A New Kind of Weaving

Wow!  It's been forever since I posted.  Still going through crazy times and trying to make it work.  I think ultimately it will, but I'm still trying to find balance.

Shadow Weave
The latest Weave-a-long (WAL) on Ravelry's Warped Weavers group is shadow weave.  Years ago, I made the Shadow Weave Bamboo Shawl from Handwoven magazine.  It's a great shawl, but kind of hard to find the rhythm. While wondering what to do for the WAL, I stumbled upon Marian Powell's 1000(+) Shadow Weave Patterns for 4, 6, and 8 Harnesses.  Figuring out her drafting notation takes some doing, but it really isn't hard and the drafts are so beautiful, they're worth it.  I chose a four-harness draft to use for a couple of scarves. Webs had 1900 YPP rayon chenille on sale and they had some beautiful colors available. I chose a soft rose and an ecru to make up these scarves.  The first one is still in-progress.  Here it is on the loom:

Marian Powell's 4-40-1 Shadow Weave draft

Smaller Weaving
But while I've been working on the shadow weave project, I've decided to try my hand at some smaller weaving. I got interested in tablet (card) weaving, inkle loom weaving and pickup weaving. All are used to create narrow bands of fabric, many highly decorated.  Here are the three projects I've recently finished:

From left to right: two sections of the inkle-woven band, a section of the pickup band and a section of the tablet-woven band. Of the three, the inkle-woven band came out the best, I think. I "got" the concept of warping for the inkle-loom more quickly than the others and I was able to keep it a decently even width with good selvedges.

The first project was the tablet-woven band.  I used the rigid-heddle loom frame to hold the warp. Unfortunately, I used a DK cotton knitting yarn.  It was smooth and pretty, but way too thick, I think.  I'll use something much more fine next time.

The pickup band was the most recent project. Instead of using a backstrap loom, I put about a yard of warp onto my smaller rigid-heddle loom. I threaded the warp through double 12-dent heddles for an EPI (ends per inch) of 24.  That worked fine with 5/2 perle cotton, but I must say that using double heddles made the pickup a bit more interesting.  The double heddles cause one level of warp to lie in two planes instead of one. It's okay because I flattened out the warp in my hand, but still...  It's something to look out for.  Here's a side view of the warp:

Side View of Pickup Warp

You can see the upper and lower plane of the warp as well as where the warp threads cross for the pickup (and dropdown). In pickup weaving, designs are formed by picking up heavier warp threads so that the ones necessary for the design are on the top.  Half of the threads will naturally be at the top because of the shedding mechanism of the loom.  Here's a photo of the shed formed, before the pickup stick is inserted:

Okay, the pickup stick is inserted into the plain shed to highlight the threads!  But you can bet that some of those threads shouldn't be showing and some that aren't showing should be.  So you take your trusty pickup stick and pick up those that should be on top and push down the ones that should be hidden.  Here's what it looks like with the pickup stick inserted and turned on its side:

Easier said than done at the beginning, but it becomes really logical soon enough.

I made more mistakes on this than I care to admit to.  The worst one was misreading the instructions and thinking that the weft had to be the same color as the outer border of the piece.  That's quite true in tablet weaving and inkle weaving, but the weft shows a little bit in the pattern area of pickup weaving, so I should have made the background color, the outer border and the weft color all the same.  I'll fix that for sure in the next project, but that's why there are green speckles in the background of the hearts.  I probably shouldn't have started with anything quite as complex as I did, but hey, it was fun!

And that's what it's all about - having fun!

Back to the Handmade Life

Such joy to have gone to the Pearl Farmer's Market on Saturday!  It's obvious that this year is a hard one for everyone.  From the hard freezes we had during the winter, to the ongoing drought and excessively high temperatures this summer, it's not fun. The meat vendors were telling us that they're having to feed hay already - something that doesn't usually happen much in South Texas.  The vegetable selection was down to the tougher veggies that can tolerate the heat and even then, they're smaller than usual.  But everything is still good. Visiting with the farmers, ranchers and artisans feeds the soul as always.  There are new vendors in since the last time we visited. I'm delighted to see the younger vendors who have chosen to make their life's work supplying fresh, handmade, local foods.

Bread Dough Rising

After a long hiatus, we're back to making our own bread and some of our cheeses again. Yes, it's time-consuming, but not as time-consuming as all that and the results are so tasty! During the long, July 4th weekend, we've gone back to our slow-rise, wet-dough bread. I love the book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  I can mix bread dough once and have fresh bread four times in almost no time. One of these days I'm going to need to try the other recipes in the book!  I can't seem to get past the first one.

Fresh Bread, Mozzarella Cheese and Peach Cobbler 

Making Mozzarella cheese is surprisingly easy. At least it is once you find the right milk. Ultra-pasteurization is the enemy of cheese making. It gives the milk a very long shelf life but nothing else. It was a disappointment to us when our local grocery store's organic milk went ultra-pasteurized. Fortunately, good ol Borden milk can be made into cheese... at least for now.  Since Mozzarella is a soft, non-ripened cheese, it can be made in under an hour. First is warming the milk and adding the citric acid and rennet to force it to separate. Then comes cooking the curd until it holds together well.

Stirring the Curds

Finishing the cheese - forcing the remaining whey out of the cheese and stretching it like taffy is fun and takes tough hands!  The cheese has to be just over hotter than hands like to deal with.  Because I cut my hand in a stupid accident, George took over stretching the cheese for me today.

Stretching the Cheese

The end result is tastier than anything you'll find ready-made... unless you get your cheese from the young folks at the market!

The entire take of Fredericksburg peaches went into a cobbler for today's celebration.  We can't have fireworks this year because of the drought and the danger of wildfires.  As in, even the cities have canceled fireworks displays.  But we can still eat and I saw no reason for the family to be deprived of our traditional Fourth of July supper just because it won't be followed by fireworks.  So this year, we're having Cassie's friends over as well as my parents.  We'll all swim in the pool and eat.  Good stuff!

Weaving is Handmade!

Colorwork Pillows on the Loom

I'm still working on the colorwork pillows I started in June. I've decided I do like Cotton Clouds Aurora Earth unmercerized cotton.  It's not that the pillows are hard at all.  I just haven't had the time to weave that I'd like.  I'm on the last part of the second pillow, though.  I still have to weave off the rest of the warp in stripes to make the diagonal-cut welt, but that probably won't take all that long.  It's good weaving and I'm enjoying it quite a bit.  It's beautiful to watch the color interplay develop.

Weaving a Life - or at least my pillows!

So it's good to be back to making things for ourselves again. I still need to find the balance to fit everything into my days, but I suppose I'll be working on that all my life.  That's not an end, that's really a process!

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Back To The Icons, or How To Do Image Transfers

I'm back to working on a Mosaicon that's been languishing for months - the icon based on the image of Diana the Huntress.  You first met it in my blog post back in September.  The Leonardo da Vinci icon pushed its way to the fore and the Dia de los Muertos icon bounced in and demanded to be finished.  Diana waited.  Fortunately, she seems to be willing to wait for me.  I'm grateful!

The June 2011 collection from Gecko Galz contained a set of Grecian Girls images.  One of the images seemed especially appropriate for the Huntress icon.  I decided to use that image transferred to a polymer clay tile.  I thought it might be appropriate to share the technique for image transfers here.  Or at least one technique!  There are many.

Choose Your Image
Choosing your image might not sound like a big deal, but it really is.  You don't want it so busy that little details will be lost in the transfer process.  There also needs to be a strong focus in the image.  In fact, the strong focus is what you will transfer.  Backgrounds need to be merged into the tile itself, usually with paint.  You will probably need to size your image, possibly crop it, and most likely need to reverse the image, all of which can be done in Paint, but I prefer Photoshop Elements.  Bear in mind that the image will transfer reversed from how it is printed, so plan accordingly. This is extremely important if there are words or if the image is so well-known that seeing it reversed will cause problems.

Once you've chosen your image and cropped and reversed it, make a page with several sizes of the image.  You're pretty sure what size you want the finished tile to be, but I'm always grateful to have several choices of image sizes to choose from.  For this technique, print the finished page of images on an inkjet printer.  I print them on matte brochure or presentation paper.  You want a good enough paper to get a good ink saturation, but you don't want a glossy photo finish.  After the ink dries, tear out the image you want to use.

Preparing the Polymer Clay Tile
There are several types of clay you can use to make your tile.  I recommend using either Sculpey white clay or Premo white or pearl clay.  The clay color will show through the image, somewhat, and will affect the finished image.  The whiter the clay, the less it will interfere with the color of the image inks.  In the following photos, I've used Premo pearl clay.

Prepare and bake several sizes of tiles.  Having several sizes ready to go makes it easier if you change  your mind about the finished product, or make a mistake that can't be recovered.

Gather Your Materials

Materials

For this technique, you'll need the image, the baked and cooled tile and a gel medium. I use Liquitex gloss gel medium. It's useful to have some kind of burnishing tool.  A good old-fashioned Popsicle stick works beautifully!  Having a box of baby wipes and paper towels on-hand helps with keeping the mess at bay.

"Gluing on the Image"
Coat the image with the gel medium and place it, coated image side down, on the polymer clay tile.  With your burnishing tool, burnish the image onto the tile, making sure the ink of the image is in contact with the tile and that there are no air bubbles.  Do NOT start removing the paper backing yet!  You'll be almost certain to tear the delicate ink film if you do.

Remove the Paper Backing

Removing the Paper

Let the image set and dry for a few minutes.  Dampen your finger and start rubbing the paper in small circles.  You'll soon start to notice the paper peeling up.  Gently continue the rubbing, dampening your finger again, if necessary.  You'll start to see the image appear beneath a haze of paper.

Image Appearing Through The Haze

It's tempting to stop rubbing when you see the image appearing, but you need to get as much of the paper removed as possible.  What you're going for here is the ink adhered to the clay tile without any paper marring it.  So keep gently rubbing.  This can take quite a while.  However you don't want to rub so hard that you remove the delicate ink.

Image Appearing

In the image above, you can see how the lower half of the image is revealed, but there is still paper to be removed at the top of the image.  Keep on rubbing!

Transfer Completed!

Once the paper has been completely removed, you need to work the image background into the tile.  This is normally done by painting the tile from the edges of the image to the edges of the tile.  In the photo of the finished tile, you can see that I chose to paint the tile gold.  In retrospect, I might should have painted it a deep rich blue.  It's all up to you!

Finished Painted Tile

Protecting the Tile
Once you have the image transferred and the rest of the tile painted, you might think you're finished.  Do remember to seal the tile!  The image will be delicate and can easily be scratched, especially if you're using the tile as a piece of jewelry.  You'll want to seal it with an acrylic sealer once the paint dries.  Apply several coats to adequately seal the image and paint.

And always remember the most important thing:
ENJOY!!

Weaving in the Heat

Ah, the Texas Folklife Festival!  Three days outdoors, demonstrating in 100-degree heat.  Yeah.  My idea of a lot of fun!  Actually, in many ways it was fun.  We were sweaty and exhausted every night when we got home.  But the response to our demonstrations was enthusiastic.  We could hardly leave the booth.  When one group would leave, another would arrive.

Spinning on the Polonaise

This is the second outing for the new Kromski Polonaise spinning wheel.  She is a joy to spin on.  She looks antique, but she's a beautiful modern wheel.  Since I'm the best wheel spinner of the three of us, I would sit and spin.  The wheel is so eyecatching - as soon as I set her in motion, the crowds would gather around.  After three days, I'd spun an entire bobbin of yarn - and Kromski bobbins are larger than average!!  I'll ply the yarn and dye it this week.  It may be knitted into socks or it may find its way into a woven piece.   You never know!

We also received more requests for photos than we've ever had before.  People seemed drawn to the prairie dresses worn by both Cassandra and myself.  Cassandra looks so natural in her grey dress.  I just look really, really OLD in mine!!  But they are comfortable - or as comfortable as anything can be in this heat!  I insisted that Cassandra put on her bonnet whenever leaving the tent, as did I.  Neither of us burned.  Hey!  Our ancestresses must have known what they were doing!

George got a proposal of marriage!  A charming Czech lady came to the booth to watch us spin.  She had a miniature spinning wheel - most likely a woodturning apprentice's "final exam" piece.  It had been "fixed" by somebody who "knew all about spinning wheels."  Needless to say, the poor thing couldn't spin.  Honestly, it probably never did well, nor was it intended to.  However, George went with her to look at the wheel.  He was able to fix it for her and get it going again.  As if that weren't enough, he noted the red dye on the decorated eggs the ladies had on display.  They told him the dyestuff was cochineal, but they didn't know anything about it.  He was able to fill them in on the story of cochineal.  They were delighted!

Czech Decorated Egg

So they gave him one of the beautiful decorated eggshells, an information sheet about the eggs, a hug, and a proposal of marriage!  Let's see...  He's up to how many wives now??

I've known about the Polish version of the decorated eggs - Pysanki, I think it's called.  I didn't know about the Czech eggs - Kraslice.  Instead of drawing the design on the bare egg with wax, dyeing the egg so the shell takes the color everywhere except where the wax is, and then melting the wax off, Czech eggs are dyed a single color and then the design is scratched off to reveal the egg underneath.  Cochineal is commonly used to get the strong, bright red color.

Fabric View of the Draft

But the excitement for me was the weaving of my very first design!  I've been wanting forever to do the overshot patterns in Marguerite Porter Davison's A Handweaver's Source Book.  But for years they've made no sense to me.  I decided that I would finally come to grips with them.  I chose Soldier's Return (page 40) for my first foray into understanding these drafts.  It really wasn't all that hard.  However, the floats were longer than I wanted.  So I started to tweak.  And tweak.  And really tweak.  And suddenly, I had a fabric that didn't look like the original, exactly, but it looked beautiful!  So I thought, why not?

Why not?  Well, it has to be crazy to use an untested draft at a demonstration with thousands of people watching.  Okay, 99.9% of the thousands of people don't know anything about weaving, so you can get away with some things.  However, your 19-year-old beginning weaver daughter needs to be able to weave this pattern and she's never woven overshot before.  And so???

And so I did it.  And it's beautiful!  People were fascinated with it.  Cassie was able to weave it with no problems after the first repeat or so.

Cassie at the loom

When I took the runner off the loom, I was suprised to see that it was almost two feet longer than I thought it would be.  Hmm...  I'm still not sure how I did that.  It's really too long, but it's so pretty.  I think I'll try weaving it off in a finer thread.  I have a large cone of natural 20/2 perle cotton and a large cone of 16/2 perle cotton coming.  (Excitement!!)

The Finished Runner

Overshot In Color

Overshot In Color Runner

I finished this overshot runner several weeks ago, but didn't get photographs until after the Folklife Festival.  This is a draft from the November / December 2010 issue of Handwoven magazine.  It is a beautiful runner!  Three closely analagous colors are used for the warp and tabby weft.  The warp alternates the mid and light tones of the color while the warp is the darker tone.  This gives the background fabric a depth that it usually doesn't have.  I liked this project so much that I ordered silk to do another "colorwork" overshot piece.  This will be interesting!

And in the meantime?  Well, I'm making up another prairie dress and pinafore for myself and another shirt for George.  When we do these multiday demonstrations, we need multiple outfits.  And it's fun to have costume pieces to mix and match. I found an antique end-feed shuttle in an antique store this week.  The wood is dry and the metal rusted, but I think it can be brought back into service and that will be fun!  And on to weaving off the colorwork pillows I started before the Festival.

Weaving with Cousin Sam

The General Sam Houston Folk Festival has come and gone.  This is the first time I've done a major demonstration without George.  He was in SQL class at RackSpace and couldn't come until Friday night. My parents bravely stepped up to the plate and accompanied me for the first part of the fair. We drove out to Huntsville on Thursday, got all set up, and then faced School Day on Friday!  My mom tried valiently to help me demonstrate, but there's quite a bit of technical knowledge needed that she just didn't have. It went suprisingly well, though.  I found my groove - found what information I wanted to impart to the kids, and stayed with it.  Sadly, with so many kids I couldn't give them any real hands-on experience.

By the time the fair ended on Friday, I was so exhausted and dehydrated that I was having trouble getting the tent closed up.  But I managed it and made it back to the hotel with Mom to find that George had arrived. 

We went out to the most wonderful place for supper - The Homestead on 19th.  The restaurant is housed in two old cabins that have been moved to their current location across 19th street from the Sam Houston Museum.  The food is simple and perfectly prepared, the service is wonderful and the setting is awesome! That was one of the many high points in the weekend.

Saturday and Sunday were more normal demonstration days. Although we were told the gate count was off, we'd have never known it. We were swamped! We didn't get to see much of the rest of the fair, but what we saw was so interesting! They have so many craftspeople and reenactors there. I even got used to cannon and muskets going off at regular intervals. Okay, a few times they must have put a double charge in the cannon 'cause I felt the loom shake, but overall, it was good.

We had more than our share of wonderful moments this time.  There was a blind girl and her friend who came by on Friday. I took the blind girl's hand and guided it all across the loom so she could "see" what was going on. There was the elderly black woman who, after 76 years spun her own yarn.  She was dancing all over the fair afterwards, so happy with what she'd accomplished. There was the five-year-old girl who dragged Daddy back to the fair on Sunday after coming to see us on Saturday. She was okay doing the drop spinning again and working with the small frame loom, but she really wanted to "do EVERYTHING!" I lifted her onto my lap and showed her how to spin on the wheel. Then we went over to the loom and I did the same. She was barely able to reach the beater, even on the small loom and sitting on my lap, but she was game and she gave it her best.

Needless to say, I didn't take out either the yarn she spun or the shots she wove.

And then there was Sunday morning. I misread the fair schedule and got us to the fair early.  Way early as I thought the fair opened at 9 and it actually opened at noon!  George had fun exploring and talking to the early fair folk while I sat in the cool morning air, under those beautiful big East Texas trees and spun.  I must have spun for hours. I still wonder if any of my ancestors found a quiet morning and took her spinning wheel out on the porch to enjoy the beauty of the day.  I like to think so.

The Runner

I finished the overshot runner today. I was afraid I'd weave it off well before the end of the fair, but had no problem. I dearly love this draft - Snowballs in A Handweaver's Pattern Book by Marguerite Porter Davison. Both treadlings are beautiful, but this is my favorite. The natural cotton-linen blend in the warp and tabby weft and the rustic Evilla Artyarn in the pattern weft combined to give a very earthy, rustic feel to the piece. I like to think Cousin Sam (Houston) would approve!

Detail

Time to Weave

With George having started his new job on Monday, we're adjusting to this new phase of our lives. He wasn't very enthusiastic about the new place, but how could he be? Our last jobs were as perfect as any job could possibly be. However, I'm delighted to see his enthusiasm building. He's learning so much, and sees the opportunity to learn much, much more. This is a very good thing!

And me?  Well, I'm learning lots, too, about weaving. I'm taking this time to learn and practice things I've wanted to learn forever. Now that I seem to be over the worst of the warping issues, dressing the loom is nowhere near the daunting task it has been in the past. It's kept me from weaving for years.

Weaving to Sell
So I decided to see if I could actually sell my work. Many people have encouraged me, including a woman at the St. Francis In The Wood Fair.  I think she's probably one of my guardian angels. I'm convinced my angels show up in human or animal form from time to time to take care of me and push me in directions I need to go.  They have some typical forms I'm coming to recognize, too.

After being inspired by a piece on Ravelry's Warped Weavers group, I decided to use some variegated Tencel I've had laying around forever. I used the variegated in the warp and black Tencel in the weft. I somewhat fearfully chose a twill pattern in Marguerite Porter Davison's A Handweaver's Pattern Book. I say fearfully because the drafts in the book are in the old style and I wasn't sure I could read them correctly. But it proved much easier than I had feared.  There were a couple of  false starts. I forgot the prime rule of design.  If you have a complicated yarn, and most variegated yarns are, you need a simple structure. Of course, I tried a complicated structure. And immediately unwove it and used a simpler tie-up and treadling. I promptly broke a warp thread - Tencel takes less abrasion than bamboo, I think.  But I patched the thread and had no further trouble with it.

The two scarves I warped on wove off quickly enough, especially considering I was also weaving the Peacock Shawl on the 8-harness loom. They looked good, even straight off the loom.  But wet-finishing provided the miracle it usually does.  And without further ado...

Twill Scarves

Here is one of the scarves!  With an amazing amount of fear and trepidation, I opened an Etsy shop where I listed them for sale.  We'll see what happens!  I need to spiff up my shop, but at least it's there.

I'm pleased with the interplay of the color against black.  If I had it to do over again, and had an unlimited amount of Tencel in the house, I think I'd choose a navy blue for the weft.  The black is a little harsh.  Here's the detail of the scarf.

Twill Scarf Detail

Overshot is Hot... But Slow

The Overshot Runner on the Loom

I'm gravitating to finer weaves and more traditional structures. I've wanted to try overshot for years.  I've been collecting overshot books forever, it seems.  But I've never actually tackled a project. Warped Weaver's winter Weave-Along this year was overshot.  Looking through the postings, I decided to squeak a last project in on that WAL. I chose a table runner project in one of Interweave's e-books - the same project that many others in the WAL chose. For a first project, I'm glad I did. I used a natural colored cotton in the warp and tabby weft and an indigo blue wool for the pattern weft. It looks almost black and white in the photos, but I was going for the traditional natural / indigo look.


Threading the loom required attention.  It's amazing how complex something can be in only four harnesses. But I used the small-group theory of threading - thread a small number of heddles, double check them, tie them off and forget them!  Thankfully, there were no mistakes. When I started weaving the tabby header I was almost dismayed to see how open the weave was.  But fortunately, I had the benefit of everyone else's experience telling me that the tabby needs to be open to accomodate the pattern weft. I planned the pattern weft in a single strand of the blue wool.  But when I sampled it, it seemed kind of thin.  I opted to double the wool... and promptly realized I didn't have enough.  I think that problem will get taken care of, though.

Overshot Detail

So beautiful... And so much what most of us think of as traditional American.  Overshot didn't originate here - like many things it was brought here by the colonists, but it was raised to a folk art here.  So many patterns were developed here and have names reflecting American history - much like quilt patterns and names.  Next up will probably be placemats in Lee's Surrender at Appomattox... if I can get my parents to stop cringing at the name!

The Peacock Shawl is Finished

And it's as beautiful as I thought it would be. I have several more color combinations in mind to do it next time.  I want to try the peacock color again but using an emerald green for the weft instead of moss green. I think the resulting color will be closer to true peacock.  And I want to do it in two tones of white - I think it would be beautiful for a bride.  And I'm going to try the unthinkable - running a glimmer thread along with some of the warp threads. I'll probably get tensioning nightmares, but that's what the weighted S-hooks are for.  And I have two shades of pink in SoySilk that would probably be gorgeous!  So many projects, so little time!

The Shawl

The Games and the Shawl

Ah, the 2011 San Antonio Highland Games have come and gone.  We had a wonderful time this year, but How Busy!!  I'm told that there were more people on Saturday alone than in all of last year, which was their previous attendance record, I think. If we get many more visitors, we may have to think about recruiting a fourth member of the team!  We like it so much that we've decided to try to do more Games and fairs.

The MacLean tartan probably wasn't the best idea I could have had.  It is undeniably eyecatching, though, and is so very pretty.  It made a statement.  I think red tartans are the best choice.  The sash came out reasonably well.  I know where two mistakes are, and I'm going to need to come up with a better way to deal with the color changes and working the ends back in.  But again, it's pretty and that's what counts!  This time, when I wet-finished it, I used the steam iron aggressively.  That's apparently what bamboo needs.  It has a sheen like silk and a similar hand.  Gorgeous stuff!

The MacLean Sash

 George and I are developing a really crazy idea - even for us.  We're thinking of building a loom that looks old but can be taken apart in sections.  The beater/reed and harness sections could be stored together so I could sley the reed and thread the heddles prior to an event.  Then we pack up the loom, most of which would fit on the top of the SUV, and take it to an event.  We reassemble the loom, beam the warp, tie off, weave the header and get going!  The very first visitors might see the end of the warping process, but they wouldn't have to sit through the tedious part of sleying and threading.  It might work.

So where to from here?  We'll be at the General Sam Houston Folk Festival in Huntsville at the end of the month.  This'll be fun!  I don't have to wear a tight bodice!  I'm going for the prarie look and an old-fashioned, probably overshot weave!  We have our fingers crossed that we'll get a couple of other fairs during the year.



Consulting on the Weave - My Favorite Photo from the Games


The Peacock Shawl

But there's no time to rest on the ol' laurels!  As soon as the MacLean tartan was off the 8-harness loom, I warped on a shawl I've been wanting to make for years.  It's royal blue in the warp and green in the weft to give an iridescent sort of peacock color.  There are blocks of the most intricate twill.  Truly gorgeous!  I need to analyze why the blocks happen.  It does use all 8 harnesses, six for the design and two for the tabby weave sections that separate the blocks.  I have Interweave's e-book on designing blocks.  I need to spend some quality time with it.  Meanwhile, I'm weaving on with the shawl. It's at a rather wide sett for the thread I'm using, so it's not only iridescent, it's sheer.  At least it is on the loom.  It may contract when I take it off and finish it.  However it turns out, it's beautiful!

The Peacock Shawl

They're Back!

Climbing American Beauty Roses

Remember the Great Rose Massacre from last year?  Well, the American Beauty roses survived.  One isn't doing quite as well - it was cut back more severely.  But the other is thriving and they're both doing their show again this year, God bless them!  Several of the roses didn't make it.  The winter was severe this year and they just couldn't deal.  However, some of the ones I thought were goners are coming back.  Now that's tough!  What do I have to complain of??