My mind hasn’t been on textile activities a great deal lately, as I’ve been distracted by other developments – like selling two novels to a major Australian publisher!

However, I have been working on a few bits and pieces in amongst other aspects of life, writing, and working:

My friends Michelle and Matthew have a new baby daughter, Saoirse. I’ve had this pattern for about 20 years – it’s from an Anny Blatt book I bought somewhere in my travels. I’ve knitted it a few times before, including at least twice in different sizes for my niece – who is now 16! It’s in 8ply (DK), so it’s a relatively quick knit. As can be seen, I just have to knit the bands and sew the side seams, which I may work on tonight.

I finished these socks a few weeks ago – using the standard sock pattern that I can knit almost from memory. Now I’m working on the next pair:

These will probably be for my Dad for Christmas. I’ve knitted him a couple of pairs of socks already, and he apparently wears them quite a lot. Dad’s got a small foot, so if he doesn’t like them, I’ll have them 🙂

Yes, the sock is sitting on my laptop. I often knit while I’m trying to write, but it has to be something simple, like a plain sock. Having the needles in my hands keeps the part of the brain busy that would otherwise want to go off and play on the internet, but I can put the needles down in my lap quickly when I think of words to write.

Now I’m back to working part-time, it’s giving me not just time to write, but a little brain-space and time to think about weaving again. Sitting at the loom makes for great plotting time, but first there needs to be something on the loom, which requires a design, planning and preparation process.

The blue warp will be for a length of plain, plain weave, destined to become bands on a jacket made from an overshot fabric I wove some years ago. It needs something solid and simple to complement the pattern, so I’ve finally wound a warp to weave that contrast. The yarn is the blue cotton that I used as the warp and tabby weft in the overshot – the pattern weft is a light green. This will go on my baby 2-shaft loom, which is quite portable, so i can take it to the spinners and weavers meeting next week and weave while I’m there.

The white warp is a fine wool one for two scarves. I’m probably going to paint the warp, maybe tomorrow if I get myself organised enough to take the dyes and miscellaneous equipment into the guild rooms when I go into town. There’s a microwave for dyeing there, and long tables covered in thick plastic, so it’s a good place to paint warps!

Not much craft work lately, owing to other pressures. However, I finished weaving a warp off my table loom that a student in a weaving workshop had started, and then decided she didn’t want to continue. So, it’s been sitting on the table loom for a while, and we’ve occasionally used it as a loom for demonstrations for people to have a go on, but I finally decided that I’d weave off the rest of the warp and use the cloth to make a jacket or vest for our raffle dolls.

The warp was actually sett a bit too far apart, which made beating evenly something of a challenge, but the finished cloth actually came up very nicely when washed.

So, all my looms are currently empty. I’ll hopefully get a warp on at least one of them soon, but this coming weekend is busy with the Armidale Show, so it may not be until after that. I’ve spent the last couple of evenings finishing the fringe of the rainbow scarf to enter into the Show – I started twisting it last weekend, and did one end entirely, but then decided the ‘twists’ were too narrow and tight, so I had to undo the lot, and then redo them. But it’s currently reclining in the display case at the Show, and I’ll find out tomorrow whether it got a place in the contest. I also put a pair of socks in, and a skein of fine yarn, since there were hardly any entries in most of the classes.

The bliss socks are progressing, but I had to frog an entire pattern repeat as I stuffed it up. Now that I’ve finished twisting (and untwisting, and twisting again…) the scarf fringe, I can get back to the socks.

The weather’s been quite hot lately, which makes our sunroom too hot to work in except in the mornings – and I haven’t had a lot of free time in the mornings. It’s a bit too dark at night, when it’s cooler, so progress on the second rainbow scarf has been slow. However, this morning I’m working on it! I’ve even done a little more since this photo was taken, so I’m up to the purple part of the warp, and about to go into two threads of dark blue for the weft. The colours in this photo are a little ‘out’, but convey the general idea. The colour transitions are going more smoothly than in the first one, due to the extra colours and the more gradual shading over more pattern repeats.

I’ve been planning for ages to weave a blanket for my  friend’s baby, who was born in August. It took me a while to settle on colours and order the yarn – I finally got the yarn before Christmas. I’m planning on doing twill blocks in the three colours, but want to do a sample first. So, I wound a warp last night for the sample and, as I’ve done several times before, I made the ‘sample’ warp long enough to be a scarf. It’s a 5-ply Bendigo yarn so it won’t take too long to weave, and this way I get to get a reasonable idea of how the yarn, structure and colours will work, and all going well, my friend will get a scarf to match her daughter’s blanket 🙂

I’ll weave this one on the big loom that I’m hoping to sell. I’m sure that once I get the blanket warp on it, someone will decide they want to buy the loom right away!

I watched an episode of Taggart last night, so the alpaca version of theLatvian sock has grown by a couple of pattern repeats. The yarn is pure bliss to handle.

Now I’ve had my cup of tea and blog break, it’s back to the loom.