Six days to Christmas and the only evidence in this house is a lonely tree not yet decked out with lights nor ornaments, and a string of lights glowing on the porch railing. Ed likes Charley Brown trees so here in Christmas tree country we always find a small, somewhat scraggly tree. It looks happy enthroned on top of the kid’s toy box.
The past month is a blur. What’s been happening? No cookie baking, candy making, house decorating festivities. Rolls were so fun to make for Thanksgiving that I made another batch the next day while envisioning setting aside a baking day per week. Orders to fill, a week of below freezing weather with sharp clear days and lots of woods burning trying to keep the house warm, a visit from the grandkids, one shirt off the loom, two other projects finished and ready to gift, two separate Christmas music programs to practice the violin for, and an article deadline to keep. (I haven’t heard back from the editor, I hope she’s not totally dismayed with it.)
On the first day of the minus 20F week Ed and I took a short trip. We stopped at a bridge where I’ve long wanted to stop and snap this sight:
The zoom brings Mt Hood closer than in real life with the Molalla River in the foreground.
Mandy drove with the kids to Oregon to visit her mom. We were able to have Feather and Gus overnight. We went to the yarn store to let them pick out yarns for me to make them legwarmers.
Feather wasn’t sure about this guy.
I cast on and knit the first 25 grams of Feather’s legwarmer and realized there wasn’t going to be enough for both legs. So until I can find some matching yarn (there was only one skein of the multicolored yarn she liked) I’m knitting on Gus’s pair.
I’ve been puzzling out a solution to warping with even tension but one that doesn’t take up extra space or cost much money. I figured out a temporary way to keep the warp under tension as I wind on the warp, it may be hokey but it worked great. (go ahead and laugh – I certainly did) My footstool turned upside down and placed on top of the warp laying on a woven rug. The warp was already sleyed through the reed, threaded through the heddles and tied to the warp beam in back. (Someday I will work up the courage to try back to front warping but I’m in the rut of staying with what I’m comfortable.) I thought I might need to add weight to the footstool but there was just the right amount of friction and tension to do a good job.
A sample weaving thrown in the washer and dryer brought a revision for the warp originally planned for three shirts instead it’ll be enough for two shirts and one dishtowel. Sampling also allowed me to see if using color tencel in the weft would work well with the white cotton warp.
An aspect of this shirt is for the article to be published in weavezine. Please watch for it next month. (In the meantime go listen to the podcast posted today Dec 19th – I found it fascinating. Be sure and listen all the way through, the solo sung at the end is beautiful!) Shirt number one met all my expectations and I’m eager to start the next one though it may be after Christmas before there is time to sit at the weaving bench. So many ideas are brewing in my thoughts I wish I were successful in carving out a regular time to bring them to fruition. Early mornings and evening are when I can best fit them in which means there’s not much time for the computer and reading blogs. I have been keenly missing knowing what’s happening with my favorite blogger friends and somehow I need to figure out a better scheduling that also allows time for reading. By evening I’m often so tired of looking at a computer that I find myself reaching for a novel to relax before bed. In the past few months I’ve read The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger ; The Queen’s Fool, Philippa Gregory ; Spin a Wicked Web, Cricket McRae ; The Bird Cage, Marcia Willett ; and currently The Boleyn Inheritance, Phillipa Gregory. I do not agree with how Philippa portrays the Queen Boleyn or Queen Elizabeth for her viewpoint doesn’t line up with what I’ve read in the past of these two queens. I believe they were both Godly women rather than the tarts she makes them out to be. Still, they are novels and she is a good writer providing entertaining stories.
I hope everyone is able to enjoy the coming week without too much last-minute rushing around. I’m looking forward to taking three, perhaps four days off from the computer and office to truly relax and enjoy time with my family, especially on Christmas day, the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus our Saviour.
