Coming up Daisies

 

A little hard to see underneath the breast beam, but I wanted to show how this one is turning out.

I had a long hard think about what colours I had left and the drafts I'd designed.  There are three in the queue, but rather than weave them in order, I decided this particular colour combination would look better in this draft so swapped which one I put into the loom 'next'.

Since I am trying really hard to use up my stash, and especially the colours/yarns that are not my favourites, once I got started on this bleached white for weft I wanted very badly to get it used up.  Not that there is anything particularly 'wrong' with the yarn.  It's just twisted a little bit more firmly than my other 2/20 mercerized cotton yarns, which means these towels feel a little bit coarser than the rest.  Not a deal breaker - they *are* towels, after all.  Rather than leave it for 'later' and never getting to it at all, it seemed like a really good time to plunge onwards.

This warp will not use up all of the bleached white, but I'm thinking I might do some on the next warp which is going to be natural white cotton.  Or maybe I'll ask a bobbin lace making friend if she wants the yarn.  It's a bit thick for bobbin lace, but can still work.  Or else I could drag my own lace stuff out and use it myself?  TBD.

So far everything seems to be going well with the loom, thankfully.  I got four towels woven so far and the rest should come off fairly quickly once I get home.  Except!  April is turning into a busy month, so we'll see.  If the jab goes well I can get off the heavy duty painkillers and will have less pain and less brain fog.  That is my hope, anyway.

I wasn't entirely idle while the loom was being dealt with or waiting for parts.  I've written a few more essays, told a few more personal stories.  And I have one more topic planned - the development of the above draft from the first spark of inspiration/questioning to wherever I am when I finish writing.

My editor is busy with other things until the end of April, so that's my deadline - get whatever I have written by then to her.  I have two that need major re-writes but those have to wait until I get home and hopefully have more functional little grey cells.  Plus my alpha reader needs time to read and correct the typos/grammar she spots so my deadline to finish writing is April 15.  Ish.  

Today I printed out all of the 'new' essays, hole punched them, put them into a 3 ring binder and added a highlighter.  I can read through the essays in the van, correct the Word files when I get home and then send the lot to her.  

In many ways I feel like I'm 'rushing' through this project.  My other books took 5 *years* from concept to publication.  This is taking more like 6 months.  But initial feedback is that the information is good and needs to be shared.  So I'm going to take the gift from the Muses and see if we can get it all put together for a publication date this summer.  

We will be away for 5 days, but will have email/internet in the hotels so if anyone needs me for anything I can be reached that way.  I will answer when I can.

Fingers crossed for a good drive each way and for spring to be a little more advanced by the end of the week - but not, hopefully, flooding!