Weaving thoughts, shadow art, too darned hot

Friends in the UK are feeling chilly. If anyone has nice medium weather please comment and cheer us all up.

I finally decided, in the third heatwave of the year, maybe I should retire the cosy blanket from the sofa and summerize it.

It's a large bedsheet in the inevitable sage green I seem to like. I think it's in my DNA, my Mom used to like green and cream combos in the house. No cream here, but pale yellow walls. 

While I was at it I swept the floor, high time. Next week another friend is coming over to pick a piece of art, so I just thought I would. I'd hate her to shudder and run at the sight of the crumbs everywhere. 

And there was shadow art this morning from the split leaf philodendron. Isn't that a great design idea?

This plant is a house guest, living here temporarily to shelter from the turmoil of furniture moving next door, and due to move to her new home soon. 

She's doing okay with minimal care. I don't do a lot with houseplants, and they seem to manage. I'm wondering if Gary will also collect other plants he stuck in my house when he ran out of room in his own. 

I will be fine if he does, since I'm in labor saving mode these days. He likes big dramatic plants which I find a bit too much of a good thing.  I really prefer starting from cuttings and seed, rather than let the plant nursery have all the fun.

I'm thinking what to weave, which loom to weave it on, what yarn to use. I need contrasts because clasped weft likes contrast. And I need to review how to do cw first. I always forget the path the weft has to take. 

My vaxxed arm is almost back in action and I'm getting back up to speed. Pretty much as planned, in fact.  So all's well.

Happy day everyone, wait till your arm gives you the signal! Esmeralda Fluffageddon approves this message.

AARP, band joy, honesty and another loom looms

Another hot day, but rain is coming, good, despite my early morning water carrying, the plants are dry.

Early morning, the honesty flowers are developing seedpods. 

I'm going to have a great harvest this year after nothing for several years for my collection. And note the shadows on the fence, sun reflecting off the window and back, creating silhouettes.

Today's band adventure was a happy one, finally achieved a band with much better pattern definition, consistency and even selvedges, always a beginner's downfall.

 

This is the result of all the deadends I explored accidentally yesterday.  I'm really pleased with this because I knew how to fix it and make this work.  The sticking out ends get trimmed off when it's off the loom.

And there was another healthy thing online 

I did it and stayed awake and active for the whole hour, a big advance on last time when, you may remember, I fell asleep during the quiet meditation-with-birdsong break.

As usual the teaching was excellent, the technical support left a bit to be desired. This time the sound level was good, the lighting adequate. 

But whoever was pushing the buttons left me in the waiting room for nearly ten minutes. I was there well ahead of time, but missed the entire intro and she was well underway before they opened it for me. And maybe others too. 

What I got was very good, and sorted out my tired shoulders and back from the weaving, so me I am not on on the complaining, as one of HP's aides used to say.

And well, I did order that little loom with the easier heddle, largely because I found out something vital -- the way it's constructed, wing nuts connecting the parts, you're not limited to the length of the loom.

You can unscrew the end member, and clamp it as far as you want from the rest of the loom, to accommodate any length of warp.

Like this

See the further end,  with wing nuts? That can come off

 

and be clamped as far as you want the warp to be. Then you roll up the end plus warp threads back to the rest of the loom and fasten it on again. 

Then as you want to advance the warp you loosen it, turn the woven end to pull more warp into use, tighten again.

There's a method where you don't even take the bar off, just loosen it so you can rotate it and feed threads on in groups, then pull them to the other end of the loom, tighten and weave.

Cool. I'll try both. This is a game changer, and why didn't I think of it..

This loom is for different kinds of threads and projects from the bandweaver.  No end to my plans at this rate.

Happy day, and happy discoveries, everyone.