Magic

Just a few minutes into the first part of the wash cycle the colour begins to develop

After the first complete wash cycle the brown is now a deep rich colour and the green a warm mossy shade.

You may remember seeing pictures of this warp on the loom where the difference in colour between the warp and weft wasn't great.  At all.

The weft is the Fox Fiber natural coloured cotton.  As such it looks rather bland until after the magic of wet finishing with a high alkaline wash.

This is about 1/3 of the warp being wet finished, both green and brown.  Because the yarn isn't dyed there is no danger of fugitive dye so I don't worry about mixing two different colours in the water.

In order to get the colour as deep as possible I use a fairly high concentration of detergent plus added about 1/3 of a cup of borax to boost the pH level.

Then I used the 'soak' cycle of the washing machine, plus during the long soak I actually turned the machine off so that the cloth could soak in the machine for even longer.

With such a high pH concentration, I also set the machine for an extra rinse, just to make sure all the detergent and borax got rinsed out.

Sandra Rude has done more of a scientific approach to her towels using the Fox Fiber yarns.  I didn't think to save a 'before' sample so that I could compare to the 'after' wet finishing.  

Currently reading In These Grave Times by Jacqueline Winspear

Relative Time

Time is relative.  I am still being affected by jet lag and woke up way too early this morning at 5 am.  Eventually I got up and then had an 'early' breakfast, which meant an 'early' lunch.  

This afternoon I have a doctor's appointment and the day is dragging like it was crawling through molasses.  

I took a quick look at the calendar this morning and realized just how jam packed it is.  And my schedule won't let up any time soon because there are larger projects in the works that will demand my full time and attention as soon as the craft fair season ends, mid-November.  

In the meantime, I have weaving that needs doing.  I'm almost finished the place mat warp I left on the loom and started weaving yesterday.  My goal is to finish it today, preferably before I leave for my appointment, but if not?  After.  If I can.  If my energy lasts.    

Where much of my time and energy will be going over the winter.

Rolling Deadlines

We got home last night and are still dealing with a time zone change of 9 hours.  One of the benefits, so to speak, is that my body thinks it is 'later' than it actually is local time, so I got up 'early' and got started on my day.  I'm trying to stick to the local time zone schedule as closely as possible in hopes that my body clock will be tricked into getting back into the swing of things as quickly as possible.

Because I came home to rolling deadlines.  By that I mean that they are coming thick and furious for the next six weeks.

I have a full calendar of appointments and commitments for the next couple of weeks whereupon I head out on another trip (and another time zone shift) for two weeks, arrive home on the Monday, set up for the first craft fair show on the Friday and then the following three weekends they run back to back with less and less time between them.  Plus that pesky 450 mile drive to - and from - the last.  In November.  Which means possibly winter driving conditions...

At which point I may fall into bed for two weeks.

So far today I have dealt with finances - at least the start of dealing with the urgent things and preparing for the third quarter sales tax reporting - done some necessary shopping, taken care of some emails, some personal, some conference related, woven a table runner and two place mats.

Now I'm fighting the fact that my body thinks it is actually 2 am.  I still have a meeting I really want/need to attend this evening but it is fairly early so I may fall into bed again at 10 pm.  Or maybe by then my body will be waking up again because it thinks it is actually 7 am...

Ah, the joys of travel and time zone changes...

One More

It's just after 7 pm local time.  Body time is more like 4 am.  And we aren't home yet.  One more hop to get home.  I may be getting too old to be having this much fun...

Farewell. Adieu.

Heading Home

it is 1:30 and I can't seem to get to sleep.  Fortunately we are heading home in stages, going only as far as Copenhagen tomorrow afternoon.  So my inability to get to sleep isn't as awful as it might be if the alarm were set to go off at dark o'clock.

It has been a great trip, visiting first with friends in England, now in Sweden.  Getting to attend the Swedish conference, meeting people in real life.  Seeing lovely textiles, shopping.

But all good things must come to an end.  Three weeks away seems to be just the right length of time.  We didn't get to see everything but it would take a great deal longer to scratch the surface.  Three weeks is also long enough to be away from home...and one's own bed, and routine.

So I face Monday with a bittersweet sense of leaving too soon but arriving very soon to my home and studio.  Where I have work to do, deadlines to stare down, goals to accomplish.

I am also beginning to once again feel the urge to tackle the long languishing manuscript.  But that will have to wait for some weeks, yet, as my schedule until mid November will allow zero time to even think about it.

Perhaps I can try getting to sleep again.  It will still be a short night.  

Present

Not a great photo, but I splurged and bought this hand towel for myself.  Of course it will do double duty as a teaching example.  They had many different designs to choose from, some more typically Swedish, but this one called my name so it will be coming home with me.   If you can't tell, the design is a stand of birch trees.