Twisp of Fate

We drove across the North Cross Highway (North Cascades, Hwy 20) to Anacortes this week, to bring our camping trailer over for winter storage at my folks’ house, and have a nice visit with them.  It was a rainy day, but the colors were good up in the high country:

Such a pretty picture, I have taken a bit of it for my new header image – the autumn theme.

It was heartening to see the colors, because the early freeze of a few weeks ago seems to have stopped most of the trees in our valley dead in their tracks.  They are mostly turning… brown.  No other word for it.  We usually have a lot more color this time of year.

I have finished up seven shawls and have warp prepared for six more.  I am experimenting with making more of a “shoulder shawl” – a little narrower and shorter than the previous series, and meant to be worn more like a vest with perhaps a shawl pin to hold it closed.

There are three alike from a sky blue mohair boucle woven with hand-dyed multi-colored wool in the weft:

Sky blue boucle with hand-dyed wool, 3 alike

For another two I used a multi-colored mohair boucle, hand-dyed with mainly blues and greens -both have a greyish blue wool weft, but I used different colors of kid mohair/silk for the accent stripes:

And for these last two I used another hand-dyed mohair boucle, in a new colorway called “Schist” that has lovely tones of grey, gold and black.  For one I used the greyish blue wool for weft, with deep gold accent stripes.  For the other I used black alpaca for weft, with a dark bronze accent stripe.

These have been somewhat of an exercise in frustration, since it turns out the hand-dyed mohair boucle yarns I am using for the warps do not have consistent amounts of yarn in the skeins.  But after some trial and error I have concluded that getting the length right is what matters the most, and if they aren’t all the same width, then so be it.

I leave you with a picture of Teasel and Pushkin, who love to follow the sun around wherever it falls into the house during the course of the day: