Carmel! Aglets! and Inspector Owl

I spent last weekend in Carmel with a lovely group of women; I've been knitting with them for about 10 years! Lots of knitting, laughs, good company, and wine. I worked mostly on the border for the Melon Shawl, from Victorian Lace Today. I started the shawl while helping my mother through hospice, and had bought two balls of yarn for it in Ventura; after I got home I realized that one was a very similar but slightly different colorway!!! I finished the body about 4 years ago and was determined to use the 2nd color for the border. I got one long edge done last weekend, and knit around the corner; I'll need to pull the corner out and redo, but otherwise it looks fine. 

I used some thrums from another project and made a band; I want to make two, to use to lash my leash sticks to the loom. It's 4 cards of 5/2 cotton, threaded two dark, two light, then woven with some black cotton something that was on one of my shuttles. I wove about 5 chevrons forward and 5 backward. I've also been looking for the best way to do the aglets, on these cords and also for shoelaces, one of my current obsessions! Ian Fieggen has a wonderful site with lots of info on aglets, different ways to thread shoelaces, and knots to tie them with... For this piece, I whipped it with the black weft thread and then coated it in clear nail polish; for the next lace, I'll whip and then try glue.

I finished two of the placemats, and got tired of the same old pattern... I switched to this. Owl is inspecting for me.

On other fronts, I finished spinning the light brown Merino I talked about in the last post. It's all washed, dried, and put away; someday I'll weave it into something lovely and very, very warm; maybe a ruana. I may dye more of it, as the overdyed brown is lovely.

I'm also taking a watercolor class, and just signed up for a beginning drawing class. It's all Art, all the time. I felt somewhat guilty about engaging in these frivolous activities, with the current political climate, but then realized if the world goes to hell, what a better way to spend my time than drawing, painting, weaving, and so on?

I probably need to set some priorities; I've got default weaving and knitting projects so they won't show here.  Here are some possibilities in no particular order:

• Figure out the next steps on the pub quilt.
• Start another card woven band so I have 2 to lash on my leash sticks. 
• Use the pattern book from New Zealand to create a fish table runner.
• Plan the next loom project, maybe a scarf for the DH in the bamboo I bought for that.
• Plan and sample the next spinning project, maybe the demin colored roving for the pin woven shawl.

New!!! Since Tokyo

I'm finally getting back in the groove after coming home from Japan... I've been grumpy, the cats have been needy, and things in general have needed attention. My progress so far this month has been mostly driven by events.

I attended the local spinning guild meeting and spin in last Saturday, and needed some thing to spin on, so made some progress  on the hand carded merino I've been playing with for months.  It's a lovely light brown sheep colored fleece that was a destash from G.

I'm retreating for a weekend of knitting with my weekly knitting group, so a bunch of us broke out some UFOs and worked through what is needed to get them back on track; I'm putting the border on the Melon Shawl from Victorian Lace Today; I started this while helping my mother through Hospice five years ago; it's been languishing for at least 4, and only needs the knitted on border to be knitted on. It's on progress as well as Seaside Affair, a cute little summer sweater from Drops Design. Neither of these seem like a good project for Knitting Under the Influence, so if I can clear the wheel this week, I'll bring along some roving to spin for the pinwoven/knitted shawl I learned about at Stitches.  

On the weaving front, I finally warped up for some double weave placemats.  It's unmercerized 8/2 cotton in a dark green and a green grey; pattern is from the most recent Handwoven magazine  (March/April '17). I've warped for 6, and I'll likely get bored, so I expect to change things up a bit on some of the mats. Maybe vary the dot pattern? 

And here's a creepy picture of me checking the under layer to make sure it's coming out okay. So far so good!

One more interesting tidbit...  I'm using WeaveIt software and have put this project into their planning tools to see how it works.  It includes a full weaving calculator and will tell me how many heddles I need on each shaft!!! How cool is that!