A week which flew by....

The wallpaper stripping is on hold due to the fact that the drywall underneath was installed backwards. Hubby isn't sure he can skim coat it smoothly enough to paint, so he wants to try a bit first before more time is spent removing wallpaper. I tried Tammy's idea with the hot water but ended up getting an inexpensive home steamer in the end, which works a charm. Still lots of work, but not quite so hard. Hot and sweaty though :)

The chimney inspector guy was here. He tried to check the chimney but when he pulled out the fireplace insert he found over 20 lbs of creosote chunks behind the stove. He ended up cleaning the chimney just so he could see it! So while it is in good shape, we need a liner and a new stove.. yay.. Now the whole house smells like smoke and creosote, just because the fireplace is empty for the moment. I will say though the inspector guy left the house almost soot free which was quite amazing considering he was covered in it.

I'm doing a medieval textile presentation at a local weaver's guild and have been spending some time trying to gather my materials together. None of the resources I use were packed in the same place. Some are finally put away and some are still sealed in cardboard bins of doom. At anyrate, my warp weighted loom came back from a demo in not so good shape, needing to have heddles and weights restrung. Foote the potter made the weights are they are spectacular, working better than I had even hoped for. I really wanted to do a twill this time, but really didn't have time. Instead I settled for a basket weave since it is already the first step towards the twill. Sometime in the future, I will just re-do the patterning for a sample bit of twill.

The crochet cotton project is almost ready to cut off the loom. The first one was a broken twill as found in a Coppergate sample. By changing the treadling it miraculously turns into a broken diamond twill, which is much more fun to weave I will say. I managed to break the clip on my loom lamp, rendering it unusable and making it nigh impossible for me to weave once evening sets in. The bulb is a super intensity "daylight spectrum" compact flourescent bulb which allows me to see easily, even to thread the reed with dark thread. Replacing the clip required a new lamp, meant a trip to Ikea today as there isn't anything else that I've found to fit nicely on the back beam of the loom.

Yesterday was a trip to the K-W Knitter's Fair and the Stratford Garlic Festival. The Knitter's Fair is always fun. I met friends I hadn't seen in a while and the inspiration is always good. I got yarn.. big surprise.. but 2 balls of sock yarn in colourways I wouldn't normally choose just to get some variety in socks and some wool singles in grey and a lovely red. Ostensibly they were for a blanket, but I think they might be too fine. However they were cheap and nice so I dragged them home with me.
Then I got 2 lbs of seed garlic to be planted in October. My cousin dropped by with a housewarming pressie of some of his fabulous wooden cooking tools and a huge braid of garlic. It's the best garlic I've had in ages so when I found the garlic suitable to plant.. not the imported wimpy stuff, but real garlic with Oomph, I had to get some. Of course this means that I need to get the one garden area ready to plant. This afternoon was spent pulling weeds until the mosquitoes started to eat me.

I did take a couple of hours off to drag the Kromski on the deck, ply myself with much tea and spin some more. hehehe actually, I did some plying of wool as well - a bit of roving labeled New Zealand "off white", which we all think is actually grey here. It's pretty though, it spins nicely and effortlessly. I've one skein done and another half bobbin of singles. I don't seem to be able to sneak quite as much time in spinning these days, but I'm hoping to get the rest of the fibre spun up in the next week and a half. I think it will make nice mittens and winter is coming.

On the list for this week.. finish the garden weeding, weave off the yardage, weave a couple of inches of basket weave on the warp weighted loom, spin a bit, hem an under dress and make the over gown, both of which I am hoping to have done for Saturday. Then there is the normal stuff I've been doing and preparing for a guest who told me not to prepare. I think it would be prudent to at least make the guest bed and perhaps clear a pathway to the room so she won't trip over the inkle looms etc, that always seem to be in the way.
Sigh... so much to do.. too few hours in the day ....