Alpaca number two

One unexpected downside of weaving vs quilting is that I can't give the scarves names! Well, I could, but it would be weird and stupid, and the label would be ridiculously large. So I have to say things like "the blue and orange alpaca and wool one" to describe them.

This is a combination of the blue/grey alpaca, and a beautiful variegated orange/yellow wool that my husband bought me back from Berlin. It is a lovely pure wool with a springy twist that was just delightful to weave with. I put two yellow, one blue on the warp, and alternated one yellow and one blue on the weft to get this boxy pattern. Can you see on the ends how tightly twisted the variegated wool is? It made a beautiful woven finish ... I always thought that wool was wool, but the fibre content is only the half of it.

I've put a filter on the close-up photos (I don't usually) because the colours were completely wrong. This is actually more like the colours in real life than the plain photos were. I don't really understand photography and I still haven't got a way to take decent photos of the scarves! I don't think my latest idea (wind them around the handles of the wardrobe door) works at all well.

Mohair number four and alpaca number one

This isn't quite the last ball of mohair, but I think it's the last one I'll do for a while! The warp is the lovely alpaca blend I got at the same time as the mohair, in a very nice denim grey/blue. It went on the loom beautifully.

The warp is alternating mohair and some more of the variegated wool that I used for the felted scarf. The variegation takes ages to repeat when you only use it for every second row, and it looks much more blue than in the other scarves. I suppose that's because of the blue warp, but the other scarves were very pink, and this is hardly pink at all. Just at the ends.



This was a fun weave and made a very snuggly scarf. Not very elegant perhaps, but warm and cuddly. I love the fluffy alpaca tassels.

It's all blurring together

Work, home, socialising, kid's stuff, my stuff, food, shopping... it is all starting to become a bit of a blur. And not a good, three-drinks-in blur, but a scrappy about-to-lose-my-shit kind of blur. Work hasn't slowed down despite the end of the Parliamentary year, and the Christmas tree has been sitting in its box in the middle of the living room floor for eight days. No-one can really be bothered putting it up. My husband dragged it out before he went to Jakarta last week and it's still there.

He is back (had a great time, his work went well) and the dog is back from the vet. She was SO happy to see us, and is very happy to be home. Her surgery went well, but she's not allowed to chase anything, get too excited, go up and down stairs, or go for a walk. So that's kind of ruined her life, but she's so happy at the moment that she doesn't seem to mind. I'll have to take a photo of her leg because they shaved her for surgery and it looks ridiculous - like an eaten chicken drumstick. We've blocked off the stairs with one of the sides of the old cot (why the hell do we still have the cot??? My husband dragged it out of the shed and I thought my head would explode with horror at the crap we must still have in there) and no-one's tripped over it yet.

Here he is wearing a nice Indonesian batik shirt. Saturday we had our traditional Christmas lunch with friends we've been having Christmas lunch with for 24 years. It was a boiling hot day but lovely in the shady back yard playing Finska and having a few wines. My husband took the boys home about six but I stayed on and ubered home a few hours later.... which is an UNHEARD of degree of independent socialising in my universe. Wow, like being a real person briefly.

Mohair number three

This is the third scarf with the mohair - me trying to use up the various ends of things I am accumulating. It didn't work with the mohair (still three more balls!) but I used up the bamboo-wool. It only has bamboo-wool on the warp (cream/blue, cream/gold, cream/blue) then alternating mohair and green bamboo-wool on the weft. It is not very fluffy, but nice and soft and warm, and very quick to weave.

Unbelievably, number one son has finished for the year, after a bit of assessment and exam stress. Not just school but also his university engineering course - where they had to build a Mars rover type thing (I think) and write up the specifications. Except much more complicated than that, involving drafting software and 3-D printers and other things that are quite beyond his poor parents. We couldn't help him at all, although I think Brad volunteered to do some proof reading. I limit myself to telling him how clever he is (which doesn't help, apparently).

I am leaving him some household chores to do but I think he deserves a bit of quiet time, at least this week. Maybe tomorrow when the dog comes back from the vet he can spend his days carrying her up and down the stairs....

Nothing much happening

Oh dear, a week without a post. It's busy at work, I was sick on Friday, my ear is blocked and I keep losing my balance, my dog ate my homework and Mercury is retrograde. All the good stuff. Actually I shouldn't even mention the poor dog because she had surgery for a torn ACL! Just like a footballer, and apparently done exactly the same way - twisting in mid air chasing a ball.

The vet says this means her ball chasing days are over, which is a shame because she loves it. And not able to go up and down stairs for a week or two! I do not know how that will work out, because we have a lot of stairs, and there is no way I'm carrying our fat dog around the house. And that is our Christmas present to each other - my husband and I - a new dog ACL. Broke, again.

Here is a terrible mirror selfie of one of the dresses I made the weekend before last. It does look shapeless, but that is actually my shape (round is a shape). It has a waist seam, and darts, and a shaped centre back seam, but you can't really tell in that fabric. Which came to me, via a workmate, from the stash of an elderly Japanese lady who had to go into care. It is synthetic, but a beautiful heavy synthetic that sewed up really nicely. It had Japanese characters on the selvage. Not the most fashionable garment, but it was comfortable, and colourful.

First best swim

The first swim of the year and it was soooooooo good! Big swells because of the winds we've been having, no clouds, no wind and lovely big clean waves. Aaaaaahhhh I had forgotten how much I missed being in the water and how relaxed I felt when I got out. Numb, bloodless, and frozen... but relaxed. Very relaxed.

This photo is from Saturday morning when I had no intention of swimming (because in Canberra on Thursday night we had had the fire on! It was winter again) but it was surprisingly calm and warm. After lunch the wind got up and the clouds came over but Sunday morning was fine again. So I didn't even check first, just got into my swimmers and headed down with my boogy board for the best swim EVER. The sand seemed very white and the sky seemed very blue. Maybe I was just happy to be at the beach and not at work, which isn't getting any less crazy.

I also made two dresses on the weekend, one of which I am wearing today. It's a bit of a sack (like all my dresses) but super comfortable, and looks smart enough with a jacket and heels. I have a dress code (dark suit, white shirt) when I'm rostered to actually be in the chamber so non-duty days it's nice to wear something with a bit of colour! The black/white thing makes me look like a waitress.

Mohair number two

This is much better! Despite the serious expression, I really like it. That is just the way I look most of the time. Plain cream wool on the warp, and plain mohair on the weft, set at 7.5 dpi so much looser. And I tried not to beat it too hard as I wove.



Still not as fluffy as the balls, which is a shame because they are SO FLUFFY, but light and soft. I went as wide as I could on my loom, and it makes a nice shawl width. Well, quite narrow for a shawl, but close enough. I was tossing up buying an even wider loom and I'm glad I didn't. It would have been quite bulky, and I can't see myself weaving anything wider than this. It's probably an OK width for a baby blanket.

Speaking of fluffy, the dog got groomed on the weekend. How good would a dogtail shawl be? Do you think I can spin the balls of dog hair that tumbleweed down the hallway?