Second Memory Wreath Block

Day 94: From the onset, I decided I was not going to push to complete a 12-block Memory Wreath lap quilt in a particular time frame. Rather, I'll work on it when the mood strikes me. I completed this second block yesterday and already had the pieces cut for a third. I glue-basted them to the paper forms this morning, and have started stitching the large triangles to the center. The unifying factors in this semi-scrappy quilt are the white bits and the dark green outer triangles. The centers will lean strongly toward green, and the interior triangles will be in two shades of a colour also represented in the center. Here, I chose aqua to be my "B" colour. The third block picks up yellow/gold for "B." This design doesn't stitch together quite as easily as Ring Cycles did, but it doesn't present any major issues with assembly.

Max Goes Home

Day 93: For all of having enjoyed the quiet, smooth operation of a countermarch loom, the time has come for Max to end his stay here, and go home to daddy. When Daisy arrived, I discovered why weaving on Max had been harder for me. Daisy's breast beam is a full two inches lower, and although I've enjoyed having more space in which to work, Max is significantly deeper between the breast beam and the shafts. I am a small person. No, that's an understatement. I am a very small person, and consequently, when I sat at Max, I had to keep my elbows raised to pass the shuttle. Likewise, I found myself stretching too far forward as I tried to squeeze one more motif in before advancing the warp, and that action taxed my back. While I had originally intended to keep Max, working with Daisy convinced me that he needed to be returned to my weaving partner Ed who, at 6' 4" has no problems with either height or reach. I finished the eighth placemat last night (wait...I thought I'd warped for six?), and today worked the little sample for my weaving files. That said, I'll miss you, Max. We had some good weaves in your short tenure here.

Zanshiori

Day 92: Anyone who weaves a lot eventually winds up with a collection of thrums, i.e., those long bits of thread referred to as "loom waste." Since I am thrifty and can't bear to throw them away, they go through various stages as I put them to best use. If they're long enough, they go on a rigid heddle loom or an inkle loom as a short warp, or they can be card-woven. If they're short, they get tied together and rolled up in balls until I've accumulated a sufficient amount for a zanshiori project. What's zanshiori? Literally translated, it means "a weaving made from waste thread." That's pretty definitive! Similar in philopsophy to other Japanese "waste not, want not" methods like boro, the idea is to use what you have to make something useful or to extend its usable life. The flaws and imperfections in the resulting pieces add to their character.

I've been using a lot of blues and greens lately, and my thrums jar was getting full. Since Daisy has a bowed midsection in her warp beam, I have to leave the raddle in place after winding on. This means her "loom waste" is about a foot longer than usual. After taking my last project off, I was left with a handful of thrums two yards in length, ideal for making the center section of a runner. I doubled them for visual interest, and flanked them on either side with leftover end-of-cone, end-of-dye-lot bits for stripes, using shorter thrums knotted together as weft. The sticky-uppy knots will fuzz out over repeated washings to become cute, random textural nubbins of personality in the finished piece.

Hellebore

Day 91: When a plant is advertised as having "black flowers," it's advisable to take that description with a healthy grain of salt. "Black" in the plant world is the darkest shade of blue or red which can be achieved genetically, and nursery photos likely have been taken of specimens in optimum growing conditions, and may even have been enhanced to emphasize the dark hue. Soil pH can play a strong role in maintaining the "blackness" of a variety, as can the mineral content. The most striking example of that phenomenon in my personal experience has been with the iris called "Superstition." The first few years after I had planted it, its deep purple blooms were as black as I could have desired, but iris tubers are notoriously hard to weed, I eventually dug it up, separated the roots and moved them to a new location. When it flowered the following year, the blossoms were a dark mahogany red! When I realized what was going on, I moved it to a new spot again. It was much happier there, and now produces flowers as dark as those it first bore. My "black" Hellebores are another example. For the first few years, they were as dramatically "black" as the photos in the nursery catalog. As they have depleted some nutrient in the soil, they've faded to purplish-red.

Morning Walk

Day 90: I do not like walking along the highway. I stopped taking a daily constitutional two years ago after three close encounters with careless drivers, but now my favourite places to hike are inaccessible for one reason or another (closed down, full of ticks, too far to drive, too many people), so I've become desperate. I don't go far. Half a mile up, half a mile back in 15 minutes, putting a good, solid definition to "brisk" in my book. This has to be squeezed in while the Mischievous Monster is having a cat nap as well, hence the time constraint. This morning's jog-trot was brisk in another sense: chilly, and with a wintry zephyr breezing me along. I thought I was going to beat the masses of land plunderers hauling their ATVs on trailers behind outsized trucks, but I only made it halfway before they began streaming up the highway, blowing gravel into my face. My appreciation of Nature's beauty was somewhat marred by their callous disregard for it, emphasized by a verge littered with beer cans and other trash. It is a mind-set I cannot begin to comprehend, and one which I firmly believe has in part led us to the current state of affairs. Let this, then, be my protest: a brief snapshot of a better world. It's still possible, if we can incline ourselves to care.

It's Towhee Time

Day 89: Spotted Towhees (aka Rufous-sided Towhees) always look like they've either had too much caffeine or that they're just on the verge of a psychotic episode. It's those red eyes. Other birds can fix you with glassy or inquiring pinpoint focus , but nothing says "wild creature" as emphatically as the mad-as-a-March-hare stare of a Towhee. It is Towhee season at my house. One or two hang around in the summer, but as soon as cold weather sets in, the mob shows up to do their backward jump/scratch move as they bring loose seed and bugs up from the tangled grass. They are primarily ground feeders, although they'll occasionally take seed from a tray. I see them scurrying around in the leaf litter at the base of the contorted filbert, scratching for insects in the decaying leaves with their peculiar dance. To go with the mad eyes, their frenetic activity appears to be rooted in nervousness, although it's only normal species behaviour which has served them well in the evolutionary scheme. But the red eyes? Where's the evolutionary advantage in that? Maybe the "I'm just crazy enough to tackle a rhinoceros" look deters predators. I'll just say that I wouldn't want to meet a Towhee in a tantrum, and let it go at that.

The "Awwww" Factor

Day 88: The "awwww" factor is strong in my yard. This little sweetheart saw me come out the back door with the seed can in my hands, and although Dark-eyed Juncos are too timid (with rare exceptions) to land on a human, he seemed to be thinking seriously about it. I hadn't put out food before leaving for town this morning, and an inch of snow on the ground made foraging harder than usual. I filled both feeders with sunflower seeds and "little" seed (a millet mix), which also brought the Towhees out from hiding in the filbert. No matter how depressing world events are, my birdies never fail to put a smile on my face.