Filling the Hours

As predicted, my chances of writing a blog post in time to let you know that my handwoven towels were available on Etsy were nonexistent. I posted my towels yesterday evening, and within two hours they had all been snatched up.

I’m really happy with how these came out, and it was a lot of fun to play with turned twill and developing the perfect pattern. Turned twill is a type of block weave, in this case using two separate pattern “blocks”, combined to create the overall effect.

The foundation of both of the blocks is a 3/1 twill. If you look at the photo above, Block A creates a left-leaning twill, dominated by the vertical colors in the warp. Block B is right-leaning, and dominated by the white weft. Where one block meets another, the direction of the twill “turns”, hence turned twill.

I am so amazed at how quickly these fly out of my shop, and so thankful that there is interest in my handwoven items. It really makes me to want to continue designing and creating, and that’s just what I’m going to do!

As with all of my other towels, these were woven with 8/2 cotton set at 24 ends per inch. It gives them a nice density, and they will last for years to come. And not to toot my own horn, but they really are so much nicer than any commercial towels you can buy in a store. I’m looking forward to designing my next run of towels – playing with color and pattern is half the fun and I am eager to get started.

While I work on what my next towel design(s) will look like, I am returning to an older project that I’ve wanted to experiment with. In October of 2022 (I can’t believe it was that long ago) I had explored the idea of miniature weaving, but wasn’t able to produce as much as I had hoped before I had to cut the warp off my loom in favor of some more pressing deadlines. I’ve wanted to get back to that idea for a while now to see it through, and to continue to expand what I offer for sale in my shop, so I am pulling out some cones of 40/2 linen and am ready to get going again.

My mind is swimming with so many ideas of where I want to take Spring Creek Textiles this year and beyond, and I am excited to get started! I hope you stick around on this journey with me.

We all know weaving cannot possibly be the only thing I am working on, so it will come as no surprise to you that I am slowly making progress on my current cross-stitch project as well.

In hindsight, I could have taken it out of the hoop to show the pattern better, but I am working my way around this border design and enjoying every minute of it. The design is both intricate and detailed, while also appearing clean and simple. I love the way this is coming together, a beautiful design from Avlea Folk Embroidery.

Now this next project is really just to publicly pressure myself to get. it. done. Back in 2009, my brother asked me to knit him a blanket. Simple enough, and I was happy to do it. Well, here we are 14 years later and it still haunts me in its unfinished form.

In my defense, this blanket is going to be HUGE. That stack above is 25 completed blocks, with 6 more to go. Then I have all of the partial blocks to go around the edge of the blanket which total the equivalent of 8 additional full blocks. It seems simple enough when I put it like that, but every four blocks uses as much yarn as an adult men’s sweater. To put it into perspective, that means I’ve already knit 6 sweaters and still have 3.5 left to go.

This blanket, when finished, is going to weigh over 12 pounds and should, fingers crossed, resemble a tumbling blocks optical illusion. You can see it starting to form above in the colors of the Irish flag per my brother’s request. Finishing this by the end of the year may be a stretch, but I would love to make some significant progress toward the finish line in the next 6 months.

Lastly, because it is so obviously apparent that between my full-time job and my crafting, I have absolutely no idea how to fill my time, we are also preparing for another addition to our household in the next few weeks.

Chickens! And not just one addition, but nine, because who in their right mind would want just one chicken? Our young friend Aleeah has hatched 5 chicks for us, and is raising them until they are big enough to live in the coop full time along with four additional chicks that we ordered.

These five Aleeah hatched from her own eggs, and I’ve decided to name them Liesl, Louisa, Brigitta, Marta and Gretl. Kurt and Friedrich of course will be backup names if any of them turn out to be roosters.

Then we have the two goth chickens (ayam cemani), Jack and Sally. Again, too early to know if they’re rooster or hen at this point, but they’ll be Jack and Sally regardless. I picture them being absolutely tyrants and getting into all sorts of trouble.

This here is Moira and she’ll have a beautiful and ridiculous wig of white feathers on her head when she’s all grown up. And the ninth chick I don’t have a photo of yet mostly because we aren’t even sure which one she is in the flock of chicks Aleeah is raising yet. She’s a frizzle, so eventually she’ll make herself known with a crazy poof of feathers, looking constantly as though she’s just come out of a tornado.

I hope you’ve all been enjoying a wonderful May and are able to relax on this long holiday weekend. I’m off to wind a warp and will catch you again soon.