Hood/cowl finished!

After over a year on the needles, the commercial and handspun yarn collaboration is finally finished! I am very pleased with the results too! My model wasn't feeling very well that day, as you can see in on of the pictures, but she put on one cheery face with effort.

This was designed with two thoughts in mind: keeping warm and showing off Sarah's beautiful handspun yarn. I made it very loose fitting, so even when it's up in "hood" position, if you have long hair and it happens to get worn up a lot there's plenty of room for a pony tail or bun. (Of course it will look funny in the back, but as an avid hater of static electricity it's worth it!)



When worn down it cozies up to the neck very nicely. In this picture the model is feeling very puny, but loved the cowl so much when the shoot was over she left it on. (Sore throat, in case you were wondering and she's feeling fine now).



Here Chicky is demonstrating how long it is. I love the purl rows of handspun strutting their stuff and contrasting with the white commercial yarn. It took one skein of Sarah's hand spun and one skein of ggh "Bali."



There's another on the needles already. It won't take a year this time, I hope.

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Running the gauntlet

The gauntlets are finished. Here they are, modeled by the recipient. First we have the back of said mitts.



Then the front, less seen, side.



And finally, full on "Oh!"



She likes them, I love them. We're happy.

There's still daily spinning. Here is some blue three ply - I'm digging the way the blues look all cozied up side by side.



And yesterday's spinning, that is today's plying project (one bobbin is done and having a bath as I type).



If the temperature stays lovely, and the neighbors don't burn any plastic today, I may head out to the patio for my spinning stint. The cooler temperatures are having a lovely effect on my sleeping ability and my overall disposition. Very nice.

New fiber addiction

One day a very long time ago, a co-worker was cleaning out the storage room at work and pulled out a box that contained a table loom destined for the curb. I claimed it and it has sat in whatever houses I've inhabited for almost twenty years. I've gotten it out a couple of times and tried to decipher the directions, but they are very sparse. Goggleing the model and loom didn't turn up any help either. Lately, the weaving bug has been buzzing in my ear and I've been looking at rigid heddle looms. I wold love a floor loom, but my house is small (and so is my budget).

In the midst of this I bought Chicky a loom for her birthday. It came with very clear directions and an impressive project book.She loves it and has made her first scarf. She wants to make a hoodie next.



Reading her instruction manual made me think that perhaps I could get that old loom out of the attic and manage to figure it out. I did! Here it is without the 10 dent heddle attached yet.



My first project didn't turn out so well. My selvedges SUCK and the weave is too open. I used linen for the warp and some of my early handspun (romney) for the weft. I only handwashed it and I've since read a good go through the washing machine might tighten things up a bit.



Since warping the loom is a two person job, I went ahead and decided on my next project while the peeps were here to help. It's going to be a scarf with Opal sock yarn as the warp and Fiesta Boomerang as the weft. My left selvedges look good, the right have not been so great, but now that I'm over halfway through look much better. I hate the learning curve sometimes.
I did order a 32" Kromski Harp and the book Hands On Rigid Heddle Weaving by Betty Linn Davenport. The loom is backordered and I'm trying to be calm and patient until it gets here. Meanwhile, I'm thinking about placemats...

It's here...

Yesterday I spent my available minutes at work checking the camera's progress to my house. The last time I checked before I left it was still on the truck, so I was hopeful we would make it in time. When I pulled in the drive I could see a box (!) but I figured it was too big to be the actual camera (I was right, it was the camera bag I ordered). And I could see a sticky note attached to the door. DRAT! I hauled my sad self out of the car and peeled the note. The first delivery attempt had been made at 2:30 - I missed him by an hour. Not to be a quitter, I went on -line to the UPS web site and checked the "I need my package today" box. If you do that, someone will call you within an hour and give you whatever scoop they have at the time. The scoop for me was that I had to wait until the delivery truck returned and they would call me to come and pick it up... in Chapel Hill (about 20 minutes away), and they close at 8 pm. I have already said, more than once, that I am not patient and I needed something to do with all that waiting time. At around five I said to the kids, "Anybody want to go to Margaret's?" and they all screamed, "YES!" I figured that would kill almost two hours and certainly the camera would be back at HQ for pick-up by then.

We went to Margaret's, had lovely food, not so much lovely conversation (in the beginning) because there was some confusion about whether or not we were getting sweet potato chips (I was thinking not, but Chicky was assuming yes) and a small flurry of emotion happened at our table. It ended with Chicky resting her head on the table in defeat. To her credit, she is the youngest so all the world is unfair all of the time and I, her mother, do not understand this ever. (She tells me this daily, regardless of the topic.) After tucking in, things went more smoothly and we enjoyed killing time for a while. I called the house when we left and there were no messages from the UPS people... I decided we would just drive over there and wait, how long could it be?

The Customer Service Center was a mere mile and a half away and when we got there trucks were returning like moths to a flame! I was so psyched! The trucks would pull in, back up, they would get the conveyor belts unloading, dudes were sha-shinging boxes with the scanners - it was a regular model of efficiency. It was entertaining for about ten or fifteen minutes. Then we needed some other stimulation so the kids decided to get out of the car and jump up and down (really, they thought this would be fun). At this point, I started to think maybe I had made the wrong decision and I should just go back after work on Thursday. Nope, my desire for the camera won out. After calling my house eight times I decided to just walk in and see if it were ready. It was! My joy was complete!

We got home, the kids watched me unpack the camera, brought me the lens and I started playing with it (even though I didn't have a CF card). It is lovely. It will take me a little while to learn to drive it effectively, but since my other camera was a Canon, at least some of it is familiar. I adore the software bundle, too. I have iPhoto, but I've never liked it as much as the Canon software.

When Chicky was somewhere between 15-18 months old we took her to The Playhouse because we were trying to find some comfort object for her. Morgan never really had one, and Bowen had Sebastian (the crab) and loved his desperately for years. When we were in the store, the woman that was working showed us the new "Groovy Girls" they got (this was in 2000) and she brought Chicky a girl and a boy. Chicky had no interest in the girl, but grabbed the boy, smiled, and swung him around a bit while gripping his waist. It was love at first sight. The two have been together ever since - minus a stint when we accidentally left him at the pediatrician's for three days, despite my frantic search in the room a day later, and a panicked phone call when I realized the tragedy. He typically wears some short coveralls without a shirt underneath (he's a country boy at heart), but occasionally he can be seen in his soccer uniform. His overalls have a hole in the bum and are wearing thin all over. He's got some pretty skinny arms these days, and one of the seams in an arm pit is threatening to break. Chicky worries about these things and we have discussions about the Nature of Love and Stuffed Things. When she was about four, I tried to find another Guy (his Official name was Zane), but he was no longer being made. When we would go back to the Playhouse I would ask her if she liked any of the other Groovy Guys and she would say, "No. I like Guy." Today, when I got home from work, Guy was lying on the kitchen table, where Chicky had left him after breakfast. Since the children are with their father tonight, and the dog is not such a willing model, I decided Guy should be the subject of my first photo shoot. Without further ado, here is Guy.



And here he is in his other favorite place, Chicky's bed.



What a Guy. I'll miss him when she doesn't need him anymore.