This year the boys decided we needed to have a carved pumpkin. Nobody has carved one for the past few years here, so it's a nice change. Yesterday when I got up I noticed the carving tools on the counter. Not those cheapo plastic carving tools but his clay sculpting tools! Last night he called me out to the back deck to see what he'd finished up. There was no moon and the cloud cover was fairly thick. There wasn't even enough light to see the deck floor! It was dark, black and a bit spooky out there last night. Sitting on the table was this. This is the reason that I don't carve pumpkins.

On the weekend I went to a friends place for the night. We hung out and stayed up way too late watching Tales of the Green Valley, a series about the explorations of rebuilding a working 17th Century Welsh Farm. I'd only seen the last episode before then so it was very much fun and much geekyness too I'm thinking.

The next day I pulled out my Tudor kirtle project which had been stuck in a box in storage for a year. It got packed away when we had to "declutter" to sell the house and there was so much to do when we got here, though I found the box, it didn't get opened. This was a good excuse to get it out and started. The bodice was almost finished, more so than I remembered. There were two bits of hemming to do on the armceyes. Then I basted up the bottom hem and pleated the skirt fabric to a waist band. While I had the two on, hubby marked where they met. Now I'm wondering if I should have lined the skirt as it doesn't have alot of weight to it or will a petticote or two bump up the skirt.
I will think about it for a bit and decide whether to take apart the basted pleats, line and redo the skirt or not. I was sort of hoping to have the kirtle done for this weekend, but two weeks from now is also fine. That second date would give me time to get a new chemise and cap made and to find my new partlet which was a gift and which I haven't yet been able to wear. I know which bin it's in.. just need to find that bin!

The 3rd towel is woven on Fanny so one more to go. I am enjoying weaving on her so much. I spent a bit more time trying to do a broken diamond twill for the second towel but decided that the more complex weave structure was really obscured by the busyness of the warp, so the last two will be plain herringbone. It was an interesting moment when I looked up from weaving to see out the window, a scene with the exact colours that were on the loom.

I'm almost finished spinning the last bit of roving into embroidery wools. There is some Dyer's Greenweed in a pot on the stove waiting for me to finish up, ply and mordant the wools. I want to double the skeins in yellow so that I can overdye half of them with indigo. Hopefully the spinning and dyeing will be done by the end of the week.