12.30.09 Once in a Blue Moon

I read on CNN that there is going to be a blue moon this New Year’s Eve. It feels like that is how often I post to my latent blog too! Ah well, it is my blog, I can do what I want with it.

This holiday season has been weird. Let me just say that I have lost all semblance of the real meaning of Christmas in my life. This all started years ago and has only become more pronounced with the passing years. I seriously dislike how I live during the holiday season from Thanksgiving to New Years and cannot wait to pack it all up in its old cardboard boxes and get back to normal life. Don’t get me wrong, I like my decorations that have accumulated over years of life. But the frenzy that accompanies the decor and visitations and feeling guilty about various aspects of the season are enough to put me in a place with lots of blankets, if you know what I mean. Mostly the guilt and emotional turmoil comes of things done and not done, not appreciated, not reciprocated, on my part and the parts of others. Did that make sense?

My SIL Debbie gave me a couple of new ornaments. She made the three in this picture over the years since I have known her and this year made the penguin.

The Blizzard of ’09 was fun. That was the most amazing holiday gift! Completely out of the blue and unexpected. I love snow, the clean pure cold white soft quiet calm of new deep snow. We rarely get snow here in RIchmond. Do I have a picture of it? Not really. Not during the best days of it. Only after it had been here at least 3 days and was starting to melt.

Fortunately we had retrieved our youngest and occasionally blog-appearing daughter from her college a day earlier than planned. The predicted snow caused a hurry up and get her day and it was a really good thing because I-95 ended up a parking lot during the storm. If you are familiar with the stretch of I-95 between Richmond and Washington, D.C. you know that can happen on a dry sunny day. Here she is in the Manchester Jacket that she took possession of soon after she found it in the jumble of my closet. She was nice to model it for my Ravelry page photo. I am letting her have it, since it fits her much better than it fits me.

I also gave her this entrelac scarf of 3-ply handspun polwarth, roving from Rovings.

We waited for our eldest daughter to come home for 4 days. She was supposed to show on the Tuesday before Christmas and eventually turned up on Christmas Day, late in the afternoon after Caroline and I had gone to see the new movie “Nine”. We see Anne so seldom that I didn’t want to miss a minute of her drive by visit. I have my analysis of why she does this but since I am not a trained psychological professional I will keep it to myself. Anyway, it was nice to share the same house/room/couch with her for a few hours and to listen to her laugh. She has the most addictive laugh you will ever hear and I hear it all too seldom. She graduated this year from Virginia Tech with a degree in Engineering after a lot of hard work, bad times and fun times too I am sure. I just hope it didn’t cause some very valuable neuronal connections to fail in the process.I gave her a pair of hand knitted socks that I don’t have a picture of for some reason. They were from Sheeppaints wool and very lovely.

Here is Mr. Lady’s Christmas gift. He basically took it as soon as it was off the loom a few weeks ago during the Blizzard. Theresa at Camp Runamuck is making something similar! I know hers will be as appreciated as mine was! This scarf is woven from:
Warp: sock wool, 75/25, Teal Kroy socks and Lion Brand sock for the light gray.
Sett: 12epi.
Weft: Teal Kroy Socks.
Hemstitching each end.

12.25.09 Merry Christmas Blog Friends and Family!

12.6.09 Wintery Morning

It rained yesterday, all day. Again. We got nothing but a few flurries of snow and another one of these puddles.

There is a sock yarn scarf project on the Harrisville Rescue, not sure it is working out because I am a skeptic. Threaded straight draw, weaving twill back and forth as the mood strikes. The little shuttle is a prototype that Mr. Lady made for me. I requested a very light shuttle. This is too light and too shallow to race through the shed. It needs more work and more weight on the bottom. But it is pretty!

I am trying really hard to keep this loom warped and weaving. It is in the most used room of my house and the fact that it sits there and waits for me in full view is a good thing for my productivity.

My knitting gets put away in bags so The Emperor won’t go after it in the night. He has developed a fondness for wool yarn, especially handspun. I think this stemmed from the fact that about a year ago I gave him a cat toy mousie made of sheep’s fleece. He has tormented it into giving up more than its name rank and serial number. So we have this sort of thing:

I think a new toy is going to show up in the stocking.

11.31.09 Giving thanks.

Thanks that someone invented the loom!

I have finished the Twill Towels that were just begun on the last post. I enjoyed this project from start to finish. The threading wasn’t too long (408 ends). The warp thread did not suffer abrasion or breakage in the reed (2 ends/dent in a 12 dents reed). The treadling was simple enough to watch football and weave at the same time. I wound a warp for 4 towels and wove one with light green 8/2 Cotton/Linen, two with 8/2 unmercerized cotton and one (dark blue) with 8/2 75cotton/25acrylic from a mystery cone. Of course my favorite is the light green, but the unmercerized weft towels are “not bad” as Mr. Lady says.
Fresh off the loom.

All finished with 3/8 inch double hems, pressed and folded for gifting.

A couple of samples at the end. One with 5/2 mercerized cotton and one with Harrisville Shetland.

The draft is from Handwoven Magazine September/October 2009 p.32 and is a 2/2 broken twill. I had intended this to be a sampling of wefts on a cottolin warp (Valley Yarns 8/2 Cotton/Linen) and indeed it was. But it is not what I want for dining chair upholstery. At 24 epi it is not a close enough sett. I suppose the cottolin warp and weft towel could work for chair upholstery but I would feel better fusing it to an interfacing before applying it to the chair.

My favorite for the chairs?? Something with wool. Just like I thought.

I didn’t get these up in time for Sue’s Challenge but here are some photos of November color in Richmond, VA!

Thanks for reading!