New scarves

These new scarves are merino warp and a silk weft and they are soft and drape beautifully. I am so pleased with them. Mira was my reluctant model. I told her that she didn't have to show her face so she took me at my word. The colours are a little washed out. Some day I will RTFM and learn how to use the fool camera. Until then just think darker, richer thoughts.

Would you look at that!

WOW!


Silk Silk And More Silk! Each ball is 4oz+ and has 500 yards+ on it. Sigh. And there is another 2 pounds the same as the light stuff up in the corner, for dyeing. I also got a pound of silk and wool blend about the same colour. And about 8 pounds of light coloured wool. I am set with silks for a while. But I will never be able to buy like this again. The place where I got this from is going out of business and had an excellent sale. And because they dealt mostly in mill ends, their prices were pretty good any way. Good bye Bill and Carole. You're going to be missed by all of us yarn-a-holics.

On the bright side, more dyeing ahead!

Note to Leigh, The sticks and header is only to spread my warp. The tensioning is all done while I wind on. This warp is a mix of silk and rayon that each have different stretch, so the results should be interesting.

My loom threw up

Or at least that is what it looks like.


I won't go into the gory details but things got a wee bit tangled. But being of sound mind (ha) and body (snicker) and actually enjoying the challenge of untangling a mass of yarn (mental), everything was sorted and de-tangled and wound and tied on.






Here are may latest merino offerings. They are not washed and thus a little stiff. And yes, the one on the left is not finished being fringed. But I took pictures while I had a camera so I hope that you can forgive me that.

And I realized that although I fondle them and sniff the silk almost daily, I never shared with you my birthday gift from the odd ball



Two, count em, TWO skeins of sari silk in mostly reds with a hint of just about every other colour known to man and a beautiful fat juicy skein of a rayon silk blend (yeah, I'm sniffing it, get over it. It's just something that I do) that I am going to make into a lace scarf just for me. Once it's dyed. And once I get over my fear of lace. Pathetic I know. And it's not so much a fear as....lack of time. Yeah, that's it. Right. Lack of time. Really. Cynthia said that I should only sit down and try to knit lace if I had a block of uninterrupted time. That doesn't happen in my house. And in the summer it gets even worse. No one has a set bedtime like during the school year (Barb will be horrified) and occasionally WW3 breaks out in the house. Today,I chucked the boys in the back yard for the remainder of the afternoon with instructions to fill the pool for their little sister. Soon it became WW3 with water. At least no one was bleeding and there was screams of glee as they soaked each other. I think that the flower garden got some water too. Bonus.

And on the theme of garden and bonus, we went out to the garden today to pick PEAS!!! weed weeds (too many of them) and water (so that it would rain). The kids picked the peas and we came home with about 4 or 5 pounds. I have no idea how many of them that the kids ate. Maybe another 4 or 5 pounds. We won't talk about the number of pounds of weeds.

ARRRGGGGHHH!!!! All my silks came yesterday. 8 pounds of them. I need to unbag them all before the pictures are taken. Look back tomorrow.

Now was that a cliffhanger or what.

Warp done

Three and a half hours later and I have a new warp to dye. This one is yet again more merino that is 24 inches wide and three shawls long. It will be dyed purples and blues with a hint of green. It shall be lovely. I will it so! Right now it still looks like the other warps that I have made of the blue/green/burgundy merino. Except fatter. 573 ends. Kora from upstairs wants to learn how to dye warps and so apparently we are doing an inpromptu dye class sometime next week. Hopefully I will have a camera to record the whole event. I have yet to tell her that the fee is to be a pint of gin. And of course some tonic water. I'm sure that it won't be a problem. Wink wink!

There is a crap load of yarn on each of those merino bobbins. There must be close to 2000 yards. I still have a lot left, but it seems to be going quickly. Thanks again Jay for hosting his craft challenge all those many months ago and getting me going on this merino. It has opened my eyes to many possibilities. Fugly colours are now my friends.

And a big thanks to Uncle Sandy, who gently suggested to the powers that be that Bill, myself, and the kids be allowed to spend some time this summer as a family at grandma and grandpa's cottage at the lake. As Bill said, It will be nice to be able to relax and not have to worry about schedules. I think that it will be nice to be able to stay up as late as you want or go to bed early if you wish. Not that I don't like Grandma and Grandpa. They are wonderful in laws. It's just that we do things a bit different and it is sometimes a bit hard to get 4 kids to conform for days at a time.

Shit! Lake means bathing suit and I still have those same 10 pounds that I have been trying to get rid of since about April. It would be a whole lot easier to get rid of the fool things if food and drink didn't taste so good. I keep trying to convince myself to get up in the morning and go biking before everyone else is awake and THAT would be a whole lot easier if the bed wasn't so comfortable. What's a gal to do? Waddling is NOT an option.

I almost forgot, Happy Birthday Brother of Mine. 34 is it? So young.

Warp update

The warp is finally dyed and dry despite the high humidity over the past few days. And I thought that after the first dyeing that it looked kind of ugly. When I had taken my dyeing class a few years ago, I was told that the dye activator that you need to use when dyeing with fiber reactive dyes will last a long time so you can keep it. I guess that they didn't mean 10 months because after using it and seeing the washed out colours that it produced I mixed up some new stuff and dyed some weft skeins which took the colour beautifully. Another lesson learned the hard way that I can share with you. This is a picture of it before redying. So I took the silk portion of the warp and vat dyed it a darker blue with acid dyes. I like acid dyes so much better than fiber reactive. It's the run off that I really hate with fiber reactive. Although at one time, someone told me that they had a way of dyeing FR without the massive amounts of runoff. But before I could pin her down to show/tell me, she moved away to the wilds of Nova Scotia. If anybody out there has any idea of the method that she was talking about, could you point me in the right direction. I really like some rayon yarns and I like how they look dyed. Thanks.
So I am combining my paler rayon portion with my bluer silk portion and I have another warp of almost the same length that I dyed black last year that I will mix in there too.

My merino scarves are off the loom and two of them are BEAUTIFUL! Pictures pending. The third has some tension issues that I may be able to fix. If not, I may chop it up and sew something with it. I knew that I should have cut it off and retied after the second scarf, but apparently I needed to learn that lesson again. Someday, maybe I'll be able to learn a lesson one time and have the fool thing stick in my porous little brain. But then again, "the change" is just around the corner and from all reports, ones memory deteriorates as the process takes hold. Great. Something to look forward to. My faulty memory getting worse.

I have my first residency (FAA) coming up in two weeks. and then a week after that, I have a second (maybe) residency sponsored by my weaving group and then the following weekend is the highland games where I am suppose to do some sort of a demonstration and then my last residency with my weaving group and then Uncle Sandy comes home and we will spend some time at the lake. My summer in a nut shell. I hope to get a lot of weaving done this summer and have lots of product for Christmas. Merino scarves don't sell all that well in July. Although I have had lots of ohhhs and ahhhs about my shawl.

And I almost forgot about my PEAS! I was at the garden for a few minutes yesterday and the first peas are a couple of days away from being ready to pick! Unfortunately, the weeds are going great guns along with the mosquitos. We have had such cool wet weather that the tomatoes and peppers and basil are not doing so great. They need heat and sun. Two things that have been sadly lacking here in Fredericton.

Cats!

This is my cat. When I first got her, almost 14 years ago, I named her Hagel. Which is a Norse rune meaning a disruption in ones life. She actually settled in quite nicely with me and my roommates of that summer. We lived on the third floor of an apartment building and so for the first two + months, she was an indoor cat. That September, I moved in with a friend on a ground floor of an old house and we had a door leading right outside. Since then, she has been an outdoor cat. I still remember the first time that she went out in the snow. After every step that she took, she would pick up her paw and shake the snow off, only to have to put her foot back down. At that house, my roommate had a cat of about the same age. After a week of hissing and staking out their respective territories, they settled down and were often seen grooming and sleeping with each other. I wish that I had been able to take Mad-lyn with us when we left, but I was unable. Since then we have lived with and around a variety of cats. Some of whom she has gotten along quite well with, others, well, we won't talk about them. Except for James.



This is James. He lives upstairs. He lives with Chance, who was unavailable for comment, and their humans, Matt and Kora. They have recently been given their shots and allowed in to the great outdoors. Chance often wanders into our house and can be found lounging in a variety of places. He and the Bug get along fine. Hagel earned her nick name Bug when I was pregnant with my first child and we had hundreds of lace wing type bugs that were around the apartment. She loved to snatch and eat the things. LOVED it! She's not much of a mouser or birder (thank heavens) but she certainly is a good bugger!
In any case Bug is 14 years old. James,I think is about 5 or 6. She is a little cat. About 7 pounds. People often mistake her for a younger cat. James is bigger. James is a bully. As Matt says to him, "You can't go beating up little old ladies!" James doesn't seem to care. HE tries to wander in to our place, and we hear about it. Cat fight in the back shed or the front hall. Like with kids, I think that it would be nice if they could just get along.


Poor old Bug. She's getting grey whiskers and there are a few grey hairs showing up in sleek black coat. Kind of like me.

Oh, right! For those of you who care, My Stuff on Etsy has been added to my Links list. Check it out. More stuff is on the way. As soon as I finish dyeing and weaving. Speaking of which, I have to go. I have so much to do!

All about flowers

I'd apologise for the heavy flower content of my blog lately if I was truly sorry, but I'm not! The flower season here is so short that I just have to gush about them when I have them around.


My lovely peony. I had to cut some of the blooms because they are so big and heavy that they drooped. Ah well. So now I have a big fat bouquet of them on my kitchen table. They are so fat they look like pompoms! I just love them!





And in case you couldn't tell, I have a thing for irises. My whole iris bed needs to be dug up and divided this year and rethought. I have then scattered around other flowers, some of which I will keep, some I will chuck, and some I will give away to a friend who bought a house last year. The white is a Japanese Iris and the yellow is a water iris. Or so I was told when given a hunk of plant a number of years ago.

No weaving took place yesterday. I went for a nice long walk and did some things that didn't get done on the weekend because I was, well, weaving. One scarf is woven and the second is about half way. I want to get them done and off soon so that I can see their loveliness! No walking scheduled for today because there are thundershowers in the future. And it is looking rather dark outside. I'll have to go cut some more peonies before the rains hit. They just don't survive torrential rains well. Shucks.

Market Saturday

My warp is on and oh, my! It's pretty! The colours shown here don't (as usual) do it justice. The colours are such a mix of rich purples, dark blues, and flashes of red. Not to mention the cute little toes to the right.

Here are some market pictures from Liz's and my market adventure this weekend. We were outside for the first time this week. Quite a different feel from being inside. Now that I know how the sun falls in the alley, I will chose a different place to set up from now on. I ended up sitting in the sun from about 11:00 on. As much as I love the heat, I can't stand sitting in the sun.
We have the clock at the entrance.

You can just see Liz and Kate near the back of this photo.


My stuff all spread out. We have been brainstorming about a better way to display the scarves.


My cranes and antelopes.


Kids playing around.


We had musical entertainment in the form of a very talented group that goes by the name of Vetch. 2/3 of whom live upstairs from us. Right next to the guitar player (our neighbour Kora) you see a rather short vocalist. That would be my boy Liam praticing.... well.... what can only be described as fart noises. Over a loud speaker. Thanks to Joe who took this picture and let me in on what my boy was doing. I was at the other end of the alley and was not paying attention. Bill was taking pictures. Did I mention that we have great neighbours?

As an aside, Blogger was telling me that I had spelled Neighbour wrong, and being a rather poor speller, I did what I usually do and called up google to check my spelling, You know what I mean. You spell something wrong and it politely asks you "Did you mean...." and give you, what 99.9% of the time, is the right spelling of the word that I am looking for. In any case, under Neighbour, which I had spelled correctly BTW( the problem was the extra "u" that Canadians tend to add to some words), was this article about a bad neighbour. It is a series of pictures from an apartment that was next to the writer of the article. Have an empty stomach before you look at these. It is hard to believe that some people live like this. Ick

I'd like you to meet...

My man of the woods.



After I finished with my three year weaving course and was faced with going back out into the real world and finding a job, I did what any serious student would, and signed up for another year at the craft college to take second year clay. My first year of clay being taken while I was doing my second year of weaving. And I still managed to pull off A's. But enough gloating. Let me tell you about Rick. There were four people in my class. Stan, Rick, Nila, and me. One of the units that we did was a sculpture unit and one of the sculptures that we had to do was a bust of our partner. Another thing that we had to do was an "apprenticeship" with the studio head, Karen. The class was split in two, and Nila and Stan went off with Karen, while Rick and I stayed with Peter to do the sculpture. I remember hoping that I would get paired with Rick. Not that there was anything wrong with my other two classmates, but Rick's face was so interesting. And he had long hair and a long beard. We started with drawings of a skull. 3 hours I sat in that room with Lucy's head. Then muscle drawings out of medical text books. When it was finally time to hit the clay (so to speak) We started with a wood armature covered in newspaper onto which we built a skull. Peter had us measure with calipers all over each others skulls. I had no problem approaching Rick with my calipers wide, but poor Rick, a Seventh Day Adventist, never approached me once. Even when I suggested it. He wouldn't even have to touch me. The calipers would! But no way, no how. In any case, after we had our skull, we popped in the eyes and put on the muscles, in layers, in the right order. Then a thin layer of skin and the hair. I am rather pleased with the results. This actually looked like Rick too. My mother had a ceramic shop and one day Rick walked in looking for some glaze and Mom recognized him! She did a double take and said "I know you! Your in my bedroom!" She had been storing the sculpture in her room while I was renegotiating living arrangements. Rick blushed!

Sadly Rick died of cancer a few years ago, as did Nila. Both left behind young kids. If you still smoke, quit now. Your kids will thank you.

On a prettier note, my flowers are blooming. Up first are my Flirty Ruffles. I love irises.

My peony is ready to burst forth in big pink blooms. My bush is covered in them. Maybe today!

More irises.


Warp progress... It is wound on the back beam ready to thread. Which I will start as soon as I get back from the optometrist. And finish the dishes. And laundry. And get the girl down for a nap. I'm sure that I will get to work on it sometime today. Maybe after doing groceries tonight.

Mayor's Business Breakfast

I just got back from attending the mayors business breakfast where I and three other weavers from my weaving group were the featured artists! Recognition and exposure! What a pair! There were over 170 people that were registered to attend. We had two display areas set up. I answered some questions and handed out business card. All in all, a very good morning.

Unlike yesterday. Remember the warp drying outside in the sun? Those of you who reside in the lovely city of Fredericton will also remember the thunder showers accompanied by torrential rains yesterday afternoon. I was out setting up for this morning and didn't think about my formerly dry warp. It got a little wet. So in it came to be slung over the shower curtain rod in the bathroom. Hopefully it will dry out by later today and I can start to warp my loom.

And remember me mentioning lace socks a while back? I'd show them to you, but you've all seen a ball of yarn and empty needles. Don't ask me what happened. Let's just say that beer and lace don't mix. At least for me they don't. Some of you out there, not mentioning any names, Kate, may be able to do it. But not I.

So I think that today has been a two steps forward one step back sort of day.



And just cause she's so cute, here's my "baby in a bucket" which is what she calls herself every time she is fortunate enough to find a clean empty bucket in her range.

My warp

Three scarves, blues, purples, reds. As usual, the colours are a bit brighter than shown. They are outside drying IN THE SUN!!!! Two days of sun in a row. What's a girl to do? How about go for a walk?

Bye!

Monday update

Things have been happening at the ol' One thread Two thread residence. Top of the list is the newly painted warp that is happily simmering on the stove right now. I was also at the Carleton Artist Market this weekend and it was a Red Hat convention. As in the Red Hat ladies were here and from the looks of it, they had a blast! Luckily, two weeks ago, I was at Fabricville with Liz and found a fat quarter of red hat fabric for the low low price of $1. I did my stiffening trick and made some cranes and antelope. And some of those red hat ladies liked them so much that they took them home! For those of you who have no idea about what I am talking, here are one of each. I think that you can figure out which is which. For more info on the red hat ladies, google is your friend.



While there I folded a bunch more and they only await the finishing touches before they too get displayed for sale.

I also finished another temari ball. This one in browns on a white background. Picture pending.

I have another gallery in Gagetown that is wanting some of my stuff to sell. Yeah!!!

And if that don't beat all, THE SUN IS SHINING TODAY! About time. I was starting to grow moss on my feet from all of the wet and rain that we have had.

I also found "the" shawl pattern. I had been waffling between two patterns and having such a hard time because neither was exactly what I wanted. That has all changed now! More on that later.

The fish in my house

Mira had a french project. They had to build an aquarium and populate it with fish. Sounds easy. But there were some ground rules. The fish had to be chosen from a list that was given them. The list also included a dollar amount for each fish and their total amount "spent" could not exceed $300. They also had to make sure that the critters in their aquarium would live together in harmony. As in no one would eat anyone else for lunch. They could present their aquarium either as a drawing or a model. The funniest part of the information sheet (in my mind) was the bold type first sentence that said that the kids WERE NOT TO MAKE AND SET UP A REAL AQUARIUM CONTAINING REAL FISH ! Well, DUHH!

In any case, Mira attacked this project like anything art related that tweaks her interest and did a kick ass mini aquarium. Don't you think?




I like the snail's eye stalks. What's your favorite?

This is the last one!

Blanket that is. There are still more weavings in the "Mine! All Mine!" series. I keep seeing things that I have woven that are scattered around the house. But more on those later. It blanket time. This is my last blanket. It was actually woven as two seperate blankets and stitched together. This was a traditional thing to do around these parts many years ago. Most looms were not large enough to make a blanket wide enough to fit a full sized bed so two blankets were joined to make a large one. I am going to do a full sized overshot coverlet one of these days using this technique.



The other wonderful thing about this blanket is the way it lays on the bed. I have turned it so that instead of having the tassels in your face, they lay over the edges of the bed. We have an old bed frame with a foot board and the blanket fits perfectly this way.

And that is the end of my blankets! For now. More will come in the future when I am once again living with my 45" loom. Right now, it is boarding with Liz.

Speaking of Liz, we had a great time last night! I ate way too much! Drank way too much! And got just the right amount of presents. And what wonderful presents they were. Unfortunately, one of them was not a camera, so there are no pictures. Yarns and pottery and drink paraphernalia and I even had Nigel give me the shirt off his back! I had my first ever Irish Car Bomb which was Bailey's and something else dropped in stout and chugged back. Quite wonderful.

Thanks to all who sent me best wishes and look guys! It's June 7th and we are still here!

Rainbows and birthday cake

Dave said yesterday that he really liked the fugly rainbow blanket. I think that it is, well, fugly. Don't get me wrong. I like rainbows as much as the next person. What's not to like. That magical arc in the sky, bright colours, mythic pots of gold. I really like colour. But I don't like feeling like it has assaulted me. Enter "the rainbow scarf".



This was one of the first things that I wove after the first glut of kids. I hadn't woven anything in about 5 or 6 years and had forgotten a lot of things. After weaving a well executed but boring shawl, next up was the much more interesting rainbow scarves. I used crochet cotton that was variegated rainbow. I lined up the rainbow colours and made stripes and separated them with black. I was rather pleased with the results. I hadn't realized that I still had one of these scarves left, but I do. It is not as soft and supple as I like, but I am going to put it up on the block and see if there are any takers. The detail picture colours are a bit washed out.



And today is my birthday. To all of those of you out there that are worried that it is the 6th day of the 6th month of the 6th year of the twenty first century, I say "pooh!" Don't spoil my birthday with talk of world destruction and all of that ...stuff.

We are having a friend from out of town over for supper tonight and on the menu are hors deurves and wine. Jalapino corn bread, mushrooms and pimentos in puff pastry, spinach and feta filo triangles, and a asparagus, mushroom, sundried tomato concoction that I made up which is going in both puff pastry and filo to see which works better. Then I am being stolen by Liz and Kate and we are heading out for a beer at the pub. If you don't hear from me tomorrow, you will know it is because I am hiding under my pillow.

It's another blanket

This is my fugly blanket. It is a sampler from a class that I took with another weaving student when we were learning how to run the computer loom. The loom is hooked up to a computer and when you design your weave structure on the computer, the loom will automatically lift the corresponding harnesses. This is really helpful when you have 8, 12, 24, or more harnesses and very complex treadling patterns. If you haven't a clue as to what I just said, you can trust me on this one.



I took this course during the time that I was a studio technician and people kept asking me questions about designing on the computer. I had no clue as how to help them and my dept. head suggested that I take the course as "professional development." It worked out well because there was only one other person and you always learn more when you are learning in a group. Well, she LOVED colour. She also wanted EVERYTHING that she wove to be usable. This gal didn't like to do samples. The assignment was an 8 harness twill sampler and she wanted it to be a blanket in rainbow colours. Seeing as I was auditing the course (read no fee) I let her have her way and we ended up with two fugly blankets. She loved hers. Mine, I felt was a little too loud. I chucked it in the washer and then in the dryer to try and felt it a bit so that the colours would tone down somewhat. It may come as a surprise to some of you that it actually worked. Others may say that they love it. To each his own, I say. But it was definately not my cup of tea. There are some very interesting areas in it. And if I ever get an 8 harness loom than I am sure that I will use what I learned.



One of those things is chose your own colours.

blanket # 2 (another Mine!All Mine!)

This is the second blanket that I have kept. It was by no means the second thing that I wove. It actually was woven many years later. I had a bunch of left over wool and had images of blankets in mind. I put on enough warp for two blankets and this was the first one off. The second was given to a friend who had lent me his car for two weeks so I could go away to Haystack Mountain School of Craft. Such generosity was dutifully rewarded. Unfortunately, the blanket is now in Montreal and unavailable for a photo session. The second blanket was quite different from this one and was more in the blue/green range. The only colours in the warp are white, and neutral browns and so I could play with my weft colours to my hearts content. I will use this trick again.



Did I mention that I love to make blankets? They are so substantial. This blanket went to my son Simon.
Speaking of Simon, I was making supper the other night when he came wandering into the kitchen wearing this...


And let's look at his "hat" from the side.


Jay, I bet you never knew that you were sending a little something for my boy as well as all the goodies that I was lucky enough to get.

I almost forgot to mention the Carleton Artist Market that Liz and I attended on Saturday. The weather was crap, sales were non-existent, coffee was free for the artists with booths, and both Liz and I were able to sit and work on stuff. Not bad for a $5 investment. This was only week two for the market and I am told that once the tourists start coming in a couple of weeks, that sales will improve. I certainly hope so. There was some interest in my scarves and Liz's bags and when things get going a bit more (and when I have something on my loom) I will bring my loom down and weave on site. The artists working on their thing is encouraged. Other than us, there were a couple of jewelers, painters of various sorts, an amazing bag lady (as in she makes amazing bags) and one guy who started out with a blank canvas and air brushed a beautiful portrait from a picture. Should you happen to be in Fredericton one Saturday, then please stop by. The Market is located on King Street between York and Carleton. Listen for the music. My upstairs neighbours (who are 2/3 of the group Vetch) play there every week. And if that doesn't draw you, then The Happy Baker will. All I have to say about this place is "OH MY GOD!." They make food. Good food. Deliscious food. Spread my ass food. Pies and cakes and tortes and croissants and bread and the really good kind of cookies. All made fresh every day right there. What's not to love?

Early Birthday Present!

Guess what FINALLY came in the mail this morning! Look what was peeking out of my mail box when I shooed the kids out the door!

So I threw my coffee and grabbed my parcel, ripped into it and found....














Lets spread that baby out, shall we....


The vintage knitting books are a hoot! There are a few patterns that bear a closer look and some that I had to go and wash my eyes after looking at. The knitting for men has some very nice patterns and I may have to actually bite the bullet and knit a sweater for Bill at some point. But don't be looking for that any time soon. Once it gets in the queue, it will number about 45th. So I won't get to it for a while. There were even a couple of knitting machine books with sweater patterns. I do not nor will I ever have a knitting machine. I don't have a thing against them. In fact I think that they are really neat! But I just can't see myself using one enough to actually justify getting one. But Kate the odd ball has one AND her IT Division has been asking, well, I think that it might have escalated to nagging by now, for a sweater of his very own. Guess where the knitting machine books are going to end up.

And now for another installation in the "Mine! All Mine!" category, is my very first weaving project. Introducing "The Blanket"

My wonderful weaving teacher decided that the first thing that anyone who was learning from her should weave was a blanket. Blankets are substantial things. It is like jumping in the pool instead of dipping in a toe. Everyone finished their blanket and I bet most of the people still have them. I don't know where my head was the first time that she explained what to do to start, the whole warping thing, but I got it so completely wrong that I had to start over. As in, lay my made warp on the big ass printing tables in the fabric surface design studio next door and untangle and rewind balls by hand. All 8 of them. I learned one lesson that day. Pay attention. Or so I thought. I don't remember any major screw ups of the winding on and threading, but that doesn't mean that there weren't any. Or maybe because I was behind now, I just looked over other peoples shoulders and did what they were doing. Then came the weaving part. When you place the weft yarns across the warp, you put them into place with a reed in a beater. I guess that I took the term "beater" a little too much to heart and beat the, well, the crap, out of it. If you look at the picture closely, you can see that the stripes on the bottom of the blanket are much closer than the ones on the top. Some where along the way, Sue came by and gently reminded me to not beat quite so hard. I would do anything for Sue, just so long as I didn't disappoint her. I eased up on my beat. I was suppose to have 12 pics per inch (that would be 12 weft shots of yarn in one inch) and I had closer to 18 or 19. Just a little tight.


I didn't quite get it perfect, and this is a close up about half way up. The wool is Briggs and Little and there is also some light blue mohair that Sue seduced me with. I love my blanket and I think that it is looking quite good for being almost 18 years old and in need of a wash.