Twisp of Fate

We had friends over for dinner recently and D. gave me a bad time about the blog, pointing out that my most recent post was from the end of October.  Well OK, I guess you have a point.  It was a busy time up until the end of December, and I guess I have fallen out of the habit!

20 rugs and counting

Since my last post, I have woven 20 rugs.  Mostly these were in a push to have more things for sale at the 2 galleries over the holiday period, for our annual weaving guild sale in November, and also Rick and I were invited to have work up at The Gallery at Sun Mountain Lodge by our friends who curate that space.  Rick had a live-edge walnut mirror up there which subsequently sold, and I have 3 rugs hanging on the walls.  They will be there through sometime in April when the lodge closes for the shoulder season.

Did 4-5 in these blue & gray colors:

Got into some black & white and bright colors (more than one rug):

These 3 are from just last week and are now at Confluence Gallery:

8 More shawls… and some placemats

I finished the 4 purple shawls towards the end of October, then put on one more warp to weave another four of the blue/black shawls that had proven to be very popular….

After I finished the shawls, I put on a warp for more placemats using the “thick ‘n’ thin” method with cotton fabric strips and a slub yarn.  During December and early January I wove 12 placemats and a runner on that warp, but haven’t gotten any pictures yet.

Knitting

Once the weaving push was over, I realized I had only a couple of my Mosaic Mojo Hats up at Winthrop Gallery for the holiday sales.  I hadn’t knit any of these for a year and it was fun to rummage through the yarn boxes and come up with a few new ones.  Well, six to be exact.  I worked on these in December and when in Seattle for Christmas week.

I also knit something for myself!  Brush Creek Cowlette by Carina Spencer using hand-dyed yarns from Marianated Yarns that I bought at knitting retreat the first weekend of November.  The yarn base is Scrumptious HT (80% merino, 20% cashmere) – she had yarn kits that had been broken up and I was able to choose 1/3 skeins (33 gm) of 3 colors, which was just comfortably enough.  I also modified the pattern by adding 2 more pattern repeats to make the neck opening bigger before joining in the round for the second and third colors.  I love this thing and wear it all the time!

Annual guild sale

Methow Valley Spinners & Weavers Guild annual show and sale was the weekend before Thanksgiving.  As usual, Sara Ashford did a wonderful job of organizing and decorating and the room looked so colorful.  It was a big success and is one of my best opportunities to sell directly to the public each year.

Snow!!

It has been a dry winter but very cold (like getting up in the morning to -17F).  But a few weeks ago we finally got a decent amount of snow.  Then it warmed up and melted off the roofs in great thundering WHUMPS!! but we still have at least 2 ft on the ground.

Squirrel Cowl Published

I finally took the time to publish my cowl pattern for sale on Ravelry a couple of weeks ago.  Last fall I wrote up the pattern, and taught a class down at Twisted Knitters in Twisp.  Just hadn’t gotten around to the final step on Ravelry.  It is a “sequence knitting” project and is called Squirrel Cowl.  Somehow the phrase “sequence spiral” morphed into “squirrel” in my brain!  Now I think of it as watching 2 squirrels chase each other up a pine tree, around and around and upward they go.

and on into 2017…

Still have rug warp on the big loom.  The small loom at home sits empty but I am contemplating a new scarf project.  The loom at the guild room also sits empty but I think I will put a towel warp on that one – just not sure what yet.   I “frogged” (rip-it, rip-it) 2 sweaters that just weren’t going anywhere, re-skeined and soaked the yarn to get the kinks out, and now one of them is in the process of its new incarnation.

Trying to take time for TLC on the old body and its lower back issues!  Enjoy our home in the Methow, cope with family issues that have been ongoing since September and keep looking forward and upward.

Take care, all.

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