and then hammered it all at chest height, where I could actually SEE the nails and it worked very, very well. No bruises on my legs because I didn't hammer that hard, no smashed thumb or fingers, just easy pain-free hammering. And you see what I came up with.

The wood on the last bar began to crack as I was putting in the last few nails. I would have drilled holes first for the nails, but 1) Mel's drill needs charged, 2) he didn't have a bit that small and 3)I would have made a mess of it, having never really drilled anything before. So, instead of throwing the whole thing out and starting over (oh yeah, I forgot to mention - I glues the pieces down before I started nailing, so they were mostly glued together at that point), I decided to apply some glue to the cracks and see if that would hold the nails. And so far, it has!

As soon as the glue was dry, I made a 4x4 inch square - measured it back-to-back with one of the ones made on the little green loom - and voila! They are the same. Here are three photos, showing what I'm making: Front:

Back:

What I'm doing with them:

I'll write more about what I'm doing with them, and how I'm making them later tonight. For now - it's time to go eat dinner!