🎄🎁 Merry Christmas to all my Readers

I found this Nordic Santa today on FB (no  photo accreditation sadly).    This is what Santa should look like!   Not that one made popular by a certain soda pop many years ago.  Anyhow, this gentleman's hat, coat and  boots look beautiful and functional.....  He's ready to fly tonight!

This is a different kind of Santa too. More earthy tones and rather polished appearance.  He seems to be doing quite well and can afford a better suit of clothes  I find it interesting that many cultures who don't normally celebrate Christmas, now embrace Santa and even put up a tree.   It's about peace on Earth and good will to Man.   Sadly, its in short supply with wars raging and people fleeing. 

This is where we all live. I can see no boundaries, no walls. We all breathe the same air that circles the globe.  We have no other place to go to and so we must focus on global warming as if our lives depend on it, because they do.   Everything else is a distraction to this goal.....

I'm not a religious person and  lean heavily towards embracing Nature's cycles and so the Solstice was my big day.  The days are slowly but surely getting longer.    No matter what you follow and celebrate, here's to shining a light in the darkness....

Opal Stars and Waves

The last finished project for the year is now all done and photographed.  One loom is empty now (gasp!) and the other has a runner project about mid way.   Not to worry about the loom being naked as a warp is being wound and is half way completed.

I used to have new warps all wound and waiting ahead of time, but now seem to take more time considering the next project and being more choosy. 

All to the good I think. There's far too much rushing about nowadays.   Between Christmas preparations and making up for lost covid time.... I'm quite happy to take things at a slower pace. 

I'm very pleased with how this project turned out and I'll say that both scarves sold within hours of being listed on Etsy.   That was the fastest part as everything else was slow and measured (literally).   I used my Fiberworks (Mac version) and created a colour gradation using four 8/2 tencel solid colours: royal, grey blue, greyed teal and aquamarine. I had the program create it in quarters and then flipped the centre  so it reversed to the opposite side. The colours are very close so I had to create a second copy with bizarre colours so I could see the colour order better.  Old eyes and glasses that slip all the time can make for a miserable time of it.  I think I spend as much time planning and selecting yarns and colours as I do the actual physical weaving...

So the threads were wound one at a time according to the chart on my warping mill, cut and tied each end.  I actually enjoy the process and have nice music on. Its relaxing to me.  I also like to watch the colours shift and grow on the mill:

The draft is one I found on Pinterest, with no accreditation unfortunately.  If you know who designed this please leave a comment.   This draft creates the 'waves'.

I played around with some treadling variations and when the pattern is reversed, you get stars and long ovals:

That's the beauty, the fun of a weaving program is that you can try all these things out and see a great deal before you commit time and yarn.   You can see the back view, check how long your floats are etc.  There's also an almost infinite selection of colour! 🌈

So, its been too cold or even too sunny to get decent pictures out doors so I'm doing my best inside the house. This is the Opal stars and ovals scarf.   I used the 8/2 tencel colour adobe as weft. The scarf is 10 inches by 72 inches, with a 5 inch fringe.

Below you can see the shift in colours and it would seem that aquamarine (turquoise) is much like yellow, in that a little goes a long way! It does seem to boss the other colours around a bit.

Then there is the Opal wave scarf. A bit shorter at 62 inches by 10 inches wide, but very pretty! Again I used adobe for the weft. It just pulled all the other colours together nicely. Green or blue.

So I listed them just before dinner and when I woke the next morning they were sold.  They are on their way to Maryland! 

We are on the verge of yet another snow event which is to arrive late today or over night.  We have an Arctic cold front to boot, so we'll be staying close to home and keeping warm.     I have done some online shopping and have some dandelion yarn and also green tea yarn coming. Some silk fell into the cart at Treenway too.    Merry Christmas to me!  🎁

In time I plan to show you my new 3D printed lease stick holder for the Megado loom.   A weaver's husband in the States look at her set up and thought: "I can make something better" and he did! I'm looking forward to trying them out next warp.

I would like to take this time to thank my regular readers who patiently wait for me to write.  Wishing you all the joy of the Holidays, how ever you celebrate!

I will be writing my usual annual weaving year in review post on January 1st.  

Christmas Past

An English Robin

 A look into Christmas past, starting with my parents first tree in 1954. They lived in 'married quarters' in Portsmouth England. Dad was in Her Majesty's Royal Navy.

 Then I came along in 1956 and here I am about two years old at a Christmas party in 1958.  My parents later moved to Canada in 1960. They brought all their English traditions with them.    Such as Christmas crackers, Christmas plum pudding, and an orange and a lump of coal in the stocking.

Here we all are in 1962 living in the middle of the Canadian prairies with a 'real winter'.  The Santa at the base of the tree was on every Christmas tree right up to 1995.

Now its 1965 or so  and I have a new brother and another sister or two....  I'm wearing my new pyjamas that I opened on Christmas eve.

We moved to New Zealand in 1970 and lived there for close on five years. Christmas became this weirdly strange time where we'd go to the beach with a cold roast chicken and have a picnic.  No snow, but hot sun instead....and people exchanged cards with snow scenes on them!

We spent a New Year's Eve at a friend of my parents who owed this beach house right over the water. The tide is out in the picture but when the tide was in, it came right up under the house and you could slip straight into the water via a trapdoor in the deck.  I was close to being fifteen at the time so its a brand new 1971.

Here's the picnic and then a walk in dunes and along the beach....

Dad went through a black and white film phase but let me assure you, the beach is beautiful!

I found a colour version!

Many years later, my strangest Christmas was in 1984 when I spent two weeks on the railroad with Bruce.  He was placed as senior engineer on the Via Passenger train and his run was between Vancouver and Boston Bar.   Of the seven round trips in a two week period, I was on five of them.  Christmas dinner in the beanery,  New Years party by accident and breakfast on New Years morning in a dining car going through the Fraser Canyon in a snow storm, with Bruce running the train back to Vancouver.  It was a fun memory!

Speaking of Bruce, I found this old picture of one of his early Christmases in northern Ontario.  Cute little nipper...  He's only two or three here, so roughly 1948 to 1949.

Bruce with his train set.... an early start at his future career!

So where ever you are in the world and what ever your holiday tradition is, I hope you are in the company of good friends and family!    

Wishing you and yours all the very best, and a healthy 2020!

Christmas 2018: in which we detect a theme....

 Merry Christmas Everyone!

While I must admit the list is slowly shrinking,  each year we send out the old fashioned, and apparently out dated, Christmas card.   I ran short this year and discovered they can be hard to find in fact.  I'm wise to the "extra postage may be required" oversized cards and avoid those. I also leave the foil and glittery ones alone too. Not very environmentally friendly.

Yeah..... I know..... but at least paper or card stock is recyclable!

There are many themes to cards: serious religious ones, Santa and his reindeer, snowmen are popular and then there are snow covered homes and villages from a fantasy world of idyllic times long ago.
I normally go for natural scenes of birds, trees with a dash of snow.

I sent out roughly 40 cards this year..... and as of yesterday's mail we got eleven.  I like to reach out to friends from past years and places we have lived. Some are distant family and some are new family we have recently got acquainted with.   I love to read the  letters, the emails and enjoy the phone calls that come in close to Christmas, and the week after.

The gingerbread house came from Australia and was our first card of the year (Thanks Billie!) Each card is placed to its best advantage.    After a week or so of adding the new arrivals to the display, I noticed a trend....

Out of eleven cards, seven or eight have the snow covered home or village scene!   Now did so many of  our family and friends all feel that this best expressed their feelings for the season?   What ever the reason I have never had this happen before!

I have a weaving related post for you.... and then there's the annual NY's day post.   So I'll be back soon. Hope your Christmas was special with good food, family and friends.

Merry Christmas!

I love the tall ship gliding calmly over the waters in all its glory.   Its lighting up the dark as we end the year.   Its been a frantic year filled with fires, floods, wars, mass migrations, and a planet in decline.......then there's the  malicious politicians who have worked to divide people physically, mentally and financially.

We need light to shine on dark things and we need calm waters ahead.   Take deep breaths and perhaps spend some time each day doing something quiet (may I suggest weaving?) and simply enjoy what you have. 

I would like to thank my readers for following along all through the year, and wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

I'll close with a recent picture of our grandchildren who are growing up much too fast!

Ethan 5 1/2 and Madison 2 1/2 

Ghosts of Christmas Past

From our Family to Yours!

Being in a new home, and in a new community does tend to lead to a quiet Christmas for two. I have been thinking on past friends and especially Family.   Its at Christmas and other special holidays  when their absence really hits home.   Some are simply far away and some are no longer with us.

I'm lucky to have a photographic record of Christmases past to review and wander down memory lane.

This is my parents very first Christmas tree as a married couple in 1954.

It's 1959 and that's me on the left and I must be about three years old.   Its my very first Christmas party.

Here I am meeting "Father Christmas" as he's known in England. I don't look too sure of him!

My parents emigrated to Canada in 1960 and we lived in Saskatoon.  The 1960's had especially harsh winters and so Dad wore a buffalo coat when he walked the beat as a police constable.  I remember trying to lift this coat and couldn't do it. It was also a very old coat as they passed them on, one officer to another.

In the picture above and below... this is me and the year is either 1960 or 1961. I'm four or five years old.  See the Santa at the base of the tree?  My parents had that their entire married life together, and then Dad for another 20 years after Mum passed away. It and some other ornaments were what I like to think of as traditional anchors.  There was a comfort to seeing them every year.

This would be 1962.   I can still recall the Christmas parcels my Nana sent from England.  There were English style candies and treats....and...

My Nana would always send me an 'annual' to read. Usually a story book about Harold Hare, Rupert Bear, Beano or some other story collection.  I grew to love books at a very early age!

I'm almost certain this one below is Christmas 1963.  My last Christmas alone as my siblings all came along after that.

Some years later and a brother and two sisters later.... this is what Christmas Day in Dunedin, New Zealand looks like.  I'm fourteen, and my smallest sister is four.  I never adjusted to taking cold chicken to the beach for Christmas dinner or Dad bring the Hibachi along.  Everyone exchanged cards with traditional snow scenes too.  Weird!   

The lovely beach where we are sitting is St Clair at one end..... and a long ways off at the other end, its St Kilda. In the black and white above, you are looking up the St Clair portion towards Lawyers Head at the far end.  Here's a coloured view of the same beach and the sand dunes, and Lawyers Head. We spent literally hours on end playing here.  Searching for sea critters in the rock pools at Lawyers end, or at the opposite end, swimming in the open air St Kilda salt water pool.   The surf off shore was darn cold (it flows up from Antartica!) and 'here there be sharks'.  These were taken  back in the mid 1970's.  Check this link to see the beaches as they are today.

This was a New Year's day picnic 1973. The whole gang again, plus my mother on the far right and a family friend in the centre. Dad was, as usual, behind the lens.

I don't recall the name of this beach but Dad caught a nice picture of Mum sitting in the dunes while we played on the beach.  It was a very hot day and so we were ready to cool off in the water.

In 1974 we came back to Canada, life ensued and soon I was away from home, married and had my own family.  I started my own traditions with my children and faithfully put up the tree and same decorations year after year.

Now, I look around at the winter landscapes and smile at the snow scenes. I feel more at home in the northern hemisphere.  We seem to be having a colder, snowier winter than in recent years.  The pond behind our house is frozen over and kids were skating on it yesterday. Sadly I didn't get pictures but will try if they skate again today.  They left their goal posts on the ice so I think they will! 

And they did!  The fence marks the end of our back yard... and the pond is just the other side. They played until it was quite dark and seemed to be having a great time!

There is such beauty to a winter landscape. There's no mistaking snow clouds  once you've seen them!  But on a sunny or partly sunny day, with the lower weaker sunlight colours appear in the landscape that are soft, muted and delicately blended.   I  can see beautiful warps in pictures like these:

(all from Google images)

I'm thinking a winter series would be nifty if woven up in, say,  July 2017!

All the very best from Susan and Bruce