Rainy Weekend Plans

It is a drippy, soggy morning here in Spring Creek. The air is still warm and fresh, but the sun is on hiatus and won’t be showing its face. The wind, too, seems to have tired itself out from all its activity this week and is calling it in. Only the creek is providing its ever-present lullaby to this peaceful Saturday. I just took some fresh baklava out of the oven, and with the scent of cinnamon and honey filling the house, I now turn my attention to comforting wool.

The needlepoint pillow I have been working on has turned into my go-to couch project and I am almost done with the third quadrant. It is so interesting to see this work up because the colors are so different than the photo that came with the kit; it gives the project a completely different mood from what I was anticipating after looking at the sample photo for the past 20 years.

I am not sure this is giving the suggestion of Autumn anymore, but I am looking forward to seeing the whole project completed. It will be a colorful addition to our pillow collection, that’s for sure.

The first half of my spindle project is complete and I am ready to wind it off the spindle to begin the second half of the fiber. The weight of the fiber on the spindle was just beginning to become unwieldy, so this was an ideal place to stop.

This fiber is so nice to work with, and the silk adds a really beautiful luster that is hard to capture in a photograph. The softness of the colors is so soothing and I am really happy with the way this has been spinning up so far. This “river rock” colorway is so spot on, evocative of stones underwater, the colors blended and obscured by the flowing stream.

When I spin on a spindle, I typically wind my singles off around a tennis ball to keep it under tension. Then, once I have two separate balls, I wind them held together into a new ball before I begin plying. In this way, the plies are already held together and all that is needed is to add twist to create the finished yarn. This time around I think I am going to wind the spun single onto one of my spinning wheel bobbins for storage. Then I will ply from two separate bobbins, either on my wheel or back on the spindle, to create the finished yarn. I have really enjoyed working on this project so far and am so curious to see what the final yarn will look like.

With wool on my mind, as always, last night I designed my next weaving project. It feels like the loom has been empty for too long since I cut the baby blankets off mid-January.

This will be my first time weaving with wool, and if all goes well I will have a lovely pair of scarves for me and Kyle, ready for when the cool wind returns in the fall. this project should go fairly quickly now that I have done the planning and designing. I am always so excited at the beginning of a weaving project and eager to translate my plan from paper to the loom. Hopefully this weekend I will be able to measure my warp, and maybe even get it beamed onto the loom. A peaceful, woolly weekend is just what this damp and quiet weather calls for. What are you working on this weekend?

Until next time, stay creative.