Portia's Cloth: December 2018

Finally Christmas is over and I’m having a few days off. As happens every year I have delusions about how much I can accomplish in a few days but this year I didn’t put too much on the list and have already crossed off quite a few items and have reached the one that says ‘blog’.

Things were a bit quiet around here on the weaving front for quite a few weeks. The plaid towels sat on the indoor 4 shaft loom, almost finished, for far too long and it was too cold to weave out in the garage.

The weather finally improved, except for rather more rain than usual at this time of year and both looms are now back in action.

First up was a scarf in an 8 shaft spot twill from some yarn I had spun. It was a wool/silk mix in shades of grey, plied with a fine grey silk and then overdyed in blue and turquoise.

I wanted to wear it to a function in Canberra to celebrate the centenary of the Optometrists’ Association. I did manage to get the scarf, and the matching dress finished in time and was happy with it.

It was a great celebration, especially the after party where it seemed that the more people drank, the more exaggerated the stories of dealing with the bureaucrats became. They even made a fuss of me for being the first female president of the association, perhaps more than when I doing the job.

I took an extra couple of days off and planned to have a short holiday. The first day was great, visited my favourite Canberra gallery – Beaver Galleries – visited the Canberra Spinners and Weavers Guild and in the afternoon went to the War Memorial. One of the main reasons was to replace the poppy next to my great uncle’s name on the memorial wall. I wrote earlier that he had been part of the inspiration for my Red Crosses and Poppies coat, a new poppy was the least I could do for him. There are lots of poppies on the lower part of the wall but if your name is near the top, it’s only relatives who make the effort to get poppies that high. There was a staff member on duty who very kindly fetched the steps – and then told me that I was climbing them.

I wonder what occupational health and safety rule says that it’s not safe for the staff to climb the steps but it’s OK for visitors, perhaps 40 years older, to do it. At least she took some good pictures.

By the end of the first day in Canberra I knew I was getting a cold – and almost 4 weeks later, it’s still not gone completely. It was a really nasty one and made the Christmas preparations seem like a lot of hard work.

The next project was a white on white table runner for a Christmas gift in 20/2 cotton – not surprisingly it was a slow project and hard to work on for long periods. It was almost finished in time and while I had taken a photo of the beginning so that I could make the other end the same, unfortunately I had the photo upside down and managed to make a runner with non matching ends. I guess I could call it a very large sampler and I did actually take it to the intended recipient to make sure it would fit the coffee table. There was plenty of warp and I’ve already done a couple of repeats of the pattern, only 15 to go.

I warped the 8 shaft loom with tea towels for gifts and for the next market. I’d planned for broken twill blocks, white with grey stripes and warp in different colours. The variegated blue was a bit close in colour to the grey

so it was followed by black, red and terracotta.

Since then I’ve done a couple more black ones, a taupe one, a mint one and an aqua one.

There are still a few more on the warp, not sure how much warp I’ve wasted with all the cutting off.

One of the things that absorbed my spare time was a car accident probably just after my last post. My car was 18 years old but not giving me any major dramas and suited my needs – transport to and from work, transport to the craft market and occasional country trips, very well. I was driving to work one morning when someone parked by the side of the road opened his door without looking and very neatly trimmed off my side mirror.

There was a dent in the door and a scratch on the glass but it was driveable and fortunately no-one was hurt. Too many phone calls later after the other driver finally remembered the correct name of their insurer and their registration number, their insurer decided that my car was a total write off so my old car went off on the back of a car carrier

and I’m now driving around in a new red Honda Jazz,

just perfect for driving to work and with so much room in the back that the first time I packed it for a market I had to consult my market list to see what I’d forgotten. As it turned out everything was already packed and there was room to spare so it all turned out well in the end.

Somewhere in the middle of all that was the Hawthorn Makers Market December Market. We did quite well which was great as we've not done well at the Christmas Market in the past, perhaps things really have settled down well at our new (old) venue