Snow!!

Yesterday the weather forecast was for lots of snow and I was in two minds as to whether to go to the Kennet Valley Guild meeting but, in the end, decided I had better as I had several pieces of dyeing to return to their owners and, in any case, Rosie Price was ill (cold/flu) and the beginner weavers had to be talked to about yarn calculations.  I had arranged with my daughter, Anne, that I would phone her at 1 and she would read out the weather forecast because horrendous things were forecast in the way of snow. My worry was driving home over the Cotswolds. 

At 1220 I had done all the things which I had to when someone pointed out to me that a clear sky outside had turned black and nasty so I fled. Anne at 1 o'clock said that it was already snowing hard further North. In the event, there was no snow over the Cotswolds and none in the Severn Valley until I got off the motorway and approached the Malvern Hills when all of a sudden there it was - the white stuff. When I got home, there was already a lot lying in the garden and half an hour later it was seriously thick. The road outside the house is very steep, fairly major and it's a bus route. There was one car trying to up the hill about half an hour after I got home. Then nothing and they have clearly stopped the buses. Last year I helped dig a bus out which got stuck across my gate.

So I will concentrate on threading the Megado and tidying up, doing post, binding books and think about making a bag. I have come across two really nice pieces of fabric worked in Mola work and think I will make a bag out of them.

The above is a double page spread plus one page fold out from three volumes of Latvian textiles I have on loan. The owner wants to find a good home for them and I have made several suggestions. The text is in parallel Latvian and French and contains lots of sketches of people in costume as well as many examples of patterns such as the one above. There is the occasional weaving pattern - but not as a draft, just as above. The ones I have come across  look like overshot.  How do I know they are weaving patterns? Because they say 'Tissage en lin' underneath!! which is French for 'Weaving in linen'. Now I come to think of it, the patterns I have seen would good in white on white. I must go through the books and take photos of all the weavings. I dare not scan them  as each volume weighs over 3 kg and I am afraid of tearing a page. The background is that the books were originally published between 1924 and 1931 and were republished in 1991.  They are pristine. No ISBN number that I can find.