Happy New Year!!!

January 1, 2017…Grand Rapids Michigan

Or maybe I should say HOPPY New Year!!

Happy New Years everyone! I got up at 6:30… which is late for me…let the dog out, drank two cups of coffee…and started weaving on my windowpane towels. I think I can finish that warp today. I’ve been soaking my bobbins so the linen is more flexible in the weft.

I’m including a picture of the back of my loom which is a terrible mess! Every other thread of the warp is of old white cotton that I think I got off of eBay last year and it’s not strong enough so I have had broken thread after broken thread…and then my cat Angel sits down and begins to bat at everything I have hanging…I don’t blame her, I want to bat at them too.

The warp is yellow and white cotton, and the weft has been varying colors of linen. I thought orange and red linen would look good, but not really, it’s better with pastel greens and blues so that’s what I’m doing. Regardless of the broken threads I think the towels will come out just fine!

I’m not sure what my next project is going to be… I’ve planned two…one is a twill scarf with a dyed warp of lime, gold and purple…but it’s a bit cold to dye anything in my unheated garage..and the other is to use up my remaining Zephyr Jaggerspun and make more möbius cowls like this one.

I also need to devise a project for my grab bag from Heidi Huntly’s studio. Heidi, I understand, was an accomplished weaver and spinner who lived in Muskegon Michigan. Tragically, she now has Alzheimer’s and can no longer weave. Her generous husband gave her entire weaving studio contents to my guild, the Woodland Weavers and Spinners guild. The Guild had a huge sale to sell off the majority of her yarn, looms, and spinning wheels, but a few items were left over. Those items were devided into about 25 grab bags with the stipulation that you must do something with the contents by our February meeting. Here are the contents of my bag:

Yellow boucleish cotton, handspun cotton, bobbins with cotton thread, empty tapestry bobbins, a basic shuttle, a book on the Ming dynasty’s textiles, and a Historic Preservation magazine. So we will see what I come up with.