Quiet Days

 

One of the lessons I am trying to learn is to be kinder to myself - my body.  I have been through the wringer for the past few years, and my body is essentially battered and bruised.  And it has been letting me know it is not happy.  So, my therapist has left me with the homework of being kinder to myself, in and out.  Let's just say it's a rocky road.

However, I try to get to the studio at least once a day, two if I can manage it.  

Right now I am taking a deep dive into my silk stash, trying to find enough yarn to make a few silk warps for scarves.  The majority of the yarn arrived on skeins, and the ones I'm trying to use are in the 2/20 and 2/30 sizes, many of them dyed.  Some of them not gently, but energetically, so they are tangled.  Most have been fairly co-operative in unwinding on the squirrel cage swift, with some gentle coaxing, but not all of them.  And it's been extremely frustrating.  Being able to do the job of transferring the yarn to spools slowly is just about the right pace for me right now.  I can no longer stand to wind spools or bobbins, but my little kitchen stool is about the right height.  (I also use it for threading the Megado.)

I had intended to carefully measure off the yarn as it wound onto the spool (I have a very accurate counter), but the skeins were just tangled enough that that became an exercise in frustration.  Now I just 'guess' by eyeballing one of the spools that I did manage to measure out and hope that I got enough on the spool (and not too much).

The first warp was white, the next warp will be darker values, the one after that will be lighter values, and if I do a fourth that will be much lighter values.  Each warp will be about 20 yards long and should yield 6 scarves each.  I will know better when I come to the end of the first warp - I'm currently on scarf 4.

For the first warp I'm using dyed silk for weft (since the cashmere was too damaged to use), and I am eyeballing my stash of very fine worsted wool, thinking I'd like to use up some of that, too.  Beyond that, I have a stash of fine rayon (bamboo rayon as well as no-name rayon) that I could potentially use.  I won't know until that warp (spools on the spool rack to the left in the photo) is ready to go and I can weave some samples.

I get the injections in my back on Wednesday morning, and I will need 3-5 days of 'light duties' during those days.  I will not be able to finish the current warp before the injections, and I'll have filled all the spools I have pretty soon.  Next decision?  Do I strip all the very fine silk off those spools?  It didn't work to beam a warp the last time I tried but I kept it to use for weft.  OTOH, I need spools and light duties could be stripping the 'old' silk off the spools so I could at least keep winding the silk I want to use while I can't weave?

TBD.