At Last

I have finally finished my mystery shawl. 

Once I’d started it again, I kept the stripes much the same until I ran out of the lighter colour and knitted off the stitches with the simple border from the Gracie shawl in Myrna Stahman’s book. 

I thought about making an emergency trip to Bunnings for essential goods – stainless steel rods for blocking – but remembered that I’d read somewhere that whipper snipper line worked as well.  There was some in the garage and it worked just fine. 

A few days after I finished it, someone posted a shawl they’d made from the Dragonfly Wings pattern on Ravelry and something clicked. I checked the original pattern and I think that is indeed where I started. The garter stitch tab rang a bell and I think I decided to put the garter stitch rows where the colour changed and then just broke off the yarn to keep the colour stripes even.  Mystery solved even if the finished shawl looks nothing like Dragonfly Wings!

At last there’s finally some action on the weaving front. I’ve been finding simple knitting very relaxing in these uncertain times and wondered if the same applied to weaving.  I’ve had no desire to work on the complicated tea towels on the big loom.  There was just enough of the plain colour of the shawl yarn left to make a warp and I found a skein of handspun that co-ordinated well

so I wound the warp this afternoon and will get it on the small loom for a simple plain weave shawl tomorrow.

That’s all of the yarn used and a knitted shawl and a hopefully a woven one to show for it with almost none left over

I’ve managed to walk most days making sure I check on the baby coots while I’m out.  They are growing.  Here they are 2 days ago

and again today.

It’s not easy taking photos when the sun is out so sorry the adult’s tail is missing,  but enjoy the ripples on the water.

I commented earlier that after heavy rain there were rapids on the creek but I had never seen people who thought it was suitable for white water rafting until yesterday when I was very surprised to see this. I'm sure it's not safe and while there are lots of signs forbidding various activities, I don't think that white water rafting is specifically forbidden

I was moved to make a loaf of bread this week. 

I haven’t made bread for many years so was pretty pleased with this result and it tastes great

I have finished shredding all the old meeting papers, found a few things there that were probably better shredded than sent to the tip whole.  All I have to do now is clean up

That's all for today

Helen