Apologies

 I spent a lot of time writing blogs - in my head and I never make it to the computer! So apologies. A lot has happened since the last blog published. We went on a cruise on the Rhine. The food was very good. 95% of the passengers were Americans and the whole thing was tailored to them. It ended up by me walking off from a guided tour of Speyer. Speyer has the largest Romanesque cathedral in Europe and the guide did not intend to go inside!!!! She said it was plain and boring. Sure it has no twiddly Gothic bits but it is gorgeous in its own way. Anyway we won because we spent ages looking round and then patronised a cafe in the market square where they made apple tart and kasekuchen as only a good German cafe can. 

Everyone was tested every day on the ship for Covid and then we fought our way through Basel airport and went home with Covid. This was the German version which had us both very ill and testing positive for more than two weeks so that did a lot of damage to our plans for the caravan. 

We got to Norfolk eventually and the temperature was not too high. but we did not have long there. We have not spent anything like the time we planned in Norfolk. We hope to get some longer visits in this year. 

So have I done anything in the way of textiles. Well yes. I spent a happy day with the Guild chairman dyeing wool. I found several large cones of white wool yarn. I cannot see me every using that much white yarn so I turned one cone into skeins and one into balls and space dyed both lots with acid dyes. I was worried that some of the dye would be too old and not take. Well something labelled rust red  came out orange but everything else was okay.

The balls of wool, all 10 of them, were dip dyed and took several days to dry. They were half dipping in bottle green and the other half in brown. Make a nice warp! 

I finished winding a warp for the 8 shaft Schacht in grey 8/2 cottolin. I am now half way through threading up in a point twill. This will be another ghost warp. The one  on the Megado is doing well and the next project is a double weave blanket. Photos soon!!! I hope 

 

Winding warps

 I have spent a lot of time today winding warps. Found the most suitable place was on the table on the caravan decking but it did mean answering passerbys questions. The reason for the plural in warps is that the warp is for a double weave checked blanket. White background with checks in red and blue. One repeat is 48 ends with ends 32 white, 4 red, 8 blue, 4 red. so this is one warp. i have done a lot today and hope to finish tomorrow so i can take it all home on Monday,

a van selling Indian food has turned up so we are eating Indian this evening.

The swans have paid their evening visited. they gobbled up everything  

Norfolk again

Back to Norfolk for 2 weeks. This time there seems a great deal of wildlife, roe deer, stoats, rabbits. I have heard foxes barking. Not to mention birds. The swans have 7 cygnets and come round the caravans looking for scraps, accompanied at a safe distance by mallards. We feed the swans bread which is allowed but not allowed to the mallards. There are lots of different birds, egrets, oystercatchers, megansers (very handsome in black and white and red) and too many geese. They cackle nonstop. Below is Holkham Beach just after high tide.

I brought a load of craft stuff, Lino block to cut, warp to wind, but have done nothing except walk the Norfolk Coastal path with the dogs who are very happy. But NOW I am going to wind some warp.

Norfolk

 Last October i bought a static caravan on the north Norfolk coast at wells-next-the-sea. gorgeous. It has been closed over winter and now we are back here for two weeks over Easter with two lots of family visiting, Dorothy`s daughter in law and grandaughter and alo our nephew. We made a huge list of things to take which ended up with our hiring a man-with-a-van. That all went off well. that was yesterday and the forecast was for howling gales today. Quite correct.It has been horrendous today. Too windy to walk the dogs much so we got all the jobs done.

the laptop attached to a new router  to give us better wifi than the site provides.

a new small printer installed

linen in boxes under the beds

a trolley from Hobbycraft for painting tools

beds all made up

So now we are both exhausted and intend to sit around drinking tea until bedtime.

Dorothy has a load of books she is getting rid of tomorrow. They  belonged to her son who died young. She discovered a bookseller here who will take the lot, all 16 boxes of them. so tomorrow she delivers half of them,

And what about weaving, you ask. it is going well. The Guild weavers and spinners are taking part in the Black Game (see Ann Sutton). I have to do satin which has ended up with me threading 36 to the inch over the Schacht. If it works, it will look good but ---.

as to other hobbies, linocuts seem to take precedence. i am doing a complicated one of Raglan Castle which is nowhere near finished. So I show this one which I have turned into card,

I do intend to blog more often

Yes I do. I write blogs in my head but never get round to putting the equivalent of pen to paper. Partly my sister has been persistently ill culminating in a bout of lung infection which needed antibiotics. She has not been eating much which in turn has affected her diabetes and so most of the time she does not feel well. The good side is that I have walked the dogs by myself a lot which is a good thing because I can mostly cope with Tome, my sister`s collie cross. His problem is that he does not like dogs larger than himself so he goes for them on the principle of getting in first. So he needs putting on the lead if a larger dog approaches. While Jerry loves every body and will approach a larger dog. He was growled at by an Akita and he was quite upset. You see `Nobody has ever done that before` written on his face.

I have done a lot of weaving and thinking about weaving. The Guild members have just started the Black Jack Game for 2022. This entails getting three random cards from you have to design and carry out a project. Weavers weave and Spinners spin. I have ended up  with a design which involves satin weave, rich dark colours and some fancy yarn. The yarn is Tencel + merino  yarn at 20/2 and space dyed in reds and dark greens from Joy of Yarns and I think bought at Tampa Bay Convergence some years ago. This is going to be interesting.

The Online Guild had January devoted to UFOs  and I accomplished two of my list of three, making the striped cotton fabric up into a giler.

The fabric (from 8/2 cotton) was very thick and seams were difficult to machine. I did not like the arm hole facing. I thinking bias binding would have been better.

The second UFO was to examine my stash and get rid of some of it. Which I have done although I did find some projects which were collected together but not touched for several years. 2023 UFOs?

Flu

 Yes, flu, no not Covid. Just plain flu accompanied by sinusitis, aching bones etc. Not possible to do much. I live on paracetamol and sudafed. However I do think I am getting better and the films on over the holiday period have cheered me up. For instance I am a devoted fan of Carry On films and my alltime favourite was shown on TV - Carry on up the Kyber. Now the rest of the family thinks these films are low class and not quite respectable. I doubt if they could be made today because they are very politically incorrect.

I have managed to do several things. I set out to take part in the Online Guild`s UFO month and the first thing on my list is to make a waistcoat ( using a Daryl Lancaster pattern). The fabric and its dark red lining are shown below.

The stripes will run vertically. Construction is well under way. I have a large metal cupboard in which I put all my fabric and I search in there for a suitable lining. I originally intended to use some very nice Tencel fabric woven by me using a draft from the book The Draftts of Jeremiah Fielding but decided it was too nice to be hidden as a lining. Anyway. I was horrified by the amount (and quality) of what was stashed away in the cupboard. My daughter, Ruth has taken away one armful and I will take some to the refugees  in Didcot. But I still have several lengths of gorgeous fabric, include four lengths of tweed woven by me. Each is quite sufficient for a jacket and I do not ned four new jackets. Could do with a bomber jacket for round the house though and two of the lengths would be good for that.

And now I must get on. Today`s job is darn the elbows of one of Ruth`s sweaters. She is working in conservation these days and is often out on moors so she needs all the sweaters she can get.  

 

Back to Normality (I hope)

I see it is months since I blogged. There has been a lot going on here and I have just about surfaced. 

Firstly the good bit. I have bought a static caravan on the North Norfolk coast - Wells-next-the-Sea to be exact. Only a few hundred yards from the sea and more or less on the Norfolk Coastal path. Dogs are allowed and they love it. There are places where the sand stretches for miles and they take off into the distance, leaving us to negotiate all the little streams. Thsy just walk through. In fact, Jerry, my Boston, has hated water all his life but did not even blink when the incoming tide covered his paws. I think salt water must count as different. 

We have been up and down, filling the caravan with our belongings. We have been therer 4 times since September. All meant a lot of time spent driving.

But added to that, starting in October were health issues for me. I suddenly started having dreadful side effects from a drug I take. It took ages before everyone (hospital, GP and me) realised that it was due to changing said drug on to something very unsuitable. Change back and all is well. and I have been okay for the last week or two. However 4 weeks ago, I sprained my ankle ona Wednesday. We had tickets for HMS Pinafore at London Coliseum on Saturday and there was no way I was going to miss that. However whhat with walking round London (2 miles), I then spent the next  3 weeks with my left foot raised up so could achieve very little.

Now I am fine, back to walking the dogs twice a day and weaving. I am making great progress with the Megado where I have completed two table cloths and started on some tea towel and hand-towels. 

I have  dealt with Christmas and the posting out of our calendars as well as having a thorough inspection of the yarn stash. And  spent some time designing a double weave in alpaca so which I have just enough!! The draft is shown below.

Not in black and white of course but maroon and sapphire. Letts hope nothing else gets in the way of weaving progress!