The Long Lasting Cough

I have a history of a cough that lasts months.  When I was working full time I was on the phone all day.  So when I had a cough, there was really no time to get better, and I spent lots of days with cough drops and small humidifiers in my cubical.  (I also got walking pneumonia two years in a row for a January surprise.)  So now when I get a cold or cough, I panic. 

I am now teaching a couple of nights a week.  (Well, a week ago 4 nights, the cough came at the end of that week. Then the last week three nights of classes, and the cough just got worse.) Now I am working toward the end of the quarter of classes, so there are only two classes a week.  To help the cough and prevent others from getting it, I have stayed home and kept the talking down for a few days.  (I had invites to two family baby showers, people that I have not seen for a while.  So I felt bad missing them...but the chance of giving coughs to two pregnant girls sounded awful!)

I did ride over to see my DS's new house.  He bought a townhouse...he was tired of paying rent...great place.  He is really disappointed with the counter space in the kitchen.  It is a good sized room but not well designed for cooking.  No matter where you stand, you are working in your own shadow.  It will be fun to see what he does with it

After several days in bed, reading, watching video, I have to get to work.  It is one thing to be take years to finish my projects, but when I am doing projects of others, they need to get done.  I wove the first warp of ruana's, and got it off the loom.  They look good and I think I can check the fabric (cut any loose ends) and sew them this week.  

Last of three ruana's (six panels)

I tried fulling them on the felt roller and it worked very good.  It is fun to try something new.

I put on a second ruana warp and this time the color changes are random and mixed instead of striped.  

Here's that beautiful warp on the warp beam

I had some trouble with the color choices.  The yarn had been sitting on the Bergman and I would take down different cones and play musical cones with them to see how they looked together.  This warp is mostly in the mid-value range.  Now what color on the wefts...there are three ruanas so that means three different wefts.

Here we are all threaded and showing the first weft and pattern.  I like the diamonds and X's on the pattern, but it is a 16 shot repeat and during the cough medicine period, I could not keep track of the repeat and had to stop weaving!  It's awful when you are not able to count to 8 and back again.

Nice natural brown weft

Here is the row of cones that are left.  I will probably do a mid-range green for the next weft on the ruana, but I am not sure of the third one. 
I decided to use the light value yarns for some lace shawls and I think the black and dark value yarns for another warp of three shrugs.  Black is always a great color for clothing.

Beautiful row of dyed and natural colored yarns from Spinderella

My other project to finish is some felt.  I have had the felt roller of some time on loan, and it is now time for it to go back to the owner.  I was supposed to felt yardage and I did the first run and mailed it off.  Then the second run got felted and things sort of fell apart.  

Two weeks ago I went through boxes to see where I stand and what it would take to finish this order.  One box had four finished pieces, about 50" by  125", then two large boxes contained batts for four more pieces.  I managed to finish one piece before the cough got too bad, then I was our of commission for a few days.  Last weekend I finished another piece, a great white piece with a mauve pattern on it.  That bag turned out to have enough batts for two pieces so I am working on the second of those today.  I hope to have the fourth piece tomorrow...that would only be one more piece before they pick up the roller!!

Mauve 1 finished

When I was felting Mauve 1, I had the roll of felt start loosening on the roller.  I re-rolled it several times but it continued to loosen.  I finally realized that the piece was too wet.  I got a few cups of the water out and it rolled just fine after that.

Wetting out the alpaca is a test each time I do it.  I have started letting it soak for 30 minutes or so before I start the felting.

Mauve 2 wetted out

The white areas in the felt are either dry spots (not enough water) or air bubbles (not pressed down enough).  Either way those areas will not felt as well and the finished piece may have loose layers in those areas.  On Mauve 1, I added more water and I guess I ended up with too much.  This time I will be more careful to wet out well, smooth the wrinkles and get a good felt.