Eventually You Get There...

If you click on the picture and look carefully, you can just see a bird sitting on the top of the farther wrought iron flower basket supports. That's Daddy Junco on guard duty.  He and his mate have built  a nest in the flower basket.

When ever we use the front door, they sit in the magnolia and chirp away at us in little warning calls.

It makes watering the basket rather awkward! Today the flowers are looking downright wilty and so I waited until they had both gone for food and quickly filled the other part of the basket with ice cubes. They slowly melt and  evenly distribute the water. (Its a method I use to slow water orchids in the house) 

Holding the camera up very high, I quickly snapped this picture. There are at least two babies here and a possible third. Their little feathers are coming in nicely.  With some luck, I can  get these wee  fellas fledged, and save my flower basket!

So, I have been busy treadling away at the towel warp. It's 8.6 yards and I planned 7 towels and some samples. I also decided to weave it as one long continuous piece. I thought I would measure and cut apart later.  So I wove, and wove, and wove... and every night Bruce would ask me how much I had got done that day and I told that I had no idea as I wasn't measuring.  All I had to go on was the size of the roll on the cloth beam (which I nicknamed Chubby)

Here I am at the very end! The gold scrap yarn was the absolute limit of my being able to get a shed and  not have skips.  I want to see how much loom waste this Louet Spring really has.

I had 6-7 inches of warp left in front of the loom......

....but I was right up to the back of the eighth shaft heddles in the back!  I decided to nip the warp ends right at the metal apron bar. The idea is to measure the length at back and then see what I have left at the front for my total.  I'll give those totals in my next post.

The roll got quite full. Very satisfying pulling it all off and having a huge armful of fabric!

So we stretched it out...and it ran the full length of the studio which is twenty six feet long!  So that's 8.6 yards. I think I'm going to sew / serge the ends together and pre wash it before cutting it apart this time.  I will steam press it ahead of cutting and hemming.

I think this is the longest plaid I have ever woven!

The poor loom looks gutted!   Bruce helped me pull the warp off and we both likened it to giving birth!   Its takes time to tighten everthing back up again.  Two hours later, I'm slipping the next new warp into the raddle slots.  I'm going to revisit a recent project a time or two.  Table runners are up next.