Catching My Breath...Again

It seems my life had settled into a pattern of frantic activity followed by a period of absolutely nothing happenning. Fortunately, I am in one of those periods of nothing for a while. I can catch up on my sleep and chip away at a few UFOs for the next couple of days.

So what have I been doing to keep so busy? I'm glad you asked...

The middle of June was the ANWG conference, as mentioned in the previous post. This is a close-up of the other piece I had in the instructors exhibit. Handspindled silk, the warp is a painted sliver plied to keep colors together and the weft is silk hankies.

I came home from that and rolled straight into the corrections and changes to my in-depth study. The only remark that I will make about that is that computers and I are still not seeing eye to eye. I hate it when a computer's default setting has to be circumvented to make a simple thing happen. The correction of 13 typos and renumbering the pages took three tooth-grinding days. I have turned it in again for a final review, but it looks like it is done and I am officially a Master Spinner!

Then I remembered that I had promised Lexi a wrap for her grad. I had cast on a lovely silk thing in March, using this pattern from Knitty.com. and a silk/sea silk blend yarn from Handmaiden. Then I set it aside. Three days of panic knitting ensued, but it was finished and blocked the evening before the grand day.

I think it turned out okay. And a close-up of the fringe...

Grad was Friday, Canada Day and a barbecue with friends on Sunday, packing Monday, then off to Fibre Week in Olds and Calgary with Lexi and Cameron on Tuesday. I only had time to take one workshop this year, so Wednesday I took a class on 3-ply yarns with Dianne Cross from Sydney, BC. It was soo much fun to just play, making wee samples with all kinds of different fibres. I came home with this...

...to show for my efforts.

The kids went to Warped Tour the Thursday we were there, so that meant a road trip to Calgary and a stop a Krispy Kreme. Mmmmm, there's nothing better than a ring of fried dough coated with sugar!

We drove home on Friday, with only a quick stopover in Edmonton for lunch. I was wiped out and my back was killing me from all the driving. So naturally, I got up on Saturday and warped up the loom!

The warp is a commercial 60/2 silk, sett at 50 epi and the weft is another Handmaiden silk--rumple this time. The picture doesn't do the colors justice. It is a bright red with tiny streaks of hot pink and a scarletty-orange. I have run out of weft, but I will be picking some more up next week when I embark on yet another adventure!

Today is reserved for getting life in order...laundry, house cleaning and updating the old Blog.

And maybe just a little spinning...