New Year

We made it home safe. Even with 9 days of traveling and passing 4 known yarn stores without one stop I still did pretty well this holiday season. I came home with a table loom, a book on sewing hand woven fabric, a book on designing weaving drafts, 2 bags of yarn, and a book of aran and cabled sweater knitting patterns.

The giving of Christmas gifts went well too. With plenty of furious yarn tucking and burring I was able to finish all presents the night before opening. The handspun scarf did have to make a trip through the washing machine after it was open but everything else made it in time. I am very happy with that scarf and may ask for it back this summer to enter in a few shows

I can’t wait to begin the New Year and the new projects. The aran book has a sweater pattern that the cables interlock in a basket weave. While the sweater is knitted I like how it conjures up images of weaving. I just have to show it to himself to make sure he would wear it before I start. I like it so much that mine will be the same sweater in a different color instead of a different sweater in the same theme as I had envisioned.

The table loom is wide enough that I can finally start weaving the cloth for my jacket. I just have to decide if I want to weave the entire yardage on the table loom or only the front and back panels. Weaving is quicker on the floor loom but warping two looms with the same fabric seems wrong, so very wrong.

As soon as I got home from traveling I pulled out my spinning wheel and started on the second 4 oz of lyocell, cotton, flax blend. This one is bleached white and so much softer than the natural I’m sort of regretting my decision to ply the two together. I have added too much twist to use them as singles so when I get this spun up I’ll do some samples with the plying to see what I like. I can’t wait to warp a loom with the commercial cotton linen blend I have and start weaving the cloth for a shirt. See that is why I don’t want to try up booth looms with the same fabric.

However, before starting new projects I want to take some time and finish some (but not all) of my old. I only have half a sleeve on my child’s guernsey left and my odd and end vest is knitted up to the armholes. Both of those need to be finished before I forget what I’m doing. However, my two other unfinished sweater will have to languish a while longer. Maybe I’ll pick them up next fall.