sooner or later

About half of the fabric has been woven for the napking exchange due last December. I stopped in the middle of the warp so I could get some hemmed and traded this week. Not everyone else is done yet either so I just have to keep pace with other slackers. The fabric feels dreamy soft - would have made a heavenly baby blanket. There isn't enough on the cone for that though. 30 epi was the perfect setting for this twill though it looked a little rough on the loom.

Sometimes in a frenzy, sometimes in awe, we opened our presents on Christmas Eve. Many of them handmade with love and thoughtfulness. The store bought ones selected carefully to please the recipient no end.

My English muffins from scratch turned out great. The grill king did his magic in the evening. We toured the neighborhood to see the lights. The travelers are off today on visits to family in other states. The weather here is beautiful and crisp. We are quietly getting to know our new toys today and enjoying the sweet goodies leftover from yesterday. Later I'll try another new recipe, crab cakes with wasabi mayo and we may even go to the movies.

I've been emptying a bobbin every day at the loom and feeling very virtuous about it. Also, finished off the coffee cup cuff that J started yesterday. One last gift for the coffee enthusiast in Fort Worth. I also got a little time at my work table. All in all, I'm enjoying the long weekend and not looking forward to going back in to the office. At least, things are at a stand still because everyone else in the world is taking long vacations and no business other than retailing is taking place. The phones will be quiet. Hopefully, no crisis will occur until 2008.

I'm weaving with a little help yesterday from my granddaughter. She stood in front of me and pushed the pedals while I reached around her and threw the shuttle. She also wanted to weave on the tiny table loom, so we did that too.

The napkin saga is long and twisted. I missed the deadline but only a fourth of the members of the group were done. Sharp words and many back room conversations. Are we having fun yet?

I gave a program a few years back on Don't Let Friends Weave Overshot. Included in the discussion was the lecture to not join a weaving exchange as nothing about it would go smoothly. The audience laughed but went ahead with their planned project and foolishly I have never heeded my own sage advice.

and Thursday.

Heddles are threaded, denting the reed now. Not photogenically exciting right now. Ivory cotton warp, 30 ends per inch, straight draw. Not even worth a saved pixel.

A very good weekend. Holiday parties on both weekend nights and a matinee performance of the Nutcracker at a local small theater. Gifts given and received. Good food consumed. Stories told and retold. Another tooth lost.

Some progress made on several different gifts, some shopping accomplished. Heddles shifted from shaft to shaft on the loom so I can begin threading. Some of this ivory warp may be used to make something to put on a holiday card.... mmm, wonder what it will be?



Pineapple sage. Doesn't smell as sweet in the winter, but it just keeps on blooming when the weather swings from hot and muggy to cold and icy and back again all in the month of December.

Actually I need about a baker's dozen napkins in two weeks.



It's happening but not in two weeks. Maybe in two months. I'll be late with the napkin swap. I have to thread the heddles this evening. First I have to count heddles. There are over 700 threads in this sixteen yard warp. I just hate moving heddles after I find out I don't have enough on each shaft.

I'm on track on a number of projects but I feel like there's a steam engine right on my heels. Running as fast as I can.

I'm in the middle of a big, really big weaving project and I have to go looking for more paper to roll it on with. Mine is wider than my daughter's warp and I really should take my own advice and just get a roll of the right size that is a mile long - just in case.

Then there's the art quilt top I'm just about done with. An online class project. It's coming along nicely and will be a Christmas present for some lucky person who doesn't have time to read blogs.



Yesterday, the grill king and I got a lot of shopping done. Now we need to start wrapping things up and stowing them under the tree. Of course, none of the presents purchased so far are for the out of town crowds so no shipping will be done early.

Still carrying around a box of tissues and cough drops.

Four day weekends are grand. I could use one of these every month. I worked so hard yesterday, I am sore from head to toe today. I tried to work smart - lots of things going at once: the printer, the laundry - while I carried the holiday decorations downstairs with each run down to check the laundry or up to check on the printer. I have just about all the album pages printed for the Art Camp gang.

I found a new paper called ViaStone. I am not affiliated. But it looks pretty good and is not made from trees. Maybe it's recycled? I dunno, the labeling is kind of secretive. I also bought ink of the new Vivera Plus variety. Looks better than usual. But the old one was completely out of yellow so I couldn't do a side by side comparison.

I also worked on my homework for a virtual class in art quilts that I signed up for last week. It is a two way learning opportunity. We are learning while the teacher learns about how her virtual class software works with input from us. Fun!

Cleaned up selected areas around the house and in my workroom, too. But something always bursts out of place when I do that. Like fabric when you're looking for just the right scrap of color. And dishes seem to pile up when the grill king takes control of the shopping and cooking but not the cleaning. Never mind, he does a really nice steak and we had pumpkin pie with pumpkin sauce on top and pumpkin sauce on ice cream and cheesecake and pumpkin sauce as dip for ginger snaps as well. We are heavy into desserts right about now and seem to have a self perpetuating container of pumpkin sauce.

The granddaughter is painting pictures (and sniffing) while I type. She has a cold but the Boogie boy was better last night. Not so cranky and needy and he ate a better dinner than he did the last couple of times at bat. Usually there is more around the bull pen than in the strike zone.

This is the Boogie Zone of the tree.

She and I decorated the tree last night. She caught on quick that some things can't be hung down low since we'll have a toddler in and out of the house over the next month or so. So with each ornament, she asked, "Can this go in the Boogie Zone?"or "This one will be fine in the Boogie Zone!" Some things are too fragile, some things are too tiny, some things are too precious, some things have special memories. She loved pulling things out of the boxes, some she remembered from last year. She liked hearing about the things that her mom had made a long time ago and reading the years written on them as though it were so long ago...1986???? Wow!

One of the reason my muscles are sore is that I tried to come with a way to wind a warp that wouldn't strain my shoulders. Instead the muscles on the top of my theighs are aching! I put the warping board on the trunk and tied it leaning against the weaving bench for support. Then I sat on the sofa and wound the top part while standing and then sat down to wind the bottom half and so I was constantly sitting down and standing up. Quite an aerobic method. My shoulders are okay, but man, going up and down the stairs today is killing me. It's always something, isn't it, Rosannadanna?

One of the round robin collages came to me on Friday. I'm the last stop on this one. I was gonna think about it but they really are like a monkey on my back. Once I see them I can't seem to stop thinking about them till I add something. This one needed some buttons and some Shiva paintstiks to carry the colors around the whole piece. I think it looks super. I wish I could post it a scan of it but since it's a collaborative piece I'm not sure of the protocol on this. I should ask that group what they think.



I missed a frog last Friday so here's one to satisfy your need for green.

I was ready. I had my printouts. I was wearing both my coin purses from the article on Handwoven's website. I even had some Meow cards to pass out. But when DeeDee pointed at me I was still a little surprised. I thought I would have to raise my hand for my 10 seconds of fame.

Then Amber says, pointing to the back of the card, is that your blog? Umm, yeah, I forgot I put that on the cards. So now I'm going to be checking my stats hoursly.

These are plus size inchies made from handwoven fabric to take to the International Quilt Festival and swap at the Quilting Arts booth.