The Holidays are Here

Our first storm of this season came in late Tuesday afternoon.  I was across town with my knitting group, and in our town, that's just five miles.  A powdery snow had been falling gently as we knitted.  We remarked at how Dickensian it looked, but just as we broke up and gathered up our things, the storm rolled up its sleeves and went to work.  Our cars in a short time were coated and required about assertive snow removal.  It took nearly 40 minutes to drive home, and as they say at the roller rink, skate slowly and carefully please.

It was clear we were going to have a white Thanksgiving, and as I prepared the candied yams, I caught movement out of the kitchen window.  I found the company of these guys very cheering and again I am reminded at how much I have to be thankful for.

Deer can't get into our backyard and since we're currently without dogs, all of these tracks are from local critters whom shall remain anonymous.

I finished this set of towels from the recent issue of Handwoven.  I made a lot of mistakes trying to follow the treadling sequence as written so I wrote it out as narrative on a sticky note and put in the castle of my loom.  It still requires concentration but I've getting the hang of it:  1234, 1234, 1323,3414,1212, etc.

They're washed and cut apart, ready for hemming but I won't be able to do that until Monday.

I decided that I have enough time to make six more towels for Christmas presents.

Lighting is terrible when it's overcast but the warp is on and I've started on the first towel.  I promised to help decorate the church tomorrow, then have errands and Sunday we're going to a play after church, so these too are put off until Monday morning.  Monday afternoon I'm getting a crown prep and new crown - they do it all in one sitting now.

I discovered last week that Delaney is pretty phone savvy and in fact, likes the selfie view so she can see herself.  She wants to put the phone in her mouth, as with all things so somehow managed to press the "go" button and viola, her first selfie!

New things

I've decided to back off on weaving to sell and instead try new things, like this draft designed by Linda Gettman, a woman in our guild who periodically has her patterns appear in Handwoven.  And in fact, she was in the most recent issue, appearing on the cover.

These are the colors I said I want to weave next and this is how they're turning out.  It's pretty fiddley for me.  I don't have much experience in weaving with extended treadling sequences so have had to unweave more than I'd like.

Since Delaney still isn't traveling about I can get away with about an hour of weaving when she's here, and then she's done.

I'm involved in a project that I can do while I'm watching her and that's removing the photos from photo albums where they never get looked at and take up an entire shelf in the bookcase.  We need the shelf for books.

This is how many photos are in one album and a lot of them are the same thing taken several times, and then there are the pages and pages of the Great Reno Balloon Race. We used to live very close to the park they launched from and they often would land on our street, and one time put down in our front yard and for that we were gifted with a bottle of champagne.

This is the storage system that I bought on Amazon.  The outer case holds 16 smaller ones that hold 100 photos in each.  I'm noting the year on the upper right corner on the back and labeling each case with a sequence and with the time span contained.  I'm also shedding a lot of photos.  I'm really enjoying seeing them again and getting into a more interesting form.

Sunday evening the whole family went out to celebrate grandson Evan's 16th birthday.  And next to him is his little cousin, 15 years his junior.  Life is funny like that..

After dinner the wait staff brought him a whipped cream covered donut to make it official.  Wednesday he got his drivers license and now it really is official.

I've discovered that Delaney really likes me to ready my book out loud to her.

She vocalizes and looks intently at me as if she understood every word.  I don't get many pages read this way but I get all the pleasure in the world from her responsive engagement.

Make it work

I bought three of these Pottery Barn stools at a local upcycle store that sells exclusive names.  I thought I got them for a steal but forgot to measure the height.  No steal.  They're too tall to fit under the counter.  One has been hidden behind the easy chair in the great room with the digital antenna on it.  The other two have been put into service in random places.

My workroom isn't very big and three of the four walls are in use.  The other wall is two accordion closet doors.  I've taken to piling stuff on the stools.

One day recently I realized that the rungs could hold shelves and tested it with a picture that fit just right.  I appealed to my construction-knowledge son, asking him to cut four pieces of wood to fit.

The next day he dropped Delaney off and left rather abruptly.  I didn't realize how seriously he took me.  He had some alder plywood and came back about 30 minutes later with the four shelves, uniformly cut and sanded, made with equipment in the back of his truck.  This simple fix augments my storage space significantly.  Thank you construction-knowledge son!!

This past weekend was the third Holiday Show and Sale for Central Oregon Spinners and Weavers. The first year was a straight-up craft fair with individual booths.  Last year the board met and decided to run it as a boutique, all sales done through a central checkout system.

We expanded from one day to include the evening before and capitalize on the First Friday Art Walk.  Attendance was far better than anyone could have hoped for.

I took these three photos about 3:15 when the show was winding down and just a few people were trickling in.  We were well into break-down at 4:10 when I heard everyone asking if anyone knew of a yellow scarf.  A lady had thought about it and come back to buy it, but no one could remember seeing a yellow scarf.  It turned out to be a gold and bronze huck lace scarf of mine.  It's in this picture, in the back corner.  It was the only scarf I sold and it was ten minutes after closing.  As Yogi Berra said, it ain't over until it's over.

Both of my looms are nekid.  I've been eyeing this color combo for more than a month.  It's going to my next project.

And finally, a Big Happy Halloween from the Littlest Mummy :-)