Crazy Weaving Weekend

I think I bit off a little more than I could chew this weekend... I finished up the shawl/yardage that was on my big loom, warped/threaded/beamed and wove a second copy of this lace scarf:

(It's a five-end huck lace and it might be published in Handwoven Magazine!! Stay tuned for details...)

And now I'm in the midst of making this scarf as a custom piece for a lovely customer who lives on Nantucket:



I also managed to give Ms. B a haircut:



Phew. This kind of crazy intense weekend calls for comfort food:


That is a picture of most of the ingredients for Dublin Coddle. Hmm, tastes better than it looks. Comfort food, Irish style. It's from The Gourmet Slow Cooker by Lynn Alley. I'm not normally much of a slow-cooker person (we're frustrated foodies - frustrated because we have no time to go out to eat or to cook how we really like to at the moment), but having two kids under four and a workaholic husband can certainly turn you into one... And this book has yet to let me down - every recipe I've tried has been fantastic.

The Christmas tree is going to have to wait until next Sunday!

Tencel!

So, I just finished a lace (huck) scarf for a customer, using Tencel:

It has three huck lace stripes that run the length of the scarf, with plain weave between and along the borders, to stabilize the fabric. So much fun to weave! It's sett at 20 epi, so you wouldn't think it would be a particularly quick project to weave, but it didn't feel slow, somehow. Maybe because it's fun to watch the little lace windows appearing as you go.

And Tencel is another one of the man-made fibers that I love! Like bamboo, it is an all-natural fiber (not synthetic) and made from wood cellulose in an environmentally-friendly process. It takes dye gorgeously so the colors really sing, and it has lovely drape when it's finished.

I'd been meaning to get around to weaving some lighter-weight scarves that are good year-round so it was nice to have a customer request one and light a fire under me, so to speak... I have a draft of a turned twill scarf in my notebook that I need to get back to - it's going to use six colors of tencel, that will be fun! I also put on extra warp for this project and am in the midst of making another scarf using a slightly different purple tencel for the weft this time, and weaving different size windows of lace instead of a solid lace panels the length of the scarf.

On other fronts, we visited the local ASPCA shelter (Nevins Farm) to meet some kitty cats today (poor boy cat Iko is looking very forlorn with Little Girl gone for the past week or so). Looks like we might actually wind up adopting TWO. Good grief. A lovely tortoise shell girl cat and a black and white boy cat, named Madeline and Lucky. They're both older (8 y/o) and very mellow and sweet - they both reacted really nicely to Ms. Bella and were very lovey to us. And they're both living in one of the shelter's communal cat rooms so they get along fine with each other and with other kitties. So, we'll go back tomorrow and who knows, maybe we'll come home with three. (Just kidding. Yikes!)