Endings and Beginnings

 

The towels with the painted warp off the loom.  They were hemmed and hung to take a photo.  I like them a lot.  The black one shows off the colours really well, however it looks out of place with the rest of the towels.  The other ones are a bit less dramatic but they look really nice.  Even the green one which I wasn't sure about.  

Folded up they look nice too.  I think the purple is my favourite, but the teal is close.  They are all boxed up and ready to be put on sale this weekend.

I thought that I didn't have very much to put in the sale.  Because of the hip replacement, I haven't spent any real time on the floor loom.  What I hadn't realized was how much I've actually woven on the rigid heddle loom.  In this case, my big bin that I thought was too large, was actually full to the top!  That doesn't mean anything will sell though because buyers are fickle, money is tight for most people and lots of folks just come out for an interesting day out.  If things do sell though, it does help with buying yarn for next year.

Len's Mill Store sent out digital coupons and the yellow tag items were 80% off.  This is a pile of yarn which would have been $80 before tax.  With tax, I paid $17 and change.    Most of these are for the rigid heddle loom.  One is a ball of Hygge, a very thin fluffy yarn which has come to the notice of sock machine knitters as you can use it to line socks to make slippers.   The horrible yellow is sock yarn.  It's ugly and bright and was $1.88 after discount.  There is enough other yarn there for 3 shawls or maybe 4 or 5 scarves.   When I'm able to get yarn on deep discount, or at least on sale, it means I can sell my non- wool or silk scarves at attractive prices.  I like that because it means that handwoven items are available to those people who may not be able to afford them otherwise.  It's nice to let people have a choice.

I warped up the Inkle loom.  I used 4/8 cotton that I'd purchased years ago when I had this idea to make guitar straps for my family.  I'd already made 2 for myself - a banjo strap and a ukelele strap.  However there were still 3 kids plus 1 spouse who played, so I thought it was a good idea.   It took so long to make mine, that I ran out of time.  Plus, I'd thought that I'd be able to dye all the white to customize them and that really didn't happen either.

   I need to make a new Birka bag and my old strap is wearing where it attaches to the handles, so I put this project on for that purpose.   But, the tele was on and I was dressing the loom while I was watching some very compelling crime drama on Britbox.   I should never do things like this.  The stripes are different sizes and I missed a peg on 2 different threads so had to cut the strap off early because I could no longer pull the strap forward to weave.   It's about 12 inches too short! 

So sometime this week I need to find table space to paint my Xmas cards.  I still need to make a couple of pairs of csm socks.  I also want to put a new scarf on the rigid heddle loom to have something alternate to play with.  This all sounds doable except for the fact that hubby has a week off and who knows what will happen then.