Pleats! Napkins! Dumplings!

Lots to write about today!!!  I've spent the last month or so in class making pleated fabric... first a test piece and then a scarf; photos are of the scarf.  It's alternating blocks of 1/3 and 3/1 twill; I found I got sharper pleats when I gave it a good firm beat. Warp is handdyed 8/2 tencel, alternating with 8/2 tencel that's a dark blue green, sett at 32 EPI; warp is Spruce colored 20/2 cotton, 28-32 PPI. It'll collapse about 50%.
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The napkins are off the loom and table tested!!! I made Creole Chicken and Dumplings from Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen (for the cookbook challenge). I'd never fried chicken before (and not sure it added to the dish) but I'd make this dish again.  Anyways, now I have 8 color gamp napkins in 7 different twills and plain weave, plus I used the leftover on the loom to make a table runner with grey scale weft. The napkins are hefty but have a soft hand. I love them. Here's one napkin, still on the loom; the blocks are square after wet-finishing.
Should I do napkins again, I need to put a plain weave border on them, or at least make the outside blocks larger. Also, the plain weave hem was wider than the twill, so I had to futz that while hemming; that's why people do the hem in a smaller yarn. 

Old news: 
I reworked an old top that I'd knit that was 4 sizes too big into a skirt; basically straight up to the hips, then I added a 3" wide waistband out of cotton doubleknit. Super cute. I will remake the top one day; it's the Bonita Shirt by by Mercedes Tarasovich. That's Owl doing the photobombing.

For sewing class I did a shibori shirt, a pair of elastic waist pants that actually look good, and a lined vest. For the vest, I took solid fabric, stamped it with some flowers in black ink, then quilted onto flannel (for some warmth), then lined with a contrasting quilting fabric. I'll likely put a line of stitches around the perimeter to keep it from rolling. That's my final project, so now all I have to do is work on class samples until the end of the semester.

On the knitting side, I finished the A Capella wrap (super cute); Stitches folks will enter me in a drawing if I post the photo as I made it from last years stitches yarn.

New News:
Just put 20/2 silk on my loom for a scarf for Scott. Sadly, I'm 4 tie rods short of being able to tie up the darn thing so will call Macomber tomorrow. I suppose I could but a call out to Bay Area weavers to see if anyone has any to lend...

Knitting on a little shoulder shawl from yarn I bought in Amsterdam last year.

And I finally found where I'd stowed my drop spindles, so I might actually finish that silk cap and make it into yarn...