New book

Yesterday a box arrived from Amazon with the new Robyn Spady book - 'Weaving Innovations from the Bateman Collection'.  I've only had time to flip through it so far but from what I can see it's a beautiful book jam-packed with information and drafts for weaving. I can't wait to sit down with it in the next couple of days.

Last month I also subscribed to Robyn's new digital magazine, Heddlecraft which looks to be incredible........but then after taking two workshops from Robyn I wouldn't expect anything less from both her book and magazine. She's easy to understand, very knowledgeable and probably the most organized and easy to understand weaving instructor I've ever taken a workshop from.

Robyn also has a blog - check it out for invaluable tid-bits on weaving.

I hope both her book and magazine take off.

So unlike me..............

It is so unlike me to sit and read all afternoon but that's just what I did.......in front of the fire........with hot cocoa........and popcorn. I had planned on winding a warp after dealing with administrivia and mundane chores but instead I gave myself permission to goof off.  It's not that I don't want to weave but I also want to do other things.  I tend to be driven when it comes to selling fiber but it's coming to a time in my life where I want to enjoy doing so many other things........there's limited time, if not now, when will I do these other things???

Yes, I will still sell my handwovens but I will be slowing down on the spinning/felting fibers which are the beefy income part of my business. Then I'll have the time to focus more on the handwovens, not just for sale but for myself.........there will be more time to design drafts to weave, drafts that have been in my head but have not gotten any further than that.

So, today I sat and read a book!  I finished 'Everything I Never Told You' and I'm just starting 'The Book Thief'. Both of these became available on the same day through Library2Go for digital download so I do have a deadline to read them unless I wanted to put one back on my list. Usually I'd be beating myself up for not being productive but I'm quite ok with it today....hopefully I can keep up with this slowing down and enjoying life a bit more.......and yes, I will be back at the loom shortly.......

And Bailey was quite ok with all this - he was laying just out of site in 'his' chair to the left of the fireplace.......

New books

 A box arrived this week with some new books I'd had in my Amazon wish list for a while. I can't wait to knit up some of the new shawl patterns in these books.

Friends JoAnn & Dee gave a guild program for their guild on the coast weaving ribbon to put in travel mugs. JoAnn sent me pictures and I immediately remembered I had 2 similar mugs in my stash that had been there for years and I was considering giving away..........not now, thought I'd play........

 I pulled ribbon from my stash and started weaving it overtop a piece of doublesided fusible. Not sure why pictures turn the wrong way when I've taken them with my camera, even though when I edit them they are fine...........oh well.........

Here's the finished mug - color is off, again from taking the photo with my phone. That will teach me for being too lazy to run up the stairs for the camera. Sometime this week I'll do the other mug - I've got some sheep ribbon to try out for that one.

Books for sale.  I just put these books up for sale in my fiber etsy shop.  They're all great books but just ones I never used. If a person loves to spin art yarn the spinning books are very fun. They're in the Sales/Specials section of my shop or right on the front page.

New shoes.........

New shoes arrived in the mail yesterday - whoo hoo.  Friend Kathy B was wearing a pair of these at the last spinning get together, I tried them on and decided I needed some. They're called Jambu. She bought them from ShopHQ, someone she works with is the ultimate shopper and this is where they were the best price.  The bottom and toes are similar to Keens, one of my favorite shoe brands.

So I could just stop at one pair - I needed the green because I love this shade of green and wear it often. I can wear these pretty much all winter long here with some lightweight socks.

Now my friend Loyce turned me on to these shoes, Corky's, also similar bottoms and toes to Keens. What enablers my friends are. She bought hers from Amazon, I bought mine from ShopHQ just because I was buying the others there. I was a little worried about these fitting but they fit perfectly. They only came in whole sizes and I wear an 8 or 8 1/2 depending on the shoe brand - I read the reviews that said they ran a little small but was still worried about ordering a 9 - they fit perfectly. There are so many different styles - I might have to get another pair in a few months. Same as the others, I can wear these in the winter much of the time.

This was what I was up to yesterday afternoon after twisting fringe on another chenille shawl and listing it my etsy shop.  A long overdue chore of recording all my (important) books in a spreadsheet in case of fire. I have so many out of print weaving books. And even though I've taken photos of book shelves while documenting our household I could never remember all the books. It took hours to get through the weaving, spinning and dyeing books. This morning I'll finish up with the knitting, crocheting, quilting, craft books. These shouldn't take as long - at least that's what I think.......I also thought I'd get the entire job done yesterday afternoon. That blue book on ikat along with 3 on kumihimo were a challenge as they were written in Japanese.......finally just had to write a small description since I can't translate the titles or authors names.

Forest fires have been gobbling up Oregon acreage this year, mostly in Central Oregon but last week there were 39 lightning caused fires in our area, luckily all taken care of quickly. We, on the extreme west side of the valley heard the thunder but got none of the lightning but this week may be a different story - dry lightning expected for the next 7 days including us on the west side.

A fire 25 miles to the south of us is now 90% contained - relatives of mine lived there for 28 years until they moved to MT 6 years ago, their former home is currently being protected by fire crews. Saw in the fire calls that it started as a grass fire........hmm, don't think this one was lightning caused as there was no lightning reported there.......probably human caused.......

Have I said recently that I hate fire season?  Sam hears it everyday. We're only halfway through fire season (if we're lucky) and the worst is yet to come as everything dries out even more. Fire season will probably not be over until October but sometimes we get much welcomed rain in late September.

Now off to finish up my library inventory so if a wild fire did come through here I'd have a record of all the books I'd want to replace.....and yes, that list along with photos of everything in the house are kept elsewhere........

It's Friday already???

How did it get to be Friday already?! I didn't get nearly as much done as I would have liked. On the weaving front I've been weaving solid colored chenille scarves, 3 warps so far, numerous scarves, so they're kind of boring to show on the blog. I'll show them once I get them silkscreened with discharge paste and finished, definitely will be silkscreening ginkgo leaves,  some other kinds of leaves, maybe dragonflies, not sure yet.

I work on knitting socks here and there in the evening or while at meetings, first sock done, second is now started using my friend Margie's blend of merino/angora/nylon from her own german angora bunnies. Margie also dyed this yarn.

A box from Amazon arrived this week, my usual Christmas book shopping for myself only I was late getting to it. I've got another order ready to go as I've seen a few more books I absolutely need. I can't give reviews on all these books because I haven't had the time to open them up. But take a look at what's new out there. I'm not a huge rag rug weaver but occasionally do like to weave a rug so I had to get this new book.

I saw a review on this book and knew I needed to add it to the sewing room since I'm determined to get back to sewing more this year. Theresa got hers before me and says it's definitely a keeper.

I loved the first Knit Kimono book and saw some pix from this one so knew it was something I would use. I have actually looked through Ocean Breezes, my friend Margie (angora friend again) has it, some very fun scarves in it.

Even though I haven't figured out what I'd do with art yarn I think it will be very fun to spin so I'm branching out. It will probably be hard to let go of wanting my handspun yarn to be perfect but it's time to step out of the box and spin something spontaneous and fun.....will figure out what to do with it later!

Love and buy all weaving books so this was a must.

And this is for light reading, very light. I've read all the others in this mystery series set around a gal that owns a needlework shop. Very light, fun camping or beach reading. I also love the tea shop mysteries by Laura Childs, new one coming out soon.