Juice Boxes

It seems the faster I try to go, the further  behind I get!   We have been continuing  to get things around the house tidied up for summer and have been busy doing odd jobs. Windows done (inside and out) deck railing and glass, some  gardening..... every day has been full.   We have decided to put our house and property on the market in the weeks ahead so we will continue to sort and down size.  That's the big decision hinted at in the last post.  We need a smaller yard and one level house on the main floor (at least). I have no doubt that there will be more joint surgery to come in the years ahead. I'd rather we change our situation voluntarily while we can and have choices,  rather than have it forced on us later.  ( I have watched and learned from my senior family members before me)

There is an additional air of pressure as we have two sets of company coming soon to visit!    The first arrive this Wednesday so I baked some goodies yesterday and grocery shopping is later today, with last minute cleaning Wednesday morning.  Phew!

I'm so grateful that I have much more of my mobility back again to be able to do all this!   For the past few years I was leaning so much more on my hubby's help... and some days I couldn't do much at all. So now that I seem to have the worse of two surgeries behind me, it feels like I've reengaged with Life again!   Thanks for hanging in there Bruce!

Don't you love this time of year with all the flowers bursting out everywhere? 

There's been time for some weaving all well.  I wove off two scarves from this warp but they are so completely different, that I'm showing them to you one at a time. The second scarf will be another post.   So here's the first and I call it Juice Boxes.   The warp is a lovely rich grape colour (think grape juice! ). Its 20/2 silk and I set it at 28 epi but to be truthful, next time I would try 24 epi instead.  Its perfectly okay and has a lovely hand, but I'm are always looking for where improvements can be made.

The weft is Bambu 12 which is quite fine. Its a mint green with just a touch of blue in its base and so it works with the grape quite nicely!  The pattern is an eight shaft Classic Drall ( #228 as found in The Weaver's Book of Eight Shaft Patterns).   Its a two block turned twill weave on eight shafts and a nifty weave.  There is something about the neat and tidy arrangement of boxes that appeals to the eye. Like stacked "juice boxes".    

I like to have a picture showing the length of the scarf and Madge my lovely assistant does a fine job of demonstrating  that

Then we can get to playing around with draping and going for flourish!

Classic Drall  is so versatile for either table linens, or for scarves.  I'm thinking it would be neat to try a three block version  on 12 shafts. I'm going to play around in Fiberworks and see how it could work visually. 

Here are two views of the scarf and full fringe and you can really see how deep the grape colour is. The hand is soft as you would expect for a silk and bamboo combination. The bamboo tightened up nicely with wet finishing and the steam pressing brought out the soft sheen of the silk.

These  pretty girls gave it a round of applause!