Weaving A Gem Of A Life

Must be Santa

I’ve finished knitting the last of the toys for my grandson. He wanted a teeny, tiny Santa, and this guy isn’t as small as I’d like – about 6″. But I had a hard time finding a Santa pattern I liked so went with this one.

I wish I hadn’t used any eyelash yarn on his hat. For some reason my yarn showed much more eyelashes than the pattern, and you can hardly see Santa’s eyes. Oh, well.

Meanwhile, I’ve been weaving as I can in between preparing for the show this weekend and doing such fun things as balancing my checkbook & paying bills. 🙁 I like this shot of the ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ of JM’s wrap. The color on the bottom is quite good; as the fabric crosses the breast beam the light hit it too brightly and washed it out. But you can see the hearts are filled with warp (darker colors) on the cloth beam and weft (pale chambray) on the breast beam.

I worked my butt off today and finished weaving JM’s, getting just a few inches woven on AA’s with her melon weft. I need to be done for the evening & sit in a comfortable chair. I couldn’t get the colors good for this shot.

I don’t expect to get any weaving done tomorrow, instead doing things like laundry, vacuuming, dishes, packing a van, and setting up for a show.

Earthy

Before we get to the weaving update, isn’t this a cool picture?

I like the way you can see the jacks on my loom through the yarn. I’m sure if I’d been trying to achieve this effect I never could have done it.

I had a bunch of errands to run this morning, so I didn’t get in as much weaving time as I would have liked. Still, I know that my moms love to see the progress on their wraps, so I’m happy to report that I did get about 75 inches of JM’s wrap woven.

From the left, her warp colors are chocolate brown, burnt orange, rust, denim, and khaki, with a really soft chambray weft. These earthy colors all look wonderful together, while the 3 center colors are enough to make me swoon.

I have the Roycroft Winter show this weekend and have some things I have to do to prepare, so I’m not sure how far I’ll get on this warp over the next few days.

Gratefulness

As I celebrated Thanksgiving with my family this weekend, I thought about gratefulness. Is it the same as being thankful? Not exactly. At least not in my mind. Thankfulness is a good thing, it encourages us to appreciate not just material things, but family, friendship, beauty, and more.

For me, gratitude includes thankfulness but goes beyond it. When I googled the word, I really liked the 2nd part of definition that popped up: readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. I can be thankful without extending kindness. And for me, kindness is at the heart of a life well lived.

It’s certainly true that I’m not always kind. I think some pretty awful thoughts, and all too often say things that aren’t helpful. But I try. I try to do better. I think about it often enough that I’m sure I do better than I did 20 years ago. I hope I can continue to say that as the years go by.

Spending time with my adult children, my son-in-law, and my grandson this weekend was a true joy. We cooked, we ate, we laughed, we sat around and simply enjoyed each other’s company. On Sunday we helped decorate the outside of my daughter & son-in-law’s house. We were all quite surprised when the inflatable polar bear she bought on deep discount at the end of the season last year turned out not to be 6.7 feet tall, as we each read on the box, but 14 feet tall! The 6.7 feet is his width, not his height! Holy smokes, that’s ONE BIG BEAR!

After I came home I finished assembling the green creature you’ve seen in bits and pieces. I’m really happy with him; he exceeded my expectations. Did you guess it’s a dragon? Here he is in all his glory, from the top and the front.

To give you some idea of his size, I’ve consistently photographed him on top of my Mac laptop.

Want to make one of your own? You can get the directions from Lucy Ravenscar – she’s graciously provided them for free!

Earthtones

I got the warp measured for the wraps for JM & AA. When I was drafting the image in my weaving software I had real doubts about the colors. I always encourage my moms to order a sample card so they can see the actual yarns and not rely on computer monitors, and I was really glad that JM had one. She took the yarns from the card and wrapped them around a piece of paper to see how they looked in real life.

Not only did they look good on the paper, the individual bouts looked great on the warping mill.

And on the back beam, as I was getting ready to add a new length of paper packing, wow, the colors were terrific!

There won’t be more progress over the weekend, as I’m celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend. But I’ll be back at it on Monday.

One last shot – if you’re trying to guess what those crocheted parts will turn into, does it help if I show you these last 2 parts, or will you need to wait to see the whole thing assembled?

(Not) Thanksgiving

According to the calendar, today’s Thanksgiving. For me & my family, it’s still a few days away. We often celebrate on alternate days to make it work for everyone’s schedule.

So I did some stuff yesterday & today in advance of our holiday celebration.

I finished weaving those rayon chenille scarves in 2 reds and an orange. They look great when wet finished. It might be hard to see the difference between the two here, one with a wine weft and one with a ruby weft.

I also wet finished that taquete sample to see how it would work, even though I don’t like the colors. I will definitely try this again with other colors.

Then I kept working on Christmas toys. Here’s a challenge for you: can you guess what this will be when it’s all done?

Does it get any easier if I add the legs & ears?

What about that yellow bit – do you have it now?

I still have more pieces to crochet, so if you haven’t guessed it yet, you’ll have to wait.

As an aside, I would MUCH rather knit than crochet. Making this guy reminded me how much easier it is for me.

Weaving A Gem Of A Life

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