I put a new scarf on the loom. I wasn't sure about this yarn and am still not quite sure I like it, but it's pretty enough I guess. The shop where I purchased it has industrial lights and the colour of things sometimes shift a bit once you get it outside. It's a little less dramatic, and the lavender more greyish in real life than it was in the shop. It's working up fairly quickly. As long as I don't get distracted it shouldn't take long to weave. The yarn is a bit thicker than I prefer, but the trade off is a scarf that is really quick to warp up and weave off. I think it took me 45 minutes to get the loom dressed, including winding the direct warp in front of the fire, so having to deal with an awful lot of static.
It was fairly mild outside and I was pulling some of the ever invading Virginia creeper vines from places it shouldn't be, like taking over the Weigela bush and the back deck. I had a fairly good sized pile of it, so I grabbed some of the larger vines and twisted them into similar sized hoops. I wired them together and then wrapped them at the joints. I ended up using natural raffia because none of the vines were thin enough for me to use in that small an area. I was planning on making a rather rustic melon basket. I got the hoops tied together with the raffia, which was interesting because the raffia was in short pieces. I sort of managed to cut some of the side stakes and get them into place. I left the rest of the vines out to dry a bit over night, while warning my husband not to burn them or toss them into the junk wood pile, so he knew that my pile of vines was intentionally left littering the deck!
The next day I took a bucket with a bit of warm water outside, trimmed many of the vines, curled them into manageable coils and started soaking them. As they became more pliable, I started using them as weavers. I learned a lot, like thinner ones work much better, and they take a bit more soaking than I'd anticipated. Also, it takes a lot of vines. Many more vines than my fairly large pile that I had accumulated. It's hard work winding those vines in and out of the spokes.
After a while my hands were aching and I'd run out of weavers! My huge pile of vines was down to a few scraggly bits that I'd trimmed off. I left it out to dry a bit, but neglected to check the weather forecast. It rained and rained, then got cold so it's still sitting outside, unfinished. When it warms up, I'll trim a few more vines and weave that remaining bit. Then I can trim off the scraggly bits. It will never be beautiful, but it will be functional.
In the sheltered part of the garden, a few undersized and definitely needing to be fertilised crocuses bloomed. Such a needed burst of colour and reminder that spring is on it's way.
