A lot of years have passed.  A lot of pain has come along and I thought I might never be able to weave again.  Many layers of pain have been reduced by injections in hip and knee as well as the "usual" ones in my wrists - - - the STT area to be specific.

When I become more active and catch up on all the things that have lapsed regarding house cleaning, I hope to weave a little again.

BUT..... Spring is here and the sun is calling.  I've always loved to sit on the patio under the maple tree watching the birds and other wild life.  The bluebird house is ready for occupancy.  Will fill the hummingbird feeders tomorrow and wait for the scouts to show up.  I'm just a little bit late this year putting out the feeders so hope I didn't miss them coming by.

The Palisade Soysia grass was laid last fall and looks like it made it through our strange winter.

Hopefully there will be another post before too long.

I've been busy, just haven't been documenting or posting or even hemming and fringe twisting.
End of July I went to a Dimity workshop at Pinson Mound State Park hosted by the Jackson weavers and presented by Pat Donald (formally from Jackson).  Nice workshop and came home appropriately tired.

All towels are Washed - - but   are  NOT   IRONED.

Really a peachy/coral  colored.  Only 4 of these. Had a whole section of the medium peach color in the warp that just shattered.  I remember being frustrated with the tension in the replacement area and 3 other places.  Don't really know what caused the other areas to be soft.  I was trying to use the warping trapeze and the little handle on the BabyMac back beam just isn't designed to wind a full width tight warp - - it will wind one section quite nicely from the AVL WW  - - not a 20-21" warp.   - -  well, it IS a sectional beam.

Lemon with white or natural - - - should have looked since I can't remember

 Last one treadled as twill and is quite drapey.  (??not a word ?)    5 towels

All greens, even the pale stripes  =  5 towels

Reds with natural -- 5 of these; different wefts

So far, that's 19 towels needing ironing and hemming.

3 scarves on the M & W interlaced threading with sides changed to a point instead of the M or W 

How did this yield 7 towels AND a bread cloth ??

Borrowed this idea from a towel I purchased and got a fair replica.  Would like to try some more along this line with tripled threads, but for enough emphasis they need to be quadrupled.  You can't see here that in each stripe there are 2 tripled threads - probably because they are not ironed.  

These were inspired by a Pinterest post.  Yellow, blue and white.

19 plus 12 more =   31  towels woven      whew, that's a lot of ironing !

Can't decide what's next.

One photo of the 'spring' scarfs.  Hand dyed greens with variegated pink stripes.
I'm not thrilled with these - -  



Orange stripe 8/2 cotton warp from Oralee.  Wish I hadn't used the brown looking color.  5 colors plus natural.  Wefts varied from flake to orange same as warp.  One photo on the loom and the other off the loom but not washed.

     must be the last one - - there is a line of 'fraycheck'.



Had a terrible time with the loom (see previous post).  Was able to weave off the 4 remaining towels in the same amount of time it had taken to weave towel #1.

Blue stripe 8/2 cotton warp - - also from Oralee.  4 blues with pale blue stripes in between.  Wefts are one natural and one blue flake plus 3 blues from the warp.

April has come and gone . . . .
Finally finished the green scarf warp with the variegated stripes shown March 16th.  Photos later.
In the first part of April, Angela and I went to Oralee's to get the yarn from the attic.  We got 2/3 to 3/4 of if down and loaded into our cars.  Freda helped get part of it out of the car and then I sorted it by color.  Put most of it in the front hall on shelves borrowed from upstairs.  Selected several orange/rust colors to weave kitchen towels.  Got the color order worked out and decided that since I'm going to do several towel warps, the extra heddles needed to be removed.
Worked several days winding the warp.  Made many mistakes trying to get it beamed - trying a different procedure.  After rolling forward, then back, it was threaded, tied on and ready to weave.  With great difficulty towel #1 was woven.  In taking the heddles off, the harnesses weren't put back in the same order. (don't know how when I thought I was being so careful)  Harness 3 was catching on Harness 2.  Took over a week to get that towel woven and I couldn't stand the thought of trying to do 4 more the way it was.  So - - towel #1 was cut off.  Was going to turn H 3 around and re-thread 1 thru 3, but after a quick review, just took H 2 off and turned it. (now 1-3 are reversed) Treadled quite a few tabbies to see if that was going to work and not once did it catch or sound like it rubbed.  Only had to re-thread H 1 and 2 - - much better than having to do 3.
Got the warp re-threaded, dented and tied on to the front beam.  (front tie-on cords needed some repair which entailed shortening all the cords to match one that had been damaged)  At 5:30 towel #2 was started (orange flake). Wow! what a difference.  By 6:15 it was done (over 500 picks).  Started towel #3 (beige flake) and even with a short break it was done by 7:15pm. Started towel #4 (white flake) and got 12" done.  Should be able to finish it in the morning.

While waiting to go to the Bartlett Bell practice...  I'm threading a set of cards to make sheep - - it's a draft dated 1996 and probably got at a conference.
The Mullarky workshop was really good and he explains things thoroughly - with reasoning behind it.  Saturday went great with only 1 hour sleep.  Sunday was a disaster and by 2:00 I had really lost all ability to concentrate and pain everywhere.  Couldn't figure out how to correct something and broke into tears.

Back to this new sheep draft - - there are arrows slanting up or down to designate which way to thread the cards, but I don't know which is S (from back) or Z.  Will keep you posted.......

It's been longer than expected since the last post.  Had a few false starts on the warping board.  Plans were to use a two-colored silk like ikat.  Had it on the board and really wanted it to work, but the color length was just not working.  There were equal amounts of both colors in about a 24" span that just wasn't going to look good in a scarf without re-thinking how to use it.  Next time.....

The next experiment was with the pink/green silk blend.  The multi-colors were in a shorter color length.  Then I had to dye some rayon/bamboo to go with it.  That took 3 attempts.  The pattern on the screen was promising, but sett was too wide and weft was too light.  Another dye bath on the lightest of the group produced a dark green - photos later.


While the darker green was drying I re-worked the center design and re-dented to make 20 epi. (from 15)   Still a decent width for a scarf at 6".
Like the darker green better than the very light, but it's still not hitting a "pleasing" zone.
Getting ready for the John Mullarky workshop Saturday.  

No weaving, no hemming, no ironing, no photos, but ---  I've been working on putting things away in the kitchen.  Sounds simple, but I don't have good places to put some things and they take brain storming trying to come up with places to put them.  Then there's the part about not being able to stand very long without consequences of hip pain or other un-niceties.  Just haven't learned how to pace my efforts.
Went to Penzey's this afternoon - - it was their last day today.  So far, they have no place to move into.  They had no cocoa - - well, I found one very small jar, so I was trying to find something else to make the trip worthwhile.  At checkout, I was informed they had no internet/phone and therefore could accept no credit card sales.  I had to forego one item due to not having enough cash (I rarely keep much in my purse).  So, that was a little embarrassing.
Found meatballs in the freezer, browned them a bit and added sauce.  Tried one just to test whether I would buy them again.  When I cut it open, I realized they were not cooked even though they *looked* fully cooked.  So, into the microwave it went to finish cooking enough to eat it right then.  Will have to try them tomorrow, but I don't think I'll buy them again for myself - -  in the sauce, they looked nice for company.