Joyous New Year

Wonderful to have holidays and family and parties. Even more wonderful to return to some semblance of routine.

Tomorrow is St. Distaff Day or Roc Day to celebrate returning to the spindle after the Christmas season. We're having a spinning/dying party.

Half of one of my napkins that now need place mats. This draft from Alice Schlein's article in Weavers #36 was so interesting that I beamed a linen warp to see if waffle weave in fine linen was possible. It worked so well I beamed another even finer, each new warp was tied on to the previous warp thrums. Then I ended up weaving "waffle dots" on a plain ground. The story is slated for the February issue of the Complex Weavers Journal.

In the meantime, I'm working on the design for repp place mats to go with the waffle napkins our group exchanged last year. A narrow warp on the inkle loom with wee pick-up bits has me excited. The tiny squares of pattern echo the waffle squares without being busy. Then watching the snow drift down and pile up, I sketched out how I think I want to weave them. (see tiny sketch with the inkle band). Doesn't it look like snow, dense at the bottom, sparce at the top? The Next step is graph paper. Then design the threading. I Think I have three blocks which should work on 4 shafts.