Little by Little

 

Today I should be able to cut the latest warp off the loom.  My next warp on the Megado will be another 2/8 cotton warp, with a single (tow?) linen weft.  I'm assuming tow because it is quite hairy.  It should be quite absorbent and make good hand/kitchen towels.  

The cone of linen is one of the last cones from my friend Lynn's yarn stash.  I still have a few cones of yarn from her, but the 700 pounds of yarn I brought home is largely used up now.

She loved fine yarns and a bargain and routinely bought yarn just because it was a good price.  So she had a LOT of yarn.  Added to MY 'lot of yarn' meant there was a lot of weaving that had to be done to use up mine and hers.

I found this last lonely cone of linen when I was trying to re-organize my shelves over the winter and since I was on a tea towel binge, decided it was time to use it up.  But I like to work in batches and I had a lot of my own yarn that wanted using so the linen got set to one side.

Today I've done the 'last' in the current series (also using up some of Lynn's yarn for weft) and the one with the linen for weft has come to the surface.

But first I need to clear away some of the clutter in the studio.  My work table is full of stuff, the place where I set up the spool rack to beam warps onto the Megado is filled with my espinner (for plying that 16/2 cotton of Lynn's), plus I need to start crunching numbers for the next Big Project.

The good news is that I can get the kind of wool yarn I want locally.  Given the looming deadline, being able to get yarn right away and not wait on mail order means I can take a couple of days to prep the studio for the new direction.  

In the meantime while I wait on word about the Big Project, I can finally get that warp into the loom and use up the linen.

In the photo above, there are several shelves of 2/8 cotton.  After weaving a bunch of towels using 2/8 cotton, there is less left than that photo shows.  Still lots, though, so I will be thinking on what to do with it.

However, I feel like I need to use up some of my other yarn for a while.  I have literally hundreds of tea towels/towels and low on scarves.  There will be no craft fairs locally (that I want to participate in) and instead the local guild is looking at doing a sale in the guild room.

We are currently smoke free as the wind has shifted somewhat, but lots of t-storms in the forecast and things can change at any moment.  I try not to think about what can happen and focus on the 'now'.  But it is never far from my mind that we can wind up under a smoke plume again.

In the meantime, I continue to weave.  And think.  And plan.