Conscious Again

I was tucked up in bed at Anne's (my daughter) and allowed to sleep. There is something very comforting about distant noises in a house, a child's voice, laughter, the sound of a hoover. Anyway I have got over the horrid thing and am now back at home. But since I did not eat for five days, I feel a bit weak and have resolved not to do anything energetic for the next ten days. Which is just as well as I have the Shuttle to get ready for the printer. The Shuttle is the Guild's Newsletter.

The new windows have been installed and made the room look much bigger and the view over the garden is magnificent. I thought I would need to buy the new curtain rail pronto but it turns out that pronto means the week after next. There is plastering, plumbing and electrics to be done first.

This is my first sample of  the network draft in 120/2 silk. It is 2.25 by 3 inches. I put in a floating selvedge halfway up and the selvedge does improve. But it is very unbalanced, I suspect, because the piece is only 2.25 inches wide. I have resleyed it to make it balanced (before I was ill) and intend to start in on it this evening. I have also changed the draft to be more striking.

This is a section of the yardage I intend to submit to the Association's Exhibition. 

And this is a photo of part of the yardage - there is 4 yards of it. The trouble is the creases. You would not believe that I spent hours with a damp cloth pressing it and yet still - - - -. So I have asked an expert to have a go at it and see if she can straighten it out. The fabric is unsuitable for a jacket as it is too thick. A short coat? A cape? It wants the minimum of cutting - and the whole length would have to be fused to interlining before I would dare to cut it.

It was a good idea and it took months to complete as I dyed most of the yarn myself. The dark lines of green and brown are commercial yarns. All the rest is dyed by me to a complicated brief. The pattern which comes and goes, I like. And I am thinking of doing the piece again only with a pure silk yarn about 2/20. 

The other option is to cut it in half, sew the two pieces together, bind the edges and use it as a blanket. 

I really have to use it. I already have several lengths of yardage upstairs looking for a purpose in life. And now I must go and weave a few more postage stamps.

Oh and one last thought, Wendy Morris, of Handweaver's Studio tells me that she has little 12 shaft looms in. I saw an 8 shaft version  2 or 3 months ago and was very taken with it. It has a 30 cm weaving width  and is eminently portable. I have arranged (I hope) to see it in 2 weeks time. I have to go to London anyway as a great friend of mine has had his Company given a Queen's Award for Enterprise and the Company is having a 'do' in one of Guildhalls in the City. I wonder what they will make of Doctor Foster turning up dressed in her best outfit  and with a new loom tucked in a holdall!!! Well the workers always thought I was nuts. But they never said anything because I was too good a customer. The relationship was that the Company made 95% of all the antennas I sold.