Saturday, November 06, 2010

What a Surprise

It was surpris-
ingly warm when I woke up this morning so I took my wheel and coffee to the front porch for my morning spin. If you look closely in the shadows, you can see Sammie who endures with anguish my spinning ritual. Get to the walk already is her message.

This is the turn-
around point of our walk. It's also a school bus stop, as you can see by the bike rack. You can also see that kids don't ride bicycles. They ride quads. This is quad country.
I walked in short sleeves but the weather started to change by the time we were walking back. The wind had come up and those funny little lens-shaped clouds are indicators of high winds aloft.
They look like a little flotilla of white space ships to me. They also are harbingers of weather change. I've learned that East Coast weather doesn't have day-long notice that something's coming. You get clouds, hear thunder, see lightening, get rain, get wet.
By this afternoon, clouds were sending up smoke signals - change is coming. I sat on the deck and read until the gusts of wind made it impossible to enjoy any longer. The forecast is for 100% rain tomorrow. The winds this afternoon finally knocked out the power. Ian put us on generator power about 5:00 so we could eat. It was out for at least four hours. It's so nice to have it back since we're on a well and need power to flush toilets.
I was trying to wet-finish my samples when the power went out. I don't know if this will work or not, but I've hung them over the balcony and hope they'll dry flat and look like I meant to finished them. I sure don't want to start over.

I washed one set and sent them through the drier since I want to know what they'd look like as towels. The shrinkage is much less than I had anticipated. I'm so anxious to cut them apart and put them in my sample book. They are my first ever samples and I am in love with them!

7 comments:

Judy said...

What a great place to walk your dogs! Sammie does look sad with the thought of more spinning and less walking :-)

It looks like you were having a great time with sampling!

It's warm here too, in the 60's, which doesn't make it feel like November.

Enjoy your weekend!

Theresa said...

And rain indeed did arrive. I guess our reprieve from the wet season is now over and back to our regularly scheduled rain followed by more rain followed by snow....;)
The samples look great. Please take pictures when they are happily in your book.

Valerie said...

You did get a lot of samples out of that warp! I never get over the feeling of magic of making cloth, whether it's weaving or knitting.

It is always amazing to see how different our environments are. I wonder if your rains are anything like ours. (I've been in the high desert, but never during rain.)

It was so funny to me when Robyn Spady was here teaching workshops. She couldn't get over our summer rains, which blew me away because she's from the Pacific Northwest...I mean, aren't Seattle and rain synonymous? When I asked her...she said that what they get are drizzles compared to the sky opening up and dumping buckets.

~~Sittin.n.Spinnin said...

I have really enjoyed this spell of mild weather, I truly don't like to be cold, wet I can handle. We woke up to rain this morning, but it still isn't too cold.

Birdsong said...

As predicted, the weather changed and pretty dramatically. I was grateful for that one, last, warm day though now it looks exactly like November around here. You are soo productive in your retirement! Have you thought about making a coat or outer jacket from the wool/alpaca? I agree, you would never be able to wear that around the house even on the coldest days!

Benita said...

You are so right about the weather here in the east - "Oh look, the sky is getting dark." BOOM!! Of course, we haven't seen much of this lately... I've seen it go from not a cloud in the sky to horrendous rain in less than an hour here.

I cannot wait to see your samples. Smart lady to dry each set differently. Don't forget to give them a good hard press with a hot iron. That will work magic on them, you'll see.

Poor Sammy...

Leigh said...

I love your walking route. We don't have anything remotely like that around here. Roads are busy and narrow. I am working on a walking trail through our woods though. It will be a short walk, but a walk nonetheless.

Isn't it funny how we all dread the idea of sampling, but really, it turns out to be fun and inspiring.