Yes, it’s now a bit over a week after Christmas, but I can’t yet share the photos of the gifts I made. I’ll be visiting a friend who will receive one this coming weekend, and can post all the photos after that.
Meanwhile, I was totally inspired by last month’s Evening Meeting of the Weavers’ Guild of Rochester. I got myself some yarn and started knitting mittens to donate to people who need them. Thanks to Suanne Pascarella, my Evening Meeting co-chair, for suggesting this topic (making to donate) and for subsequently providing a vintage 2-needle mitten pattern.
The photo shows them in the order I knit them. The brown, maroon & gray stripe, dusty rose and light blue pairs were made from that 2-needle pattern. The little purple ones and the (solo at the point the photo was taken) white were made with 4 needles from a free pattern available online. I’ve since finished the mate to that white mitten and am knitting another child-sized pair on 2-needles.
Although I intended to hang the mittens in a bus shelter, I’ve changed my plan slightly. As soon as I finish this post I’m going to call a local church that has a community garden in the summer and a food pantry year round. While I could just hang my donations from their railing and/or bushes, I’m going to see if they would prefer that I bring them in for them to distribute. Either option works for me.
I planned to knit a few hats to accompany the mittens before I brought in the donation, but it is C*O*L*D today, so if the church would prefer to get the mittens now while I keep knitting, that’s okay with me, too.
Parting shots: yesterday morning was just a stunner. We’d had rain overnight and then the temperature dropped and it changed to snow, so the white stuff clung to every branch. Just beautiful.
If you looked only at the fact that I haven’t posted in a month, you might think I haven’t been doing anything. You’d be wrong.
However a lot of my time has been spent making gifts, and I didn’t want to spend even an hour of potentially productive time sitting at my computer and blogging. Of course, I can’t share anything about my holiday makes until after Christmas.
I FINALLY got things finished and yesterday went to the post office with four packages going to other states, so here I am.
I did weave another run of towels. As mentioned in my last post, I had a customer want 4 towels in a very traditional, simple straight twill. My neighbor tagged on with 1 more, so I decided to wind a warp for 12 towels, with 7 able to go into my Etsy shop. In typical fashion for me, every towel is a little different. Because I don’t have much else I can talk about right now, I’ll show you all 12 towels.
I guess I didn’t take individual images of these, but here’s a 12 second video of the 4 towels my customer requested.
And apparently I can only show you 11. I guess I didn’t take a photo of the towel my neighbor bought. I was needing to get these towels done so I could move on to my Christmas gift making. But here are the remaining 7, individually, in photos I took for listing in my Etsy shop.
I called this one Sunrise. The majority of the weft is a cotton flake that’s a bit heavier than the 8/2 warp, so this towel is very thirsty although it may not fit inside a glass to try it quite as well. I chose yellow and red for its solid end stripes
Sticking with the variegated theme, this one, called Crayons, is also woven primarily with a cotton flake, but this one is a bunch finer than the 8/2 warp. Basic red and blue are the complementary stripes. Interestingly, the size difference didn’t seem to matter in either of these towels. For years – decades – I was so careful not to mix the sizes of yarns I used in a given piece; I’m only now learning what I can and cannot do successfully.
In honor of the season, this one, simply called Red, looks traditional in every sense of the word to me. I just used the same natural for the three end stripes. I particularly like it.
Since one red one wasn’t enough for me, I chose a darker color and wove Cranberry with pink stripes. Personally, I still prefer Red, above.
Then I moved to colors that aren’t necessarily my go-to colors, but I thought others would like. Here is Sage, with goldenrod stripes. Nice, soft colors that will look perfect in someone’s kitchen, I’m sure.
For this towel I used some handpainted (not by me) bamboo-cotton blend yarn I’ve had in my stash for quite a while. Turquoise, with the stripe a coordinating blue-green-purple variegation dyed to coordinate.
And last, this is Clouds, woven in light and medium gray. The one my neighbor chose was medium gray with black and natural end stripes.
The day after I posted these towels on Etsy, a TOTALLY AMAZING customer of mine, a woman who had already purchased 17 towels from me since mid-October, bought two of this batch. HOLY COW!!!!
Did I do anything else to report? Yes, I sent out a few dozen Christmas cards, using those I made last March. Remember them? You saw the weaving, but not the finished cards. I have only one more, which I will hand to a friend.
I do plan on making cards for 2022, again, in February or March; I’d never have the time in November or December.
Now that all that is done, I am moving on. Making things for people I don’t know. Wonder what that’s about? I’m knitting mittens, specifically 2-needle mittens using worsted weight acrylic yarn and size 5 needles using a vintage pattern from the 50s. Once I have a several pairs, in a few sizes, I’ll put them in ziplock baggies and somehow (haven’t figured this step out yet) hang (?) them in a bus shelter not far from my house, with notes that anyone who needs a pair should take them. I plan to continue this, and maybe add hats, throughout the winter.
Parting shot – Jack got his first professional grooming in years, and he looks SOOOO much better than when I do it with scissors.
I sold 24 of the 26 towels I brought to the Guild Holiday Sale. Since then (less than 2 weeks ago) I sold those two.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
Because I sold more towels than I’d expected at the Holiday Sale, I quickly warped up my loom for another batch of towels to put in my Etsy shop. I really liked the draft I’d used for those Autumn Beauty towels, and I wouldn’t have to change the heddles or tie up, so off I went with several shades of blue & green, using both color from my stash and my new purchases.
As soon as those were done I quickly warped the loom again, this time using a solid cream warp in one of my go-to drafts, twill blocks. I used a different color weft for each of the eight towels, again using both newly-purchased yarns and stash yarns.
I posted those towels in my shop on Wednesday morning and by Wednesday evening had sold 6 of them!!!
So although all the Sea & Sky towels are still available, you know as soon as the person who loves blues sees them, they’ll be gone, too.
I usually warp my loom for 8 towels at a time. It seems like a good number for me, as I don’t have time to get bored with the treadling or the colors. But today? Today I’m going to warp for at least 10, maybe 12. Why? I have a customer who wants 4 of them to replace towels she bought from me years ago. Her towels will all be in very similar colors, so I’ll want to liven things up and excite my visual cortex with very different options for the others.
I would have been winding that warp this morning instead of taking the time to write this post, but I’m sitting at the car dealer’s getting my 20,000 mile inspection. And my snow tires put on. So you’re getting a new post.
In closing, I finally got a new phone, after more than 5 years. The new one takes much better photos, especially of reds. Yesterday as I was getting ready to do my yoga I looked out the window and saw this beautiful sunrise. I just stepped out the door to snap this picture.
You know my commitment to using up my stash? Well I went to Daft Dames yesterday and bought 13 cones of unmercerized cotton. The four cones on the bottom are cotton flake, which is a thick & thin yarn that makes for great absorbency in towels.
What possessed me? Sales. That’s what. In the last week I finished and listed 16 new towels in my Etsy store. I have two left. That’s all. Sure, I happened to hit the colors and timing just right, but I was motivated! Inspired! Roused!
You saw the mostly orange and pink towels in the last post. They are all gone. Here is one shot of my all of my Autumn Beauty towels. Two of these are left.
Add to that the fact that the Weavers’ Guild Holiday Sale is right around the corner, and every single one of my previously woven towels is going there. That’s 32 towels. I think last year I sold around 20 of my towels. While I don’t necessarily expect to sell that many again, I know I’ll sell at least some of them. (And some of the ones I’m bringing are, IMHO, not so attractive.)
Then, we have the holidays coming up immediately thereafter. So I wanted my Etsy store to be stocked with colorful towels.
So I can’t stick around here on my computer. I’ve got to go wind a warp!
I have to be quick. Somehow it’s already after 1PM and I haven’t accomplished much on my list. That’s your win, as I can’t ramble endlessly. Only briefly.
Here’s what I’ve been doing of late.
I now pick up my grandson at kindergarten 4-5 days/week so that he can avoid an hour-long afternoon bus ride. It seems like that shouldn’t take so much of my time, but it does. Roughly 90 minutes a day, but it forces me to stop whatever it is I’m doing and pay attention to the clock. And then him, of course.
I am once again doing texting for the Democratic Committee. There’s a few hours a week.
I volunteered to be part of a Phase 3 trial for an RSV vaccine. Mostly only a one-shot deal (pun intended), but it ate up a few hours of my time last week.
I got my Pfizer booster (YAY!), which put me on the couch for a day, just as the 2nd dose did.
And so many things that simply go through the day and week that seem minimal but take time. A few hours here and a few hours there and pretty soon the day is gone.
I did manage to finish the Zinnias towels (plus 1 Asters), and today finally got them uploaded into my Etsy shop. I didn’t take the time to also save them small enough for this blog, so you can see the closeups of each of the towels there. I still have to figure out how to put my shop on vacation for the few days that I’ll have a bunch of stuff in the Holiday Sale. I don’t want to even think about determining what will got to Etsy and what to the Holiday Sale, so this seems like the most workable solution.
UPDATE: I listed those 8 towels in my Etsy shop yesterday and before the day was out a woman purchased 3 of them. Perfect timing with just the right colors for her.
And after way too many hours in the planning I got one more warp of towels onto and off of my loom. I’m calling these Autumn Beauty. Here they are fresh off the loom. I’ve subsequently machine stitched their ends, washed, dried, and pressed them. They are now ready for my hand hemming, then a run through my steam press.
I still have to steam press those zinnia & aster towels. The hours just fly by! Gotta run.
