Well, let’s see.
I have now abandoned the idea of “let’s do a moderately beginner-type project” and have launched into doing the project I really wanted to do, woven at a 24-epi sett in a 2/14 silk/wool yarn. (If you don’t have my newly-acquired jargon, that translates to “laceweight”.) At Custom Handweavers yesterday, I found out that they didn’t have Jaggerspun Zephyr in the colors specified in the pattern, but they DID have a one-pound cone of white Zephyr.
Oh.
Yep, that meant only one thing: buy the 1-lb cone and DYE it! So I have spent a good chunk of today (in between making dinner, doing the laundry, adoring the cats, reading back issues of Handwoven, and all the other stuff that has to get done on weekends) skeining up the yarn, selecting colors, and dyeing the yarn. I’m just about done now–only two skeins left to go.
True to my roots, I decided on a rainbow shawl. (I was in the “tie-dye” house at Caltech–does it still show? LOL) But I deliberately chose a muted rainbow for this particular project…rich red, red-orange, golden yellow, mossy green, indigo, and grape, rather than brilliant blue, orange, red, yellow, etc. I’m hoping this avoids some of the more spectacular color clashes, and hope it doesn’t turn into mud when the muted colors start blending. I suppose I’ll find out once it’s on the loom.
(I could, of course, weave a small sample and find out that way–hmm, perhaps that’s not a bad idea. I could do a small color sample to see what happens when each of the six colors blends with the others – six stripes in the warp and six colors in the weft, maybe 1″ on a side. Have to check and see whether I have the extra yarn first, though.)
I always think it’s so unfair that life is so short. There are so many experiments I’d like to do and will never get around to…it’s stuff like this that keeps me running around from place to place. I know I can’t get everything in, but at least I can try to avoid wasting time.
Speaking of not getting everything in, it appears that Mike and I will be going to China next year instead of to India. I’m a bit disappointed about not going to India (it would have been nice to see Lena, Joy, and Nyondo again) but it’ll be nice to have Mike with me on the China trip with my mom and brother.
This does leave me, though, with three weeks of vacation this year or next that I’ll need to find something to do with. I am considering two weeks of working on the book at Thompson Peak Retreat, and also a two-week fiber arts guided tour to ____ (Peru, Mexico, etc.). I’m also considering going off to India on my own, though I dunno–India I’d rather tackle in pairs.
(One of the biggest benefits of working for Adobe, IMO, is the staggeringly generous vacation policy. Every employee gets 4 weeks and 4 days of vacation per year! OK, we don’t get days like President’s Day, Columbus Day, etc. off, but that’s a minor note–I’d rather get extra vacation than preassigned three-day weekends. Adobe rocks!)
I’m just about done with the purple yarn, leaving only a little bit of black to go. Should finish it by the time I go to bed tonight, and hopefully it’ll be dry when I get home from work tomorrow. Then I need to convert it into balls of yarn (oh where, oh where, has my swift gone?), saw down that 5/8″ dowel into warping pegs, and start winding the warp. O joy! Soon I will be weaving.
I did a little more investigation into replacing the marble slab, and it looks like it will be more expensive than I’d thought (around $500), so I think I’ll keep the old slab for now. I may take Mike’s advice and try buffing out the scratches myself–might see if I can rent an electric buffer or something. Wouldn’t bet on my getting around to it, though, since there’s a lot of other stuff going on and chocolate season is just around the corner.
Had an OK bike ride today…40 miles with one very long hill…nothing particularly special/difficult, felt a little tired at the end though. I need to get out more often.
[…] pattern from the Handwoven Design Collection. I wrote a very interesting (in-retrospect-amusing!) blog post about my intentions for this project, and they were well and truly realized. The colors don’t work out well, and I had a few […]