Change is the Only Constant

 The chestnut tree in our back yard is right on the point of letting go.... and all these leaves will drop soon.   The rest of the garden has been cut back and tidied for winter.   There have been three substantial wind and rain storms in one week and now we are enjoying a brief time of sunshine and warmer air. So much so  that the furnace is turned off and the windows open to air out the house.  I count us lucky right now as parts of northern BC received 55 centimetres of snow yesterday!

The Japanese maple is turning deep red, with a few last rose buds on the shrub below.

Out in the front yard our ornamental cherry tree at the end of the driveway is looking more like sugar maple! Beside the driveway is a bush I can never recall the name of but I call it burning bush.  Its an eye catching red!   We're supposed to get an early snowfall and possibly as much snow as last year, but maybe be warmer over all compared to last winter according to the Farmer's Almanac.

We moved here just a year ago but spent much of October 2016 unpacking and indoors due to rain. We never really got to enjoy the Fall at all.  By the time we lifted our heads out of boxes, it was snowing!    This Fall I'm sitting outside and spinning, but there's a good reason for that.....

Under all this mess is my dining room table..... and the mess is books and such from the studio. I had to empty the room as much as possible so it can be painted. I came up with the idea, signed on for it and looking forward to the conclusion, but in the meantime its chaos here!

It was a photo finish to get the last warp off the Louet Spring and here I am, late at night,  pressing hems and pinning them for some hand sewing. 

These are taken the morning after.... and the looms are waiting to be covered while they work around them. The ceiling, walls and trims are all being done.   Yes, I'm keeping the burgundy feature wall.... just refreshing it.  The other walls will be done in a light dove grey. Down at the opposite end is an ensuite bathroom with white tiles, malachite green and a touch of grey. I decided to go with the hint of grey.  Its neutral and helps to counter the accent rose wall.   (I had to cover a deep forest green wall once at one home we owned and three coats of primer later plus two top coats and the green still came through, so I thought, "why fight it?")

Then the following pictures were taken at the end of the first day. They were bringing in equipment and supplies and organizing the paint, plus double checking what's to be done.

Its not an overly large space but they managed to bring in and set up five ladders (there are some little shorty ones out of camera view).     Day 2 went well with paint being rolled on doors and trims already...  Day 3 is about to start with walls being done.   The ceiling will be Saturday's job! I think they got the right height ladder worked out now.

Once this room is all done they will move onto hubby's den and office, then the bedroom, main bath and a small hallway.... and this is our life for the next two weeks. We're up bright and early every day..... have I ever mentioned that I'm not a morning person? At least I can set up the studio again while they work on the other side of the house.    We have yet to decide where and how we're to sleep while they paint the bedroom ! Indoor camping anyone?   

So this post is likely the only one for October and I'm sorry about that.  I had intentions of posting more, and had some weaving underway but we were busy with end of the season house and yard maintenance, plus some medical appointments regarding my feet.  Plain and simple, they hurt and its osteoarthritis.  I'm not looking for sympathy here but simply saying that I needed to take things slower and that doesn't translate through to much in the way of interesting reading!   So once the painting is done and my house set to rights again, we'll get the looms moving again!

Its About Time

The signs are clearly starting to show.... summer is "done and dusted" and autumn is officially here.   As of October 1st we will have been here in our new home one year.  A year that flew by!   We have no regrets about our move to this home and simply love it.  We spent last winter looking at what needs to be done here and this summer we got busy and replaced some sealed window units, re-roofed the sheds (we had a leak),  checked our perimeter drains around the house (we get a lot of rain in the winter!), we're getting leaf guard protection on the gutters (no more cleaning clogged gutters and climbing ladders) and in a couple of weeks time we're getting some rooms painted to freshen them up. We already have a list started for some jobs for next year :  new kitchen sink and faucet, get one of two runs of side fencing replaced (a joint effort with the neighbours) and possibly more interior painting.  There's always something that needs tweaking!

After we recently went to Vancouver and saw the grand kids and returned home, I found my feet very painful again with arthritis and it hurt to walk, let alone treadle. So I took a rest and wound warps instead and wove when I could for short periods of time.   I'm waiting on  seeing a surgeon about my right foot, but the left is painful now too. Getting old(er) sucks!  So the studio has not been as busy as it normally is.

It seems I wasn't quite done with the last draft and tie up on the loom. I inherited a couple of 'seconds' over the years as table runners for our bedroom furniture but our night tables remained bare. This seemed to be a logical time to fix that and weave some up for our home.  I had the same warp and weft yarns on hand, the draft in hand and tie up all done.   They may not have been very long runners but they still had all the hemstitching!  In fact, it seemed like all hemstitching interspersed with a short run of weaving.  The day they were washed it was raining outside and so the rack was set up in the house to dry.

Tails were snipped, and then a hot time on the steam press and ironing board  and they were ready for some pictures.   There is also one longer runner that's 15.5 by 40 inches in length.  The warp is 10/2 mercerized cotton (colour: shell) , sett 28 epi and this runner was woven up with 8/2 tencel  (colour: taupe)

I wove two smaller cloths with the same shell mercerized cotton warp but used cream or off white 8/2 bamboo. This way they would match the existing runners in the room

Naked no longer!

close up detail of the pattern

Bruce has a couple of small little end tables in his den that needed a little something too, so I wove these small little covers for them.  I find it rather ironic that I weave miles of cloth, but it took so long to do these small pieces.  "The Cobbler's children have no shoes".

As you can see I reduced the pattern motif to fit the smaller table top.   The LED bulbs in the lamp are a rather warm white so I did my best to reduce the yellow in the computer. Now he can put down the cold beverage while he watches his Blue Jays baseball games.

The older table runners are up high on a tall dresser and an armoire..... so the treadling error isn't on full display but do their job well.   Yes, that's me at about age two or three with my mother.... a long time ago now. 

I held the camera up high and snapped these....  but you can see the new runners have good company.

We're all "matchy-matchy" now!

Some good news:   Two years ago today, I got a whole new left knee and while it was a tough recovery, its made a huge difference in my life! 🎉🎈 I have a 'birthday' for each one of my three artificial joints as each in turn resolved some painful issue  and gave me a new lease on life and, my main goal,  kept me weaving.