...and then four months slipped away...

Friends, I'm not exactly sure what happened to this space. I've been absent for four months. I guess it was COVID-19. Not that I had it, mind you - I'm just referring to the generalized, unending stress of living right now. I can't remember where I ran across this piece, but it spoke to me: 

Your ‘Surge Capacity’ Is Depleted — It’s Why You Feel Awful (by Tara Haelle 8-17-20)

I've been lucky enough to work mostly from home, and like many people, I've spent inordinate amounts of time looking at a screen. I gave myself a nasty case of golfer's elbow by working in an ergonomically bad position for many months, and I'm still recovering from it. (Golfer's elbow is like tennis elbow, but on the inside of the forearm rather than the outside.) I've rearranged my work space many times. After liberating my chair and split keyboard from the office and bringing them home, things are more comfortable... but it takes a long time to heal from these inflammatory injuries. I still have to be careful about my choice of handwork. I've been more mindful of taking breaks and also rotating among knitting, spinning, and weaving, which use slightly different muscles. 

The good news is that the knitting, spinning, and weaving have continued. It looks like the last thing I told you about were my Impressionist kitchen towels. When those came off the big loom ("big" being relative - my big loom is a 25" Flip), I made some Christmas towels. 

These use the same Stripes and Blocks Kitchen Towels pattern that I used for Kim's birthday towels. I just changed up the color scheme to make them super Christmas-y. My mom LOVES Christmas and a pair of these will go to her this December. I put on some extra warp so I actually made 3 towels. I can keep one for our house. I've been trying to keep one towel out of every set so that I can use it and learn what I like and don't like. 

I improved upon Kim's towels by weaving Towel B first (that's the one in the middle). It's easier to make Towel A match the length of Towel B than the other way around. These came out really nicely, even if they did take a while.

 On the little loom (my 15" Cricket), I've made a couple projects since my last update. First up, I made this lovely scarf in June. June was a project month in The Sheepspotters' Society. I hemmed and hawed about what to make, spending quite a bit of time considering Shifty or Night Shift, and ended up warping up the loom. The warp is handspun Polwarth in a dreamy light grey, and the weft is handspun BFL in a colorway called "Gummi Bear." 

The yarns do not match - the Gummi Bear is thicker than the grey warp. I chose this mis-match deliberately so that the multicolor would take center stage. I am really happy with the result. It is soft, but drapey. And so pretty!

I never did get a photo of this scarf around anyone's neck, but it is 72" long. I wove until I ran out of the Gummi Bear yarn.

Also on the little loom, I participated in the Summer 2020 Weave-Along from Yarnworker - we made weft-faced mini-rugs. These little cuties are about 7x9". They're made of cotton - I used 8/4 cotton (aka "carpet warp") for the warp, and Knit Picks Dishie (a worsted weight cotton) for the weft. I tried a bunch of patterns and techniques. I will definitely be making more of these, and perhaps also some coasters.

I tried some different finishing techniques on these, as well. I found I am fond of the fringeless finish, but boy, it takes a lot longer to work - probably just as long as weaving the rug!

My mom took an immediate liking to the top rug, so I gave it to her. S1 felt the same about the one in the bottom left, so it's on her bedside table. And the other one was always my favorite, so I have it sitting under a candy bowl in my WFH space (Kopiko makes WFH better). 

I'll do some brief catch-up posts on knitting and spinning in the coming week. I've missed being here, even when I couldn't find the energy to get myself here. Rest assured I have been reading blogs the whole time... and wanting to spend more time there rather than on Instagram where the algorithms run my life instead of the other way around.

I hope you are well!