All. The. Projects.

I had decided in January that this was going to be the year of the "project" blog--but haven't talked about many of them.  That's because when I think about writing about them I get overwhelmed and then wander off and start another one.  So I'm just going to list things that have been started (some finished) that haven't been mentioned yet.  Details will come later.

And now it's a few hours since I wrote that first paragraph and I don't even want to list everything at once.  So I'll just start and quit when I get tired (because it's midnight)

So--some ongoing, some finished.

1)  Scarf for Margo.  Some years ago I made an elegant charcoal gray angora Mobius cowl for Margo (the cowl is a circle with a half twist so you just toss it over your head and it snuggles around your neck).  During my visit in December she got it out--and while I truly appreciate that it's obviously been much loved over the last decade or so, time has not been kind and it rather resembles a drowned rat.  So I got some beautiful yak/silk fiber, spun it up, and knitted a replacement.  I think it's lovely . . . but the reaction was sort of like when a mother tries to get a new fluffy stuffed toy to replace her little girl's long-loved, threadbare, stuffing-coming-out, one-eyed bunny.  I don't think the gray one is going anywhere.


2)  My tushie cushion.  Bob looked over while I was doing this and said "uh--this isn't your usual knitting."  Very observant.  My usual knitting is of fine handspun, lovely colors, a bit fancy, using small needles.  This--I had a ball of cheap acrylic and was using it doubled on large needles and knitting a plain garter stitch square.  This is purely practical.  My back and I are often not on speaking terms, so I like to take hot soaking baths.  But when one is in the bath, the part that you want to pamper happens to be the part that is sitting on the hard tub.  You have to keep sort of bouncing up and down to get the warm water where you need it.  So I've made a quick-drying little cushion that keeps my tushie happy.  I'm really tempted to emulate a knitting designer's "bath-gan" which is a blanket you can use in the tub to cover all the parts that stick out of the water warm.  Maybe next winter.

3)  Big shawl.  I've mentioned before that I like to spin while walking.  This habit has gotten me several random skeins of yarn with no particular purpose.  I decided a couple of months ago to do a big project, one that would keep me inspired to keep spinning (and hence, continue the daily or sometimes twice-daily walk).  This shawl will eventually have 9 leaf-shaped panels--I just finished panel #3.  No rush--it will be at least November before it's cool enough to wear it.  I love the way the colors flow in this pattern.





4.  Warp-weighted loom model.  All this going and hanging around model conferences with Bob made me sort of want to enter a model.  But of what?  Tanks and jeeps aren't my thing.  Maybe dinosaurs--but there are a lot of people who do really good ones (including Bob).  The science fiction/fantasy category is usually under-represented--there's a thought.  But my world isn't plastic--mine is fiber.  Where will the worlds meet?  Well--they don't say *when* the fiction had to be written.  One of the books I've been reading is Njall's saga, which is definitely fiction, written sometime in the 13th century.  There is a loom in it which has intrigued me ever since I first heard about it some 15 years ago--the loom of the Valkyries, on which they weave the fates of men in battle.  The loom is made of weapons and body parts.  So far I've made the spears for the loom frames, and modeled and painted 10 decapitated heads to use as warp weights. I'm inordinately pleased with my little heads.  I thought about buying dolls at the dollar store and popping their heads off, but it would have been too cookie-cutter and I would have felt compelled to keep the headless bodies to "do something with." I was wondering what I could use, because "I can't sculpt."  But I was out there alone with no one to see me messing around with the clay, so I started sculpting.  And I like my little dudes--each one is different.  The have personalities.  They've been "corpsed" with a bit of toilet paper, painted, and had real silk hair added (the silk that I had of the right color and texture is actually a rather rare wild silk, but you use what you must).   I still need to make a sword to beat the weaving, some skeleton arms and hands to hold a heddle rod, and do a weaving that looks like it's done with intestines (although I might substitute blood veins--creative license).  This model should confuse people--if there's a WTF? award, I'm going for it.

OK--4 is enough for right now.  There's a half-dozen other things happening, and more in the pipeline, but it's a start.

And the Reading:

Finished Njal's saga!  My, that was a high body count.  But the textilian in me loves that sometime the attonment fine (the "man payment") often included a suit of clothes or a cloak.  The amazing one was when someone was bribing a lawyer and gave him a gold bracelet worth 1200 ells (!) of russet cloth.  Somehow it's hard today to think of going to pay someone off with a few bolts of cloth.

Still on "Woven into the Earth"--down to reading details of the structure of the clothing

"Respect the Spindle"--a book that not only discusses different spindles and techniques, but goes into detail of the physics involved.

"Mama Makes Up Her Mind, and other dangers of living in the South."  By Maude Bailey (I wrote of her "Quite a Year for Plums" a few posts back.  This was a collection of essays mostly centering around the author's eccentric and very Southern mother.