Snowed In

So basically, I haven’t left my house since I got home from the gym on Friday.

  This is the part of our deck that is under the roof.
Since then, I’d estimate we’ve gotten at least six inches of snow. We took some time out this morning to shovel the driveway, but because there were plenty of reports of just how terrible the roads were, we decided to just not go anywhere.


A friend of mine went to church this morning with her family. Roughly a mile away from their house. It took them almost an hour to get home, so I think we made the right choice! Since I stayed indoors, I did a few small things in my weaving room that I’d been meaning to do for a while. The first was that I took the screen off of a side window in my weaving room and put up two pieces of stained glass that I got in Ireland last year.


I also got out my hammer, and hung a piece of art that came from my mom’s sewing room. It’s titled “She Works With Quills,” and the joke that the last word was “Quilts.” Mom was a quilter, which is what made me start. And I liked it, so I re-homed it.


And then, I got a warp under tension and started to weave.


It’s rep weave, so it’s weaving off very quickly. Which is great, because I have several more warps just waiting to jump on the loom. And since we’re looking to have more snow followed by Polar Vortex temperatures, more weaving is just what Old Man Winter ordered. I love it!

A New Year

So it’s January 1, and it’s been radio silence on the blog for quite a while.

I’d at least like to wrap up the projects that I finished in 2013, and then I’ll hopefully be back in the blogging groove! That’s a long list, and I’m chipping away at getting those posts in the bank.

But meanwhile, today is Wednesday. So let’s start off the year right, with a WiP Wednesday post!

My Swirl is still languishing in a corner. If I sat down and actually, y’know, worked on it, I’m pretty sure it could be finished in short order.

Instead, I’ve been working on a Leftie shawl, knit with a SpaceCadet Creations Leftie kit.


It had a false start when I decided that even though I was two leafs into a 1-5, 1-5 repeat (light to dark every time), it would be better if I went light-to-dark-to-light.

A Twitter-encouraged frogging of about two inches and a re-ordering of leaf colors, and I’m off to the races.


I wasted a perfectly good warp-the-loom day on Saturday, so I’m officially committing to my next weaving project. This really narrow warp will go on at my next opportunity, and will hopefully weave quickly.


It had better weave quickly. I have two tencel warps ready to roll waiting in line behind it!

Better Late than Never

So. My dad asked for placemats for Christmas. Christmas 2011. I got them done for his December birthday. In 2012. Oops.

He wanted placemats for the big table at the Lake. That table sits eight, so eight placemats. The wonderful and talented Sara at The Mannings helped me project plan.

Then it just took for.ev.er for me to get them on the loom and woven. But I finally got them done!


I got eight full-sized placemats out of my 6.5-yard warp, then a shrimp of a ninth mat. I just wove until I couldn't get a shed, then I stopped. Camera lens-cap included for scale. I figure it’ll be good for the napkin holder and salt/pepper in the center of the table.


Because we have a small human who spends a lot of time at the Lake, I figured that ScotchGuarding the placemats would be a smart plan of attack. We had a dry sunny day (Cold, but dry and sunny), so I spread everything out on the driveway and went to work. The reason I did it on the driveway?


The marks are already gone from the driveway. Yay, snow and shoveling!

Dad got the finished set of eight placemats for his birthday, and seemed really pleased. Here’s hoping they have a long stay on the big table up at the Lake!

Rainbow Placemats 

Thread: 3/2 Perle Cotton 

EPI: 32 

Reed: 8-dent 

Ends: 480 

Width in reed: 15” 

Length per full-sized placemat: 24” 

Warp Length: 6.5 yards 

Quantity: 8 full placemats, small 9th mat