What a Week!

When I started to weave Tuesday morning, I realized that while I had meticulously followed my notes, they were wrong.  I didn't have three strips and three blocks, I had five blocks and one strip - most unsatisfactory.    It meant that I had to unweave and rethread four inches of the center two blocks to reverse the order of the pairs, from gold/purple to purple/gold and vice versa.  I made myself complete the fix and then took a two-mile walk!

You can see the difference.  It's what makes the mission-style look in my opinion.

It wasn't until I was nearly ready to wind onto the cloth beam that I saw this glitch.  I didn't realize the strap had pulled free on my old loom and it would be impossible to wind onto the cloth beam until it  was back where it belonged.  More time lost and my fantasy of weaving all four towels on Wednesday was popped.

One wonderfully clever and time-saving hint came from Laura Barger as a comment.  She told me to create a string sling, hang it from the warp beam and set my roll of packing paper into it.  As I advance the warp and the paper comes off the beam, instead of going to the floor, it rolls itself up.  Maddie is confused and my paper is saved!

Yesterday morning Ian took Sammie into the vet to have the cancerous growth removed from her back and I drove in for another acupuncture appointment.  It was an anxious day for both of us.  That's not a strip of tape but the area where she is shaved.  Her incision is more than a foot long, but our vet wanted to make sure she got all the margins.  It was a rough night for all, especially in the beginning when Sammie was still coming out of anesthesia and disoriented.  We've put a t-shirt on her so she can't lick and she's doing a ton better today.  The vet said Sammie is the sweetest dog that she has ever treated and I believe it.

Alexia and I spent about an hour and a half this morning getting her new loom set up and learning how to use it.  She seems to really like it but we had arranged to have lunch with Mommy on campus and this is as far as she got.  My concern is that even though this is the smaller of the Harrisville lap looms, it's pretty big for her little lap.

We ate at the new steam punk restaurant on campus so Alexia and I hammed it up with steam-punk Wolfie, who is the Wolfpack mascot.  Daddy took a break and met us there which was a nice treat since everyone is so busy, it's hard to get together.

After lunch, I took a walk around campus with Christina and Alexia, at Alexia's  request.  She went here from infant daycare through kindergarten, and during that time we had a lot of lunches and walks together. That white-pillared building is where I got my degree.  Alexia was astonished.  You have a bachelor's degree - you never told me that!  :)

 My camera had slipped to a different mode and I'm disappointed that these two pictures of one of my favorite areas of campus as fuzzy.  My graduation ceremony was held on this grassy quad and when I worked on campus, this was my favorite place to eat lunch.  

I worked in Getchell Library which was torn down a couple years ago and will be replaced with this one - the Pennington Student Achievement Center.  They built a beautiful new library a number of years ago.  I have always thought this was a pretty campus and it still is, only it's huge and still growing.  Christina says they've had 500 more applicants for housing than they did last year.  I can't think of a better environment to work in, unless it would be a library :)

Alexia talked the whole time - she was really excited about our "date."  As we drove home she said she wanted to work some more on her tapestry and thinks she can have it finished by the end of spring break which is one more week.  Then she said, maybe I will do better when I'm not talking :)  I'm exhausted and gratified - what a week!!