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Just a little collection of things I’ve been fiddling with since December, while running on half my usual steam. Just simple stuff, not very innovative but still making and learning, to help me keep up my spirits. I find this to be the best tactic for me, if I can’t unmuddle my concentration / imagination I can practise technical stuff or get some of the “administrative” tasks done (making a catalogue of my e-books and weaving videos so that I actually use them, for instance). I just don’t do well with staring at the ceiling for weeks, and I refuse to watch tv!

I don’t do xmas either, but for some reason decided I wanted to knit very warm hats for everybody this year. And that evolved into two matching scarves as well because I was dying for an excuse to try weaving with that particular yarn, a really thin, soft merino. (25/2)

I was afraid to be in over my head, but it went really well! My selvedges are improving and although there is much to explore on 4 shafts, I’m already longing for 8. Even looked at a couple of loom ads, but I just don’t know where to put another one except in the cold stable or if I cancel the rest of our living room. One solution would be getting a twin to my folding 4 shaft and simply rebuild it, but I’d like something a bit heavier in case I want to do rugs. We’ll see. It’s not like I expect to be able to double my activity, more a question of always having the right tool handy if I get an idea. The same happens with my knitting, I always need the needle size that’s already tied to another project.

My mum doesn’t wear hats, so she got a purple scarf that I’ve been promising to make for years. We didn’t agree on the warp colour, but she’s happy and I can always make new experiments. 🙂 Weaving with silk was pretty awesome, but I guess you’d have to be there…

I also found a great keyboard loom bench which folds and changes height for different tasks (not on its own 😉 ). And soon discovered how cat hair does not look good on black wool, so as I had a list of experiments to do with my plant dyed yarn anyway, I used the first to make a seat cover. Unfortunately I left it soaking too long and to my great surprise the red dye (madder) bled onto the white, unmordanted yarn, losing the colour crispness. Lesson learned! I honestly didn’t think plant dyes would do that. But it felted well as I had intended.

Now that I’m done with the rather conservative projects for the older generation, I’d like to make something more freeform and colourful. Perhaps I’m only dreaming, I think I probably do that better than anything else. 😉 But watch this space, just in case!

First I must work, however. One of my old clients called about a tracing, and I thought, why the heck not? Just a quick little Illustrator thing. Which led me to thinking about updating my old website. And that’s ridiculous, since I no longer have a product to sell….