Before turkey day

I’ve not often taken a video of myself doing anything…or even many stills, for that matter…and with good reason. It took 25 tries to get this 90-second video. That’s not an exaggeration – I looked at my phone and counted them all. Sigh.

This is me weaving two complete circles on a towel warp. The draft is from Susan Poague. She and I became acquainted online several years ago, and I was a *tiny* voice making comments as she developed this draft. I first wove it in 2016, and I’ve used it several times since then. So I have no idea why I was struggling to get the treadling order into my brain, but I was. That was part of the reason for so many video attempts – I’d throw the shuttle a few times and realize I’d made a treadling error. I had to unweave and start again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Then I realized I didn’t want to see my face in profile with double chins in full view, so I repositioned the stand and camera. Then I wanted to be able to show my feet as well as my hands, and see a bit of the shafts raising and lowering, so more repositioning.

I’m currently weaving towel #7 on the warp, and since I typically make warps long enough for 8 towels, I’m nearing the finish line, and glad of it. Although I got in the groove for treadling correctly, I’ve found that I need to focus enough that I can’t listen to an audiobook while I weave or I mess up. Ditto listening to music that will tempt me to sing along. So I’ll be happy to be done with this warp.

I’m making decent progress at making my planned Christmas presents, but can’t show you any photos yet or it’d spoil the surprise. 😐

Jumping around, you’ll be pleased to know that Jack healed well. He’s back to his usual pleasant and mellow self.

On a completely different note, my local library was offering a 1-hour free program that I found enticing, so I signed up and learned how to make a paper dahlia.

I think there were 7 of us plus the teacher, and I was the only one who chose to use several colors in my flower. I like it. She had the paper all pre-cut for us. This was made from 3″ squares and the flower is roughly 8″ square & 3″ high. I’m sure it could be done successfully with 2″ squares. I think I’d be hard pressed to get my fingers to manipulate papers any smaller than that well, but maybe you have experience and know it’s not too hard.

Moving on…The large bay window in my kitchen had issues with its seal so was getting cloudy, causing me to have it replaced. After months of waiting for the window to be made, it finally got installed last week. It’s beautiful with lovely hardwood molding. The new molding didn’t quite cover the space of the old molding, especially since I had them remove a bit of gingerbread that just wasn’t my style. No problem, I had the wall paint so could paint those bits without a problem. Or so I thought.

Above the window the wall had previously been papered. I had the wallpaper removed a few years ago and the wall painted, all well and good. But now a new section of paper was exposed. I was on my 3-step stepstool with a razor blade and tweezers trying to remove the inch or so of remaining paper. This was not my idea of a good time. I was cranky. When I was finally done with this task I looked out the new window and saw this. A lovely little rainbow was poking out of the clouds. Brightened my whole outlook.

So I wasn’t nearly as unhappy when I learned that below the window there were sizeable bits of missing plaster where screws or something was removed that had to be patched. Not something I’d done before. The next morning I went to the local hardware store and bought the patching plaster they recommended – I could have gotten a half-pint and had plenty, so can patch any remaining holes I happen to make or find for years. The job wasn’t as hard as I feared. But then again, my standards aren’t high for something that I have to get on the floor to see. 😉

Next up was to stain and then seal the wood. Years ago when we were building our house, my hubby made me stain or paint whatever wood we’d be using for finish work before it was installed. I thought this was a royal PITA and unnecessary. Well. It turns out he was 100% right. It was not easy to stain the molding all around the windows. Some was wide, some was narrow, some was over my head, some was closer to the floor. The ‘ceiling’ of that bay window meant I had to work on a flat surface parallel with the floor, but upside down. I did the best I could to apply that stain evenly. A professional could surely have done a better job, but again, I did the best I could.

My intent was to apply the polyurethane today, but that didn’t happen. It was a lovely sunny day, and that window faces south, so I’d have the sun in my eyes the entire time I was working and that would only make the job more difficult. It’s supposed to be rainy and/or cloudy tomorrow, so I’ll aim for then. Not looking forward to this task that will require a calm, steady hand with the brush. That made weaving those polka dots sound much better. 🙂