Oct. 5-11... National Spinners and Weavers Week

Next week is National Spinners and Weavers Week... If you live near any yarn, fabric or fiber shops you might look for something special happening. It would be a good time to spin, weave or knit/crochet in public. I'm going to talk to the ladies at the library and see if they are having anything special...

The "sheep to shawl" shawl is finished...as of yesterday afternoon. The warp is 3 ply merino and 2 ply Cotswold...the weft is the 2 ply Cotswold and merino single plied with silk single... ooowww wonderful stuff. It finished at 74" length with an added 4" of fringe x 16" wide. According to the book, any time a person does leno weaving there is a narrowing of the width of the piece... so extra weft should be left... Well... it didn't seem to matter what I did, the leno would pull in. My advise... just plan your width around the width of the pulled in leno weave.

I love the way this turned out. I think I will add some beads and maybe some embroidery on the ends... We'll see...

DH and I are off to Durant to Ozark Mills today to get some more wool. While I have every intention of finishing the flax, it is not my favorite thing to spin. I find that it is almost like trying to spin twigs and occasionally hurts my fingers like I have stickers in them. The Cotswold was something new to me and I really enjoyed it. I think I will try at least one new kind of wool each time we go.

My diet is working extremely slow.... and to top that off... the steroid pack the doctor gave me for my wrist and elbow causes immediate weight gain. Sooo... doing nothing any different on my diet, I had an overnight weight gain of four (4) .. make that 4... pounds! But... lost a pound of it yesterday, so looks like I will have to lose all 4 again.. sigh Oh well... at least they are going...

Found some wonderful tea that I can drink with no sugar. I mean wonderful...

Have a good day....

EZ Pi Finished! and How to Tell if You Are Old

I am one happy camper today! The EZ Pi Shawl is done...fini..over..at last.. I love the fact that I did it and love the way it looks. I may even attempt another one when I get some more wool spun... but that is a definite maybe..lol When I finished the crochet border around it, I spent some time yesterday and did another Kool Aid dye.. this time using green. It does have a little yellow hue around the outside, but not as much as it looks like in the picture. The only place I could find that was big enough to block it was on the den rug.. Believe me, I counted the straight pins as I put them in and again as I took them out...and DH still found one on the floor later last night.

Speaking of later last night... or maybe a day or two ago... We were watching the History channel about the German people during the war hiding in mazes of bunkers under the streets and one woman was speaking of the smell... The fact that there were no antiperspirants..her words... and it immediately reminded me of the blouses that I bought when I was very young. And all the dresses, blouses, and shirts of the adults in my family... They had underarm garment shields sewn in... to catch the perspiration so you wouldn't walk around with sweat circles under your arms. I hadn't thought of them in years. Lo and behold, I did a search today and guess what I found... garment shields for sale.. If you remember these in your clothes, feel free to join me in the "Boy, am I really that old!" club...

Hannah's Quilt and EZ Shawl Update

Hannah's quilt is finished. It is now folded and ready for the trip to Arizona. I am finding that I am enjoying quilting more and more. It was never one of those things that I found relaxing or fun to do. I guess it's like spinach...it grows on you...lol

The Elizabeth Zimmermann shawl is growing. There are now 50 stitches between each marker and the shawl measures 16 inches radius. I've got to buy another needle with at least a 24 inch cable. EZ says 24" is as long as anyone really needs, but really... I have to wonder about that.

Don't Use Downy!

When I knitted this shawl last winter, I loved it and wore it continually all winter. So .. early this spring I hand washed it in the sink and used a little Downy to make it soft and have a delicious smell... Well, I won't do it again. The back now reaches the floor and the stitches are much larger than they were before.. sagging a bit instead of the close warm feeling ones of before. I did not know that Downy will loosen the fibers...ughhh.

Well, before I found out, I knitted this scarf with the first hand spun I did that was usable Blue Faced Leicester wool.... When I hand washed it after I finished it and then blocked it... well, you can see how widely spaced the stitches become. I won't do that again....