Mid-November Rolls Around

Now that we are in the middle of the month, all the annoying Christmas commercials are in full swing and everything that should be covered with fall leaves and turkeys are covered in green and red, golden tinsel, and playing age-old tunes over and over and over and over....  I love Christmas, but I hate that it has become more commercialized year after year.  I'm thinking about making cranberry and popcorn garlands for the tree with the kids (and the scouts), and doing other old activities.

Snow is falling gently outside our window for the first time this year--I doubt there will be any serious accumulation, and I hope that it won't impinge upon the activities I have scheduled for tomorrow, which includes driving a fair distance with one of the kiddos.

The other day, when I was going to go horseback riding, but I wasn't feeling very great and didn't have an interest in riding in the cold and rain, my friend Bekah came over and taught me an easy card weaving pattern for my loom.  I had been wanting to re-learn and she was willing to teach me, so I invited her over for the day and stay for dinner.  I finished up the inkle piece I was working on so I could warp up the new card weaving.  This one had actually been on the loom for quite a long time and had been sitting next to a window, so the yarns had faded in one section.  No worries, though; I can flip it over and sew it down so the dark side shows.  I made it in "Ithra" colors--yellow, red and white--and I figured I'd put it on a tunic that I'll reserve for my Chancellorship duties.

Following Bekah's directions to the best of my ability, I warped up a small piece using 18 cards with 44 strings threaded on it and got my weave on.  There are four holes on each card, and usually a thread goes through each hole, which creates the pattern.  I forget what this is called--the technique--but it required missing some holes with the warp threads so that the weft shows up in those empty spaces.  Quite clever.  Since I didn't use all the pegs to warp it, I finished it quite quickly--about two days.  It measures about 65" long, rather than the usual 4 yards that my loom can hold.

That was so much fun, I decided to warp up another piece using a larger, more complex pattern.  It takes a few hours to warp up--making lengths of yarn, threading through the cards in the proper direction (making either an S or a Z twist on it), making sure they're all lined up in the correct order, etc.  This is especially tricky when you make the silly decision to use FIVE colors!  More than four yards of threads, 25 cards with four threads each--that's 400 yards of yarn strung on this little thing.  What was I thinking?

The colors I chose are for the Kingdom and the Barony in which I live.  They're woven together, in a symbolic way, as the branch is woven into the Kingdom.  I don't know if it's really turning out the way I expected, but it still looks pretty cool.  I think I've gotten just shy of a yard done so far, but it's going pretty quickly.  I don't really know what I'm going to do with it when I'm done.  What I've decided, however, is that I would like to get some more colors for my weaving bin.  Maybe I'll just pick up some crochet cotton because it's cheap and I can find it very easily at the local shops.  I can get it in a variety of colors, and I hope to see if I can find it in colors that you can achieve using natural dyes--which covers just about the entire rainbow.  I picked up a book today that talks about using leaves and berries and roots to dye fibers which can create reds, yellows, greens, purples, and brown.  Besides the heraldic colors, there are lots of shades of yellow and green that would be really pretty in a belt.

My sister has a friend that she's known since the dawn of time (it seems), who is having more health issues.  She was diagnosed with a brain tumor several years ago and has been in treatment off and on while it grows and shrinks.  She's continuing to have problems again and Tara has decided to fly out to visit with her at the end of the month.  She wants to take a comfort quilt with her, so we are on a short timeline to get it done.  Since Linda is *crazy* about cats, we decided to make a block with cats in it and alternate it with disappearing 9-patches.  This is a sketch of the cat we're going to make in bright fabrics.  I'll have to find out what we'll be using for background fabrics.  Tara and I were on the phone today trying to figure out what we were going to do, and I doodled, took a picture and posted it on Facebook, consulted more, made changes, posted more pictures...ain't technology grand?!  I still have to figure out the dimensions and make it ready for construction...  Talking with quilting Sharon, she and the rest of the Pirates are on board to help with this project.  Hopefully we'll be able to get blocks turned over to Tara by Thanksgiving and get the top on the frame soon after.

Last weekend was the last soccer game of the season for the Banshees. We had a celebratory lunch at a small pizza and pasta joint where the coaches handed out these lovely scarves to each of the players instead of trophies.  Coach Charlie thought it would be funny to give Cammie a little fringe hairstyle while Coach Scott said lots of lovely things about each player.  The girls didn't have a great year--they lost every game, although most of them were really close games and their defense was quite improved since last year.  They had a good time, and surprisingly good weather so there wasn't much to complain about.  (Funny thing--Charlie isn't the coach's real name.  Everyone (except his wife) calls him Charlie.  His last name is Chaplin.  I guess he was a bit of a clown as a kid or something.  Thankfully he doesn't have the same mustache...a style that has really gone out of fashion since World War II.)

The last game of the season was a little bit drippy and quite cold, but overall not unpleasant.  The parents on our team are all really great people, fun and fair, and supportive of all the girls.  We're lucky not to have some of those obnoxious parents who yell at the refs (some of whom are teenagers), the coaches (all volunteers) and push to have their kid play more.  Our coaches are quite wonderful, fair, and work the girls well.  I hope that Cammie continues on the team since she's made such great strides this year as a forward and midfielder.  She's expressed an interest in quitting, but I'm hoping we can talk her into playing another year or two.

Tomorrow I'm teaching a class on Viking undertunics.  I don't know if I have any students signed up yet, but it'll be fun even if no one does.  I'll bring my loom and some fabric to cut out a tunic for Ben.  Speaking of which, I have to pack.  G'nite.