Coney Island

Day 119: A few days ago, a good friend asked me if I had a woven band appropriate to put on her new teal blue felt hat. "The colours in the lanyard you made me work just fine," she said. "Well, come on down and take a look at what I have," I replied, and then went off to arrange all of my rolled bands in a display tray for her easy viewing. Sounds like this should be fairly straightforward, right? She showed up in due course, having forgotten to bring the lanyard with, and after perusing my collection, was a bit mind-boggled by the wide array of colours and patterns. She decided to make a second trip, lanyard in hand for comparison. We settled on a design, and then came the challenge of selecting colours. I thought it might simplify the process if I invited her to my own private Coney Island, i.e., the cupboard in the Loom Room where all the weaving materials live.  One after another, we sat cones of cotton side-by-side, rejecting some, leaving others in a "possibilities" pile and, after twenty minues or so of dithering, settled on a deep loden green for the background, bluish-grey for the pattern threads and black for the border. By bedtime, I had the warp on the bonker and had woven roughly a foot of band. Only then did one of my mother's primary tenets echo in my brain: Never give a child under twelve a choice of more than one.