Saturday, July 15, 2017

A couple of months ago, we took a week away. We started out with a serendipitous find at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces, an exhibit on weaving:
I thought this top was knit until I got up close. It's a reproduction of a woven (called Sprang) shirt from approx 1300CE, found in Arizona.


And this is the real thing! Imagine! Someone actually wove this some 700 years ago!

And here's more of the exhibit on fiber and handwovens.


At Casa Grande Ruins National Monument museum in Arizona, there is a small exhibit on spinning and weaving.

While we drove, Gingie and I worked with "Dark Matter", an Anzula fiber colorway.



And I finished making up this sweet pillow. The pattern is from Purl SOHO. The bobbles are made up of my first ever handspun!

At home again, I got Sophie dressed in stripes. The colors were so striking, I didn't want them to wash out. So, I sett the 10/2 pearl cotton ends (threads) at 40 epi (ends per inch--think sheet thread count), closer together than I normally do.

Because I don't weave as much as I'd like, I don't get much practice setting up the loom. This is the same problem I had a year ago. There's only supposed to be one shed (see the opening to throw the shuttle through?), not two. Thanks to some generous support on Ravelry.com, I got this straightened out.

...and got to weaving some satin yardage! Look how the colors stand out! And with the warp  threads so close together, the weft is almost invisible.
After all that weaving, out came the scissors. Yikes! Then, thanks to some math miscalculations, I had enough cloth to sew two aprons and two pillow cases. My SIL says this will be her winter apron. Note to self: this density of cloth would work well for tote bags.

A minute here and a minute there, I've been spinning with Suzie and her stylus. This is silk from Chasing Rainbows. The color is called "crocus".

Every non-workday morning, I've been in the front yard as soon as the sun comes up. About a month ago, we put in a few vegies as place holders until I decide what belongs there. Since this picture was taken, we've gotten about 25 cucumbers and the cantaloupe and corn are coming along.


Further down the way, I've been digging up the roots from one of the trees we had taken out. The space longer than the length of the car was filled with roots...

...until me! This must be the reason I go to the gym!


And indoors, I finished painting the room that is to be our guest and my sewing room.