I'm still here.

I'm still here. I just haven't finished anything, lately. Along with all of my many projects, my day job raised our hourly cap by an additional seven hours per week. That means less play time for me. So, what have I been doing when I'm not at work or working out or puttering in the garden?

After days of stressing over what I want to weave next, I decided to make a functional sample. No matter how these turn out, I should be able to use them. These are the first two of my sample napkins on Julia. They're so pretty now, I wonder what they'll look and feel like when they're finished. These are four shaft "M and W", 17.5 epi with 10/2 pearl cotton. The pattern is the second threading on p.88 of The Handweaver's Pattern Directory.                                                                                                                               And after making myself crazy over how to get what I wanted, I've started warping Sophie for rep weave place mats. I realized that the reason the design part of weaving is so hard, is that I never learned more than the basics. I learned how to warp a loom and weave and read a pattern. I never learned anything more than that. Maybe one day I'll have a chance to take a class or three.                                                                                                                       I'm still spinning the fake cashmere. It feels so yummy and keeps me sane. Spinning is soothing for me.                               And in the meantime, I'm half way done with the knitted border on my blue lace shawl. I've started designing a cable knit sweater for my younger son. And I'm in the planning stages for a knit angel coat for my daughter. Why an "angel coat"? Well, she sent me an e-mail with a link to a coat she would like for Chanukah along with the comment: "and if you don't make it for me I'll have to buy it and when people buy sweaters that their mommy could make them, an angel dies".