One Day, Weaving

There was a time, when I first retired, when the hours that stretched before me every day seemed endless. I was a little anxious about that—what would I do to fill my time? 

I started selling vintage linens on Etsy.

I started making candy.

I found unfinished quilts to work on and undertook new ones.

I began blogging.

I took up weaving.

My days were full and utterly my own.

Times have changed and I have some different responsibilities now. I embrace those responsibilities but they mean that I haven’t unlimited time for all those other things I did, and enjoyed. I gave some up and all get less of my full attention.

So, yesterday was super special—all I did was weave.

I didn’t do any of those other things and I didn’t work outdoors, either, because we had a day of welcome rain.

I worked on a warp that will become two scarves, pink and off-white. Not my colors at all but I had this yarn and wanted to use it. I have to change colors every 16 passes of the shuttle so the process is slowish. But the pattern is interesting, as I watch it develop.

Then, when I’d had enough of that, I moved to the loom with the scrappy striped towels, and I finished the weaving of these! It’s actually going to end up being 4 towels and one longer runner and I’ll tell you more when they are completely finished. For a project that began as a way to empty some bobbins, I love the way these are turning out!

And then I turned to my band loom. I need handing tabs for those striped towels and I love dragging the little loom outside when the sun shines. This time, though, I made a gazillion little mistakes and had to fuss and re-do and mess round some more, just to get this narrow, ultra-simple strip. 

After that slog with the band loom, as an antidote, I played for awhile with a new loom. Actually, it represents the first weaving I ever did, as a child.

Did you have a potholder loom?

A month ago or so, my blog pal, Debbie, who is a quilter and weaver, wrote about one of these looms and I knew immediately I needed one.

This is not your grandchild’s potholder loom! Unlike the ones you can buy now for children, which are plastic, small, and use nylon loops, this loom is sturdy metal, 12 inches across, and uses all-cotton loops.

The end products are potholders or hot pads that are large (about 8 inches), thick and beefy, and can actually be used to handle hot dishes out of the oven without melting.

This silly loom has given me hours of fun lately. I sit on my deck with my big bag of loops. I dump the loops on the bench and root around to find colors I like. The cats come and root around, too. 

My only complaint with this loom and its use is that the loops are expensive and come in bags that have a modest amount of a lot of colors, in one the three different colorways. One can choose either brights, pastels, or “designer” colors, which is what I chose. I ran out of the colors I liked early and have been challenged to find color combos that work with colors I like less or, in the case of this medium brown on the right, loath.*

Today, it’s back to the other things that need to be done. The sun is shining, the weeds are growing, my mother’s summer place needs to be cleaned out and readied for sale. Our house needs to be spiffed up for company, errands must be run, chores must be checked off the list.

But, I had my day of weaving, and I know I’ll have more. And I’ll appreciate that time all the more, I suppose, because it is no longer unlimited. I hope you get a day, soon, to fully devote to something you love to do!

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* The company, Harrisville Designs, does offer smaller bags of single colors but then the cost of the loops gets even more expensive.

Hand Quilt Along: Freedom for Women

Lots of people are writing about their moms today, since it’s Mother’s Day in the US and some other spots.

I have a totally wonderful mom about whom I’ve written in the past but today I’ll focus on another woman with whom I share a last name and many of the same values and beliefs.

I would love to claim Margaret Sanger as a blood relative but my cousin, who knows these things, says we aren’t related.

I guess I’ll have to settle for simply admiring her and the advances she fought for for women.

Sanger saw her Irish immigrant mother worn out and made ill by 18 pregnancies and later, as a nurse, saw the outcomes of desperate back-alley and self-inflicted abortions.

An advocate of and activist for women’s rights, Sanger is said to have coined the term “birth control” and established the precursor of Planned Parenthood. She wanted women to have a kind of freedom that even the right to vote couldn’t give them—the freedom of their bodies. The freedom to choose whether and when to become mothers.

I felt she needed to be represented in this quilt and especially love this quote:

So, when people hear my name and ask if I’m related to Margaret Sanger . . . I just say yes. 

Since our most recent check-in, I finished this quotation block and the the block I was working on last time.

That means I have completed 11 of 20 blocks and am officially over halfway done! Well, half finished the 20 blocks anyway–there’s other work to be done on this!

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This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Lori, Margaret, Kerry, Emma, Tracy, Deb, Connie, Susan,  Nanette, Sassy , Edith, Sharon and Bella.

A Chest, Full of Metals

 

Americans of a certain age will remember this guy. Mark Spitz won an unprecedented 7 gold medals at the 1972 Olympics. And showed them off nicely!

I’ve never won an Olympic medal of any color. But I am a medalist in my own right. Or should I say a metalist?

I have a chestful of my own metals, more precious to me, not to mention more useful, than Mark’s. (And I’m wearing a shirt. You’re welcome.)

I’ve been thinking for a while about collecting every pair of scissors in the house, just for chuckles. Like most of you, I probably have more than I need and, in spite of that, I seem never to find a pair when and where I need them.

I have taken to wearing a small pair around my neck and have many of them on handwoven ribbons. They are sharp and pointy and it still took me too long this winter to figure out why all my knit shirts had a hole in the middle of the front . . . 

A friend solved my problem with a length of tubing that I cut to fit every single pair of the small scissors!

The curved tube makes this guy . . .

look like this guy!

So, in all, in one household of two people, we have at least 27 pairs of scissors.

We have the kind-of-crappy-yet-useful scissors with the plastic handles of many colors.

We have the “good” scissors, the kind my mother used to threaten us kids never to use on anything but fabric.

And we have my favorite small scissors, all pretty and many of them “good,” with a nice representation of storks.

If I count right, that’s 27. Then there are the ones that turned up as soon as I finished taking the photos, and the ones that will turn up tomorrow . . .

And, as evidence that great minds really do think alike, Margaret recently posted about her collection of scissors—her collection is impressive!

Are you sitting there thinking, “I could top that!”? Go ahead. Write your own post and prove it!