This is what happens…

…when I let a month go by without posting. I have too much to show & tell. Sigh.

Far more on the home & garden front than the weaving front, so let’s get that out of the way first.

I loaded up my loom with Queen Anne’s Lace yarn from Henry’s Attic, sett at 12 EPI. Then, like with my red jacket, I rather randomly wove in various stripes, clasped weft, and inlays in a few blues and a few browns. This is the fabric immediately after the loom. 6-3/4 yards. Has to be wet finished, cut, sewn, and trims applied. This one will be for sale.

I really like this closeup – it shows you both the texture of that creamy yarn and the glitter of one of the browns.

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Also weaving but a very different type – I decided to do one more branch weaving, this time a more pictorial form. I cut off my first try, as the warp wasn’t tight enough and was loosening as I wove. After re-warping I made a boo-boo at the beginning that I could sort-of fix midstream. Note: I am most definitely NOT a tapestry weaver, so this stretched my skillset for sure, but I’m pleased with my end result.

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Jack aged 2 years in a few weeks. No, he wasn’t ill or in an accident or anything. It was all about my thinking. I’d been saying that Jack was 9, knowing that I made his birthday be when I got him, which was in September of 2015. So just like with people, he wouldn’t be 10 for a few months yet. BUT! I had to stop in at the vet’s office to pick up a regular monthly preventative prescription for heartworm & I saw that they had his birthday listed as 2012. I thought that was wrong, as I believe he was 2 when I got him, but decided not to question it at the vet. I came home and looked at his adoption papers, and sure enough, the vet was correct. He was estimated to be 3 when I got him, not 2. So suddenly he went from age 9 to almost 11. As I understand dog years vs. human years, (1st year=1, 2nd year=2, 3rd year=4, all subsequent years=7) he went from age 49 to 63 in the blink of an eye. While I was wrapping my head around that, he got his next grooming, and didn’t he look like a little old man when he came home. 🙁 Dogs die too young, and this mistake on my part didn’t add any years to him except in my mind…2 years closer to having to say goodbye to this little guy.

At least I can take comfort in the fact that he’s become a pretty calm and peaceful dog. He has gotten rid of many (most?) of his anxieties.

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Now for what else has been taking lots of my time – my gardens. Which I love. It makes me happy to see things blooming and know that I have planted, weeded, mulched, watered, and tended them. So here are lots of garden shots.

blue flax that came in a wildflower seed blend last year and returned.

oak leaf hydrangea in full flower

fragrant roses, clematis, peonies blooming, oak leaf hydrangea just beginning

a beautiful fragrant honeysuckle that I’ll have to move so it can get more sun and be more appreciated

Japanese maple and golden spirea in front of my kitchen

raindrops on cutleaf rudbeckia

I mow my own yard, and it’s always a pain to get under my crabapple tree and mow right up to my chain link fence. So I decided to do something about it. I dug out grass, moved some crowded hosta, and put in border. This new garden area is about 12′ long. Took quite a while to do the work. Thankfully, most of the time I was in the shade of that crabapple.

Then, being a glutton for punishment, I decided to move even more hosta to under my Japanese dogwood. Really nothing had grown there before, so again, I had to start by digging out the grass and preparing the soil.

That circle is roughly a 12″ radius out from the tree trunk. Then I dug out the hosta, divided, planted and watered.

I also did a bunch of work on my front garden, but since most of the plants were dug from someone else’s garden and transplanted, they’ve taken a hit in the heat and it doesn’t look so pretty right now, even though I’ve made sure to water it well.

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And here are my 10 bead bags for June, 2023.

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As if none of that is enough…I LOVE my BuyNothing group. A woman posted that her tart cherry tree was loaded with fruit and asked who was interested in coming to pick. She set us up with a sort of schedule so that we’d be there on different days so that we’d all get cherries. I was AMAZED at how prolific her little tree is!

I was there at about 7AM, and picked 4-1/2 quarts in record time.

I came home, washed them, pitted them (by hand, no pitter here), pulsed them in my food processor, and set about making jam.

I love using this pectin.

For 7 cups prepared fruit I used 6 Tablespoons pectin and 2 cups of sugar. And that’s plenty sweet for me. I also added about 1 Tablespoon of cinnamon, but I can’t say I tasted that in the final product.

I got 8 half-pints of jam, plus a bit in a mug. One of the jars didn’t seal when it came out of the canner.

I sent that photo to the woman with the tree and offered to bring her a jar. She was so thankful! She invited me back to pick again when she had cherries ready. This time I looked at my watch; it took me 5-6 minutes to pick a quart of cherries. This time I picked 7 quarts. I pitted them all, made a cherry crisp for my son’s birthday, gave him a quart and a half, and put a quart in my fridge. They have graced my morning overnight oats and provided a yummy evening snack.

So you see, I have been busy, I just haven’t had time to do a lot of weaving. I’m currently deciding between various drafts for another set of towels as the ones in my Etsy shop keep selling out. 🙂 MAYBE tomorrow I’ll have time to work on sewing that jacket. Unless something else calls to me.