What was I thinking?

Two days ago, I found some skeins of yarn.  Various bits and bobs, leftover from other projects, or from smaller, sample amounts of fibre.   There were all in shades of browns, from quite dark to a light tan.  I also found a large pile of lovely grey washed fleece..  Immediately this vision of a shawl appeared; a gorgeous plaid type checky pattern in grey checks on a brown background.  It would be soft and old fashioned looking.    Excitedly I wound the warp.  Halfway through I realized that checky pattnerns or plaids require some sort of forethought and planning, to make sure you have enough fibre.   Leftovers just generally don't cut it!  How I even thought I'd have enough fibre is one of those odd things because I barely had enough for the warp.  

The warp is now random stripes of colour, as evenly spaced as I could get them.   It was only 312 or so ends, so the heddles and reed were threaded last night and this morning, I wound the warp on, checked the tension and it's ready to go..   Right... Weft?    I don't need no stinkin' weft.. or do I?   I thought the grey would be a lovely weft.  I've been spinning it up.  My perceptions of this huge pile of grey turned out to be wrong.  When done I think I'll have 2 bobbins of singles.  When plied that will make maybe 2 full skeins which won't be nearly enough for the weft.  The only other yarn I have spun up with enough to start is the blue Merino and Blue Faced Leicester.  I really am not sure I want to mix blue with these browns.   I may go stash diving this afternoon and see what else I've got hidden away.  Then it will be a spinning marathon so that the warp doesn't sit forlornly on the loom waiting for my enthusiasm to wane.

The last  bit of the Bayeux embroidery experiment is done.  I'm very happy with this piece.    I've plans for more but this shawl will have to get done first.



Look what I found in the garden yesterday.   We've had bizarre spring weather.  Loads of rain, then it freezes and it all starts again.   Sunday night it started to snow; a nasty, heavy, wet snow.  At 3 am we had a rip, roaring thunderstorm.   No, I didn't sleep through it, but was instead on the couch with a terrified dog huddling beside me and a cat needing attention plunked down on my lap. Yesterday mid morning the rain finally eased off and the snow actually started melting.  I found these poor babes in a small corner.  Last year there were many more of them but I think the frosts, thaws and floods have not been kind to the bulbs this spring.