Here’s hoping each and everyone of you have the best holiday season possible. And in this coming New Year of 2010, find Peace, Joy, Love and Prosperity!
Merry Christmas today and Happy New Year!
Posts woven by The Wicker Woman® – Cathryn Peters
Entries from December 25th, 2009
Weaving studio saga continues!
December 22nd, 2009 · Comments Off · Weavin' Wicker Woman Blog
I just realized that it’s been a couple weeks since I last posted anything on my blog! Egads! Time to catch up.
Hubby and I have been really busy cleaning out the garage/studio making room to move around so we can finish off my end of the building and complete the chair caning, basketweaving studio. Then we tackle his double bay garage that’s so full with “stuff” we can’t even park cars there!
As you may remember, we have the south end of my studio all complete with paint, wallpaper, trim, lights, window blinds, etc… But the north end has only been sheetrocked and taped. No paint, trim, light fixtures or anything else.
Just last week I used the new spray foam insulation around all the windows (since they don’t have the trim on yet either and are losing heat like crazy) and was quite proud of myself for taking the initiative to do something on my own while hubby was gone.
Then the panic set in when I discovered I couldn’t open ANY of the windows! How was I going to explain my way out of this one? He’s always telling me to do things on my own and be independent, well, I sure showed him on this one.
Luckily when he came home and I fessed up, he was able to open all the windows. The foam insulation hadn’t made them inoperable like I thought; I just hadn’t turned the latches the right way to open them! Duh….
Events Calendar Updates!
December 15th, 2009 · Comments Off · What's New
Just made some more updates and new postings on the Events Calendar page for Basketry and Gourd Workshops and Conventions!
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, events just to name a few places scheduling basket workshops!
WEDNESDAY WICKER WISDOM-Chair Seat Weaving
December 10th, 2009 · Comments Off · Weavin' Wicker Woman Blog
Did you know that “chair caning” is but one of several different design patterns or techniques of chair seat weaving or chair seating?
And that there are many, many different kinds of materials to use in weaving all the other types of chair seat weaving?
For each of the techniques and methods of weaving listed below, the weaver uses a different type of material and weaving pattern and/or design.
There are basically three different kinds of chair caning alone:
- Traditional Hand or Hole-to-Hole Caning–uses strand cane
- Sheet Cane or Cane Webbing–uses loom-woven “sheet”
- Porch Cane or Round the Rung–uses wide binding cane or slab rattan
*See my eHow.com article on “How-to Identify the Three Types of Chair Caning“ (Please read, rate and add your comments.)
But there are several other kinds of chair seatweaving also, besides caning. However, the general public mistakenly tend to call all weaving techniques and materials, “chair caning.”
Here are a few of the other types of chair seat weaving, which I will discuss thoroughly in future posts:
- Natural Cattail Leaf Rush and Paper Fibre Rush
- Splints of oak, ash, hickory bark, or flat reed,
- Seagrass
- Danish Modern Cord
- Rawhide
- Skeined Willow
- Whole Willow
Visit the Seatweaving and the Pricing/Charges tabs of my website for a quick description and photos of what’s to come from this series ahead of time, if you’re curious.
The Wicker Woman® Fan Page
December 9th, 2009 · Comments Off · Weavin' Wicker Woman Blog
How many of you bloggers also have Fan Pages on Facebook? The Wicker Woman® has had one for quite some time now. And if you’d like to follow me too, there’s a Fan Page widget on the right sidebar here, take a look!
Recently, on the Discussions tab, I made a thread where everyone can post their Fan Page addy too! That way we can all see your Fan Page and become followers. It’s a little more personal way of fanning, since most of us here may already be following your blogs.
Sometimes it’s difficult to discover all these cool Facebook Fan Pages and listing/posting yours on other people’s Pages is just another way of spreading the word. Happy Weaving!
Updated Events Calendar
December 9th, 2009 · Comments Off · What's New
Just updated the Events Calendar page to include Land of Lincoln Basketweavers Association (LLBA) of Illinois “Spring Fling” workshop brochure PDF taking place in March.
Take a look–another great line-up of teachers and basketry classes: Loni Labak, Mary Smith-Stokes, Karen Zane, Marlene Meyer, Phyllis Scarbrough and Karen Kotecki
MONDAY MENTION-The Cutest Blog on the Block
December 8th, 2009 · Comments Off · Weavin' Wicker Woman Blog
This MONDAY MENTION is one of the most interesting and helpful Blogger.com blogs I’ve run across in a long time. And thank goodness I found them when I did!
I was originally just looking around for some buttons, background and other decorations for my blog. But when I screwed up the code on my blog so badly, was grateful to The Cutest Blog on the Block , where I found some tips on their “Blog Secrets” page that really helped get me out of a jam.
They offer tons of FREE stuff for your blogs like; backgrounds, banners, templates, buttons, blinkies and more. Be sure to check out the Free Blogging Secrets, Blog Design Tips, and their excellent list of FAQs, too.
And if you are really stuck and just can’t figure out how to design and put up a blog, you can hire them to do it for you! The designs are terrific and the price is really reasonable.
The Cutest Blog on the Block also has a special feature called Blog Books where you can actually make a hardcover book of all your blog posts! Check it out, what a great gift to pass on to your children and grand children! Happy Blogging Everyone!
Weavin' Wicker Woman MIA, part 3
December 7th, 2009 · Comments Off · Weavin' Wicker Woman Blog
The saga with the blog mishap continues…
Back in September (click for the post) of this year, I made several radical changes to this wicker-basketmaking-chair caning blog and was fairly happy with the overall look and feel of it. But then just a few days ago, got a wild hair to switch from a two-column layout format to a three-column.
Well, was that ever a mistake! I should have paid someone to redesign the blog for me, but nooooo… The idea was to open up the sidebars, so I could better monetize the site and add in more widgets to doll it up a bit more. And do a few other tweaks, which would streamline things for me, assuring me of clear sailing ahead.
Well, it just so happens that “Miss Smarty-Pants” code master here, knows just enough code to REALLY screw things up! I messed up lots of the code by just going into it and cutting and pasting, moving this snippet and replacing it with this…. Changing fonts here and colors there, moving this thingie around and that one…
And when I actually switched from the 2-columns to the 3-columns, an error warning message came up telling me that I was going to lose ALL my widgets saying, “Are you sure you want to proceed, you will lose all your widgets?”
I thought, “Yes, I do want to proceed.” After all, I had saved all those widgets and could easily replace them IF they really did get lost or wiped out. Simple, right? I do code all the time, how hard could it be?
I spent literally days fixing this whole blog, redoing all the code and replacing every, single, little widget, because I hadn’t saved them correctly after all.
And I have a backlog of chairs I should be caning, and antler baskets to make for the galleries, to say nothing of putting them up for sale on my domain website–and the Christmas presents! Yikes!
However, in my mania over the last few days as I was stumbled around on the Net doing my research, I discovered some really neat, helpful blog designers with cool buttons, banners and backgrounds! Some sites offer them as free downloads and others charge a nominal fee.
That’s the silver lining to this story and will be fodder for the next few MONDAY MENTIONs here, so stay tuned! I hope you’ve had a good laugh and will mark this down for further reference and here’s hoping you’ve learned something at my expense and it never happens to you.
Let me know how you like the “new look,” by leaving some comments. Oh yeah, that’s another place I screwed up and cut out some code I shouldn’t have. Because now I can’t get the “Author Signature and Date Stamp” in there again! Using the little WYSIWYG element buttons doesn’t do a thing!
Has anything like this ever happened to you before? If so, what was your final saving grace? Did you survive and come out smelling like a rose with all your new-found knowledge? Or did you wise up and hire a pro who really knows what she/he is doing?
Now, to get back to my basket weaving and chair caning and Happy Weaving to you! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! THE END
