Fancy Twill

The 8 harness fancy twill warp for this scarf has been on the loom since last summer. But I kept having more pressing things to finish and as this is an experiment I kept putting off working on it. But I have been weaving yards of plain weave cotton chenille fabric the last few days and not only am I ahead of schedule on that but I am tired of the monotony of plain weave. So I slipped over to the bench of the loom with this on it and got started weaving. The treadling pattern is long and complicated but I discovered that if I wrote it on a piece of paper in 3 to 5 treadling repeats and then checked each bit off as I did it I could keep track of it reasonably easily. And it is so pretty that it inspires me to keep working at it.

The Blues

I got started recently on the new cotton chenille fabric for vests. I seem to be on a blue theme as
I also warped up one of the little table looms with a pale blue rayon chenille warp for scarves.
And in my kitchen window is a pot of paperwhites, a present from a friend, with two little blue glass people that were a Christmas present from Siri.

Two more lambs this morning, both ewes.
Joel docked their tails while their mom looked on and commented. We didn't dock tails when we first got the sheep many years ago until we discovered what a nasty mess sheep's tails can become. Not only does it make shearing hard but the dung in the tails attracts flies and can create skin infections. So now they go right away. The sheep don't seem to notice.

First Lamb 2011

Once again, granddaughter, Iris, was here visiting for the first lamb of the year. This year's first is a big black and grey ewe lamb. It's named either Amy or Laura (she hadn't decided when they went home today).

Current Weavings

I've not just been spending my time making marmalade. I made a batch of what I have to admit are marmalade colored rugs. I had a stash of yellow and orange sheets and a friend who wanted a yellow and orange rug and voila...! I'm going to let her have first pick of them and then the rest go in the stash for summer sales.

But my big project is to make more cotton chenille fabric for my friend, Mary Ann, to make into more vests. This warp has 3 shades of organic low impact dyed cotton and I bought two colors of variegated chenille on ebay for weft. The next warp will be organic colored cotton with similar colored chenille. I'm excited about this collaboration.

Marmalade Madness

I've been churning out batches of marmalade that last couple of weeks. Above is a batch of blood orange marmalade. Our local grocery store had bags of blood oranges this Christmas. I've never seen them here in quantities like that and grabbed a bunch of bags for presents and for this lovely red marmalade.

Then I found this citrus website Ripe to You and ordered a box of Seville oranges. I love the bitter Seville orange marmalade and before the current restrictions on things like that on airlines have been known to bring back a dozen jars from England. But again they're not common in this neck of the woods. So much for local food. I ordered a box and am in the throes of several batches. Oh, this stuff is good. The last batch had a tablespoon of whiskey added at the last moment. I expect to get 16 to 18 jars out of my half box (I shared with a friend). Now how's that for food security.