This year started off in a whirl of snow (literally) and fatigue (honestly). I was so tired by Christmas-time this year that I just wanted to sleep, rest, not make and watch cheesy movies on Netflix! As the holiday season wore on, and we were facing the kids not returning to school for another week, I started to actually feel better! I just needed, and continue to need, a good rest. More sleep (although I get a lot of sleep – I think it’s the quality, rather than quantity), good food and exercise. The magically combination of a good life, as well as, good people surrounding you and lots of creativity!
And I started to feel creative again! Funny that!
Throughout the fall, as many of you know, I have been working away at my first unit of the Ontario Handweavers and Spinners Master Weaver program. While I’m not sure I’ll complete it, as I am torn between the OHS and Guild of Canadian Weavers Master certificates, I have been immersed in all things plain weave and twill since August 2021. It’s not a wonder I am a bit burned out – we also made major changes with the kids’ education, including bringing them home in a blended traditional school-home learning program. The days are full-on intense, let me tell you! The connection with the kids, though? Amazing. We have our son back! He’s happy and excited about learning again!
As the new year approached, I began to wonder about what I wanted to focus on for projects throughout 2022. I hadn’t made my Make Nine in 2021 a priority so, of course, it didn’t get done! I still made a lot of things, though, and of that, I am proud.
For 2022, I have some big, big plans to really make a big dent in my OHS Weaving courses – at the very least, I would like to complete Unit 2, 3 & 4. Unit 4 won’t be submitted for marking until January 2023 but I will start on it with the Virtual Group in October 2022. I would also like to make a dent in OHS Unit 5 (Blocks) and Unit 11 (Doubleweave). The reason for this is that I have plans to weave a doubleweave blanket, as well as start on my overshot learning this winter. Unit 2, which is on colour and the use of design elements in our weaving, does not have any weaving in it per se. There are a number of projects I am excited about, as well as spinning! Oh yes, there’s always spinning in the background. I am currently up to my eyeballs in old stash and flax … yes, you read that right, Flax.
The first project to go on the loom this winter is the denting scarf from Jane Stafford’s online guild. If you haven’t checked out that resource, I would highly recommend it. She’s amazing and another online resource to look into is Kawartha Weaving, run by my friend Lisa Graves.
This straight-forward project was a build onto the last gamp-turned-tea-towels that I did from the guild episodes, the Primaries and Secondaries gamp. There’s a photo above but this one’s bigger and prettier.
The denting has been a really fun to delve into because it’s literally half the weaving — half the warping, hemstitching and weaving. Literally. Keeping my hands free to be able to manage the selvedge the way she shows in the episode while weaving on the table loom has been a bit challenging but regardless, it’s been lovely and fun. I played with the colours a bit, adding light blue and salmon to the lighter side and kept the black and grey. I’m just fading the colours in and out on themselves. Who knows if it’ll work but thus far, it’s really fun.
I’ve been weaving 4 ‘rows’ of black, then 3 of the grey, 2 of the light blue and one salmon to finish it, then fading back out. There’s enough warp for one scarf, and a bit of play at the end of the sample to keep. Nothing much extra. I would love to try this technique in my handspun to be honest!
Other projects include these flax spins at the moment that are deep stash — one is an old Hedgehog Fibres blend and another from Chaotic Fibres. I have pre-drafted the living daylights out the HHF prep and it’s much more enjoyable to spin. Also, as an experiment with The Wool Circle* community, we decided to card one of the two to see how they would come out differently in the finished yarns so I am busy spinning those up at the moment!
*The Wool Circle is a tri-monthly Live Stream where we get on the wheels and spin in real time together. It’s a chance to see what is happening at my wheel, ask questions and talk about the details that might bore some on the regular podcast programming! For more, please check out Patreon.com/woolnspinning/join or reach out to me with questions!
This is the Hedgehog fibres prep after pre-drafting the living daylights out of it and loading it on my distaff:
What are your new years plans for 2022? Do you have some big plans or goals that you are working towards? I would love to hear about them in the comments!
I love all of your makes! Like a lot of people I’m making my plans for the coming year and you have so inspired me to get my spinning wheel and loom back out. I especially love that roving that you predrafted – best colors ever!
Thank you so much!