🎁 Pandora's Boxes

The days here are running from one to another and weeks are going by.  What a strange year this is turning out to be.   I'm feeling calm and anxious all at the same time. Safe inside my home but anxious about how we go about resuming life again when history says that there are second and third waves of infection?   As someone over 60 and with underlying health conditions, I won't be venturing far from my door for some time to come.

So life has settled into a sort of routine of morning coffee, household tasks, figuring out our supper based on what's in the freezer and keeping ourselves busy, or not as the mood takes us.

Its a slower pace of life for sure and I'm okay with that.  There's no great push; there's time to smell the flowers.  I can't help but feel that this gift of time is what we all had hoped for, and perhaps is one of the blessings in disguise of this pandemic?

That, and seeing that Nature is responding to the lack of humans polluting  by healing itself  and surprisingly quickly too.   No more arguments about whether or not we have a detrimental impact on the Earth  anymore.....   One can only hope the scientists are gathering the data to present to us later as solid proof, just in case jellyfish and dolphins in the canals of Venice isn't enough for some.    🌎

Meanwhile, here at home.... I wove off the last of the warp on the Megado and have been working on the final finishing of 7 towels and one runner.  They need to be photographed when the sun shine returns as we are having a bout of rain and wind right now.

I had another warp already wound and ready to go on and Hubby and I worked on the beaming together. Lucky for me, he seems to enjoy helping and I'm very grateful. If I had to do it all by myself again, I'd be in trouble as I would have to work out how to do it all over again!

The new replacement dobby is working well and we have settled in together nicely.  I can get by the metal box now that I have come to understand its other charms.     

So what is going on now?  Glad you asked!  8/2 Egyptian cotton, which is soft and of very high quality from Lonestar Loom Room, and no they don't have any more sadly and most likely won't for some time to come as I have checked.   I threaded a 16 shaft point twill and this is # 34281 from Handweaving.net and I'm calling it "Pandora's Boxes".     The Greek myth is there at the link to refresh your memory.

The 6th-century BC Greek elegiac poet Theognis of Megara states that 

Hope is the only good god remaining among mankind;
the others have left and gone to Olympus.
Trust, a mighty god has gone, Restraint has gone from men,
and the Graces, my friend, have abandoned the earth.
Men's judicial oaths are no longer to be trusted, nor does anyone
revere the immortal gods; the race of pious men has perished and
men no longer recognize the rules of conduct or acts of piety.

The poem seems to hint at a myth in which the jar (or box) contained blessings rather than evils.

So here are my little dancing boxes as viewed on Fiberworks as I started this new weave.  I decided to embrace the hope and have fun with them. I'm going to change weft colours every towel length and keep it bright and cheerful. 

Future weft colours below. This will take a while to weave as it is 10 yards!  So I will be keeping busy here as I also have scarves on the Spring loom to finish weaving up as well.   I hope to have another post ready for early May once my photographs of the towels are done. 

 I have nothing but time right now.  😊

Meanwhile, our ornamental cherry tree is simply loaded with lush double blossoms. Here's the tree in the front yard.

... and here are some small boughs we brought into the house to enjoy. 

Other delights of our spring garden