I had an interesting thing happen this week. I was watching the last episodes of "Mad Men" on Netflix. When the credits started on one of them, the music was "The First Time ever I saw your Face." It brought back memories of over 40 years ago. I looked up on YouTube and found Roberta Flack singing it in 1969. I ended up listening to it several times and having tears run down my face. It didn't bring back a specific memory, but mostly the feeling of another person that I was years ago.
Afterwords, I wondered if I was crying for that person that I was, or the person that I am now, or if it just brought a release of the tension that I have been feeling with my DH's health and his status. (Which is slowly improving, thank goodness.)
It's amazing how hearing a song from the past can bring that kind of reaction. It was not unpleasant, just interesting. I do feel more relaxed about the things we have to face and the slow improvement of his health, so I guess it was a good thing...
I finally managed to get a picture of the "Cupcake" roving that I was spinning. Just to remind you, I didn't like the color combination. I usually love her dye colors, but this one came in a club I had joined and I got a variety of new rovings and batts to try.
This is a beautiful roving, but too "easter/ice cream" colored for me. I looked at it for a while and decided to see if I could mellow the colors a bit so I would to like. I decided to use it as a test, can I really change it enough?
I ran half of the roving through a drum carder to get a soft warm beige color.
Then I split the roving on the other half, laid a couple of the split sections together and spun them. I got some blending and some "candy cane" or "ragg" areas.
The two ply yarn considerably softened or mellowed out the colors. I hope my DD can knit something that she likes.
It was interesting to manipulate the roving to get something completely different from how it was dyed. Too many times, I just end up with a yarn that adds nothing to the dye job. Sometimes that works out well and I am happy with it. But it is important to remember I can make it change to a different yarn.
I have been correcting the knots in the bumberet towels. Since I was finishing up balls and cones of yarn, there were several knots that fell in bad places. Also I had one broken end that I had added a completely different color replacement warp, because I did not have the correct color at the studio.
I found a couple of treadling errors in two of the towels. I must have been distracted while I was weaving, or at least that is my excuse!
I was looking at the towels, and almost decided it was not worth the bother to correct them, it adds a lot of time and energy to the towels. When I started looking at the problem, I had skipped a shot in most of the errors. I ended up reweaving four shots in one and 3 shots in the other. Only one of the corrections needed to have a thread taken out (I had treadled the wrong plain weave shot). The others were just adding a shot. and it was an easy shot, over three/under three across the piece.
On the right side of the needle, you can see the corrected shot; then on the left side, you can see the error. Yes, it is subtle, but once it is washed it would have looked awful and I would not have been able to sell or give them away. Now they are right.
And in the end that is what I feel good about, I made them look good. I made the problem go away. It is good that there are a few things that are under my control, and that I can fix!
Afterwords, I wondered if I was crying for that person that I was, or the person that I am now, or if it just brought a release of the tension that I have been feeling with my DH's health and his status. (Which is slowly improving, thank goodness.)
It's amazing how hearing a song from the past can bring that kind of reaction. It was not unpleasant, just interesting. I do feel more relaxed about the things we have to face and the slow improvement of his health, so I guess it was a good thing...
I finally managed to get a picture of the "Cupcake" roving that I was spinning. Just to remind you, I didn't like the color combination. I usually love her dye colors, but this one came in a club I had joined and I got a variety of new rovings and batts to try.
 |
| This was the original roving |
I ran half of the roving through a drum carder to get a soft warm beige color.
 |
| First Ply |
 |
| Second ply |
 |
| Finished 2 ply yarn |
I have been correcting the knots in the bumberet towels. Since I was finishing up balls and cones of yarn, there were several knots that fell in bad places. Also I had one broken end that I had added a completely different color replacement warp, because I did not have the correct color at the studio.
I found a couple of treadling errors in two of the towels. I must have been distracted while I was weaving, or at least that is my excuse!
I was looking at the towels, and almost decided it was not worth the bother to correct them, it adds a lot of time and energy to the towels. When I started looking at the problem, I had skipped a shot in most of the errors. I ended up reweaving four shots in one and 3 shots in the other. Only one of the corrections needed to have a thread taken out (I had treadled the wrong plain weave shot). The others were just adding a shot. and it was an easy shot, over three/under three across the piece.
 |
| Correction in progress |
And in the end that is what I feel good about, I made them look good. I made the problem go away. It is good that there are a few things that are under my control, and that I can fix!
No comments:
Post a Comment