Category Archives: Writing a book

January 20, 2023 · 12:33 pm

Rabbit Year 2023

The year of the Rabbit is seen as a year of sweet goodness in all kinds of ways.

I am totally in favor of that, and I certainly hope it will show itself to be a gentle and healing and harmonious year in 2023.

This Rabbit year is a busy one for me.

I am focused on 5 things, as well as all the usual things that unfold in life-

1- Grieving the sudden death of my beloved son in law is hard work, and has revealed the deep paradox that love offers us: The immense gratitude for everything that love brings us, including the shocks and anguish of loss, as well as all the incredible blessings… truly paradoxical.

2- I am knitting as many Comfort Bears as I can get done before the Celebration of my lovely Son in Love’s life this Spring in his honor to give to people at the Celebration of his life.

They were very important to him, and he always had at least 3 in his pockets, as well as his personal Comfort Bear, so he could give them to people who needed comfort. He was such a lovely man that people would confide their sorrows to him, and he would give them a comfort bear, and then see if there was something else that he could do for them. Kindness was truly his religion!

As I have been working on the Comfort Bears, a new design for them has evolved, and I will make a pattern and a video for them when I can get to it.

BUT… this year of the Rabbit is a VERY busy one indeed….

3- I am working to deadline on a new book- Yay! I can’t say anything about it, except that I am working with my much loved editor (hurrah) again at Stackpole Books. Writing this book is really helping me to move forward and it is very healing to be focused on loveliness!

4- I am also working on a new solo show of my woven works for 2024…. again… very healing, very powerful, and exciting as I have had lots of breakthroughs into new places in my wovenworks 🙂

5- And this is the one that is most immanent and that I am scrambling to get the work done on asap:

For about 7 years (!) I have been working on a new set of looms and co-creating them with Donna and Gary McFarland of Dewberry Ridge Looms. I am just a (rather large and longish) Hare’s Breath away from finishing up all the editing, pattern writing, video shooting, photo taking, photo editing and all that that involves, so that I can finally…. F I N A L L Y get these looms out into the world. Whew and yay!

And, oh yes, I mustn’t forget…. my husband and I have unexpectedly adopted a very sweet and rather wild little new furkid who is an astonishing handful and is completely full of adorable love and puppy wackiness…. puppies…. sheesh….. and lots of loving laughter.

He is my devoted studio companion, and has his own chair right beside me. Excellent solution to the problem of him needing to be glued to me 🙂 ❤

I hope that 2023 will be a truly fine one for us all. Happy Year of the Rabbit!

4 Comments

Filed under crafting for charity, Dewberry Ridge looms, grief, Loom & looms & small loom weaving, personal stuff, teddy bear, Woven Women tapestries and woven works, Writing a book

Tagged as Comfort Bears, grief, Knitted comfort bears, knitted teddy bear, year of the rabbit

December 18, 2018 · 11:20 am

Handspun Alpaca for ANOTHER new book

HURRAH! In 2020, my publisher (Stackpole books) will be releasing not just one new book from me (I was hard at work for almost all of 2018 on it), but-

WHEEE- while I was working sooooooooo hard on the book that will be released in January of 2020, I was also busting my chops on laying the foundation for the NEXT book that I am writing.

And, the good news is that they will be publishing the NEXT book in the fall of 2020, so most of 2019 will have me hard at work on it.

In fact, I am happily working on it now.

Last summer, my friends, Teresa and Darren Griffith gave me a huge bag of fluffy, fabulous fuzz from 4 of their gorgeous alpacas.

I don’t have a drum carder, so I hand carded and carded and carded it all and spun and spun and spun….

this basket of yummy yarn….

It may not look like much, but there is over a kilogram of yarn in that basket!

I thought that Teresa was brilliant to staple a lock of fleece from each of the alpacas to a card, so I would remember the name of each of the sweet alpacas who donated their loveliness!

And, now, I am joyfully weaving the alpaca yarn and will be including it in the NEXT book.

Hurrah!

and a thousand thanks to Teresa and Darren for their amazing generosity! ❤ and blessings to them both

6 Comments

Filed under eco crafts & green projects, Loom & looms & small loom weaving, personal stuff, weaving & handwoven, Writing a book

Tagged as alpaca yarn, hand spinning, hand spun, hand weaving, hand woven, weaving, weaving books, writing a book

August 17, 2017 · 4:54 pm

Projects in Peg Looms and Weaving Sticks book- Part 1

I’ve just made a video that shows some of the projects in my book, Peg Looms & Weaving Sticks

(release date: Sept. 1, 2017).

I’ll be making more videos, showing more of the projects in the book.

The book is available online from the National Book Depository: LINK and from local bookstores.

Happy Weaving!

(I am seriously Happy, happy dancing!)

8 Comments

Filed under book review/book/books, Loom & looms & small loom weaving, Peg and Stick Loom weaving, peg looms and weaving sticks, weaving & handwoven, Writing a book

Tagged as Noreen Crone-Findlay, peg loom book video, peg loom projects, peg looms & weaving sticks book by Noreen Crone-Findlay, peg looms and weaving sticks

June 15, 2015 · 5:11 pm

Hurrah! My Peg Loom and Weaving Sticks Book is Done- so far…

Hurrah and, Whee and wow and whew…..

I am such a happy and rather exhausted bunny.

A couple of days before my actual deadline, I finished the manuscript, photos, diagrams and photo coding for my new book: Peg Looms & Weaving Sticks: Woven Projects & Techniques, Basics & Beyond.

Wow. BEFORE deadline. Wow.

My lovely editor is off in Scotland perusing fibery goodness there, so bless her heart, she has said to me to take a week or so to do the proofreading. I love my editor.

Taking a week or so to do the proofreading is the most sanity saving way of doing the slow and essential plod plod plod through the manuscript, so I am eternally grateful that she has suggested this. Like I said. I. Love. My. Editor.

The final couple of weeks of finishing the book were grindingly intense and the last few days were proper pinchers, so I have been having some delicious recovery naps in the last couple of days.

Changing gears and shifting back into ‘real life’ is a quietly satisfying process.

I got explosively inspired for the ~NEXT~ book, so have been galloping into it, being incredibly inspired and feeling all excited and delighted and then taking another recovery nap.

Wow.

And, now…. for a few hours of sipping tea and sending my eyeballs on a mission across the screen:

Must. Find. All. The. Errors.

Must. Polish. Any. Clumsiness.

And, then…. I’ll take another lovely nap.

I love this book.

I love the next one.

Wheeeeeeeeee………..

17 Comments

Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, Peg and Stick Loom weaving, weaving & handwoven, Writing a book

Tagged as Noreen Crone-Findlay, peg looms & weaving sticks, writing a book

April 15, 2015 · 9:43 am

Tottie Tomato settles into the new studio

Poor Tottie Tomato has been left sleeping in her antique wicker suitcase for the entire month since we moved to our new home. That’s her suitcase behind her.

I’ve been working so hard to set up our home and my studio, as well as working hard hard hard on the new book, that poor Tottie hasn’t seen the light of day.

But, it’s time to let little Ms Tomato settle into our new studio.

She likes it very much, even though it is waaaaaaaaay smaller than our old one.

She loves to help warp up the peg looms, which is good, as I am weaving and writing and photographing and and and … full steam ahead!

It really feels like home, now that Tottie Tomato is out and about in the studio with me!

8 Comments

Filed under Peg and Stick Loom weaving, personal stuff, Tottie Tomato Loves, weaving & handwoven, Writing a book

Tagged as Noreen Crone-Findlay, peg loom weaving book, studio, Tottie Tomato, writing a book

February 20, 2015 · 1:58 pm

Writing a book while moving- eegads

Oh my word!

The flurry of activity at our house is just completely over the top!

My blog has ground to a stop, as I just can’t keep everything going all at once right now…

something had to give, and it’s been the blog.

Here’s a little (but no where near all) of what has been going on….

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay www.crone-findlay.com

Really- there are things that simply shouldn’t be combined….

Like selling an acreage that you have lived on for 21 years and buying a house in the city….

Um… a large acreage that has accumulated a lot of stuff

(I know, I know, WE accumulated all that stuff…

it followed us home when we saw all it’s creative potential) …

🙂

While working to deadline on a book (and doing all the photography and illustrations and diagrams AS WELL AS designing all the projects and weaving them all yourself…. )

eeks! The deadline is looming – pardon the pun 🙂

BUT…. I am so incredibly inspired and excited by the designs and projects for the book that I am just over the moon.

And, am seeing rather a lot of the moon lately, as there aren’t enough hours in the day, so the hours in the night are full of the busy busy of it all.

I can’t show any of the projects yet, but, wheeeeeee! I am just happy dancing and skippetty hopping over them.

I have been in love with peg loom weaving and weaving sticks for years, but that love has grown exponentially as I work on this book.

I am just boggled by the creative potential of the marvelously simple peg looms and weaving sticks.

In fact, I have passed along quite a few of my other, non-peg looms, because there is so much for me to explore with them that I just don’t have the time for many other of my looms.

Ah, the move: The downsizing, packing and dealing with all the insane bureaucratic hoop jumping has been epic. Sheesh.

Just sheesh.

Oh yes… another leetle stressor in our lives is that we suddenly adopted a darling little puppy from a relative who couldn’t keep her.

She’s enchanting- but wasn’t housebroken, so that’s been a challenge- another of those ‘don’t do this at home’ kind of things.

House training a puppy in deep dreary freaking freezing cold mid winter is not fun.

That’s not quite true- she loves gazing at the birds and thinks trips outside are marvelous. (When it’s a million below zero, I don’t share her enthusiasm)

She has taught me to keep my shoes in a box that she can’t get into…

(yes, she did chew my most expensive boots)

and to not leave my favorite glasses where she can get them

(yes, she did chew them, and my ipod earbuds up)

and to not let balls of yarn drop to the floor

(she outdoes a kitten in her enthusiasm for yarnplay- face palm)

She’s a right proper little scalliwag but we do adore her and are so happy that she’s part of the family.

There’s a million other things going on in our lives right now, but I must get back to work, so I shall just zip away and weave up some wonderful-ness.

Cheerio and tootlepip… which is what we always say to our grandson when he heads home from our time together.

I probably won’t be posting again for a couple of weeks, as we are soon to be hefting and heaving ourselves into the new (smaller, much smaller) house in the city.

And, then, it’s serious overdrive on the book….

so…. cheerio for now….

13 Comments

Filed under Peg and Stick Loom weaving, personal stuff, weaving & handwoven, Writing a book

Tagged as moving, Noreen Crone-Findlay, weaving, writing a book

October 29, 2014 · 10:21 am

Sigh- this is NOT the background for the book pics

While I am weaving up a storm, working on projects for my new book, I can’t post pics of what I am weaving.

You know…. you just can’t ‘scoop’ yourself and let the cat out of the bag, no matter how enticing it would be to let it out for just a very little peek.

But, nope. It’s zipped lips and fingers off the keyboard when the itch to do a tiny reveal has to be firmly pushed down.

On the other hand, when something gets vetoed by my editor and the art dept…. I can say:

“Guess what! Here’s something that you WON’T be seeing in my new book!” 🙂

I had this ~~bright~~ obviously Not so bright, idea that I would weave the background for all the project and how to photos on the peg loom.

I liked the idea.

A lot.

I wove and wove and wove for many an hour…..

And wove a large background piece.

And, merrily shot photographs using it.

But…..

I am learning the nuts and bolts of my new camera and so I sent photos in to my editor to make sure that the photos will be acceptable for all the manipulations that have to happen for publishing.

Oops….

The art department nixed the background.

oops.

Should have checked in on that one sooner, shouldn’t I?

oops.

Building a book is never a straight line- it’s a ziggy, zaggy, loopy and sometimes, snaggy one, indeed.

Ah, the learning curve.

All part of the journey.

Back to work I go.

🙂

But hey, at least I was able to show you something that I have been working (and working and working) on.

🙂

8 Comments

Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, Peg and Stick Loom weaving, peg looms and weaving sticks, Writing a book

Tagged as fail, failure, Noreen Crone-Findlay, oops, peg loom book, small loom weaving, weaving, writing a book

September 30, 2014 · 12:39 pm

Too many projects for one book?

Oh oh…. I am so inspired by my new book about peg loom weaving that I am coming up with waaaaaaaaaay too many ideas for it….

I can draw a star with my weaving sticks LOL

And, then, instead of carrying on with figuring out yardage etc and working on the forms I have created to help me track my progress and keep everything organized… I stopped and played…..

Sigh.

That’s not going to get a book written, is it?

Okay.

Back to work.

(Voice of Inner Child: But look! I can draw things with my weaving sticks! Whee!

Voice of Serious, Studious Adult: Oh, shush, and let me get back to work…. oh wait… that IS fun!)

All right, all right…. I really am getting back to work now.

Really. 😉

4 Comments

Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, Peg and Stick Loom weaving, peg looms and weaving sticks, weaving & handwoven, Writing a book

Tagged as Noreen Crone-Findlay, peg loom weaving, weaving sticks, weavingsticks, writing a book

September 25, 2014 · 3:18 pm

Book Contract Signed- Now I Can Tell

Wheee! I am so excited!

I can finally share my good news!

For months, I have been sworn to secrecy, but now….the contracts are signed…. so……..

My editor has given me the go ahead to let the cat out of the bag.

(A brief moment of happy dancing here)

Stackpole Books is going to be publishing my new book about Peg and Stick Loom Weaving.

I love peg looms and stick weaving- they are simple little looms, but have incredible creative potential.

I have already self published many ebooks and patterns for wonderful designs with peg and stick looms:

Jewelry making with Peg and Stick looms: LINK

Baskets LINK

Mermaid Dolls LINK

Woven Dolls: with 6 weaving sticks LINK with 4 weaving sticks LINK

A shortcut to my Peg Loom & Stick Weaving listings on etsy are: ETSY

And, I’ll post pics of some of the tapestries that I have woven on the Peg Loom soon, just to show a bit more of the potential of these delightful looms.

For the new book, I have designed oodles and oodles and oodles of new designs- oh my! I am so excited!!!!!

And…. I am covering all kinds of awesome techniques right from the very basics up to advanced and slightly boggling ways of working with the peg loom. (And weaving sticks, too).

I’ll be working my sweet little chops off from now until June of 2015, when the manuscript, photos, illustrations and diagrams take flight to land in the capable hands of my editor and her clever cohorts.

They will then spend months making magic with it, (so much happens to the text, photos, diagrams and illustrations once the wizards of technology at Stackpole Books get their hot little hands flying!).

Then, the book comes back to me for my proofreading, and back to them and then, it takes flight again, off to the printers.

That’s why it takes another whole year before it can miraculously pop up on book shelves.

It’s worth the wait 🙂 I hope.

I’ve asked my editor if it’s okay to share my journey with writing the book with you, and she has said yes, as long as it doesn’t upset people that they have to wait so long for it.

There is soooooooooooo much involved in writing a book, and I find it very interesting, so I hope that you will, too.

(And of course, I can’t let the cat out of the bag about the exact projects until the book is closer to release, but then, I’ll be able to share ALL the pics).

But, now…. I must get back to work!

After a little more happy dancing, of course….. 🙂

24 Comments

Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, Peg and Stick Loom weaving, peg looms and weaving sticks, personal stuff, weaving & handwoven, Writing a book

Tagged as Noreen Crone-Findlay, peg loom weaving, publishing, Stackpole Books, weaving sticks, writing a book