Still very hot and very dry

It has continued to be very hot here, hotter than normal, and very dry.  Most of Utah is going up in flames.  Besides being hot with very low humidity (8 to 10%) we are experiencing brisk winds.  All in all, it is a firefighters worst nightmare.

I live in the city and am pretty safe but the trees, plants, animals and structures that have been lost are many.  So far only two human deaths have been reported, but that's two too many.

Meanwhile I have been keeping the lawn mowed, the gardens watered, picking raspberries and making jam:

It makes sense to stay inside, out of the sun and heat, when possible and of course, I have done that, too.  The new hemp warp is well under way.  Here is the fifth towel (third pattern):

And of course no matter where I go, I am accompanied by my sweet companion, Bob:

I am eager to begin working on the reproduction of the radio grille cloth, but have to clear the loom first.  The threads for this cloth are all very small and will be a challenge.  I know I can do it, though.

Busy days

I've been working steadily and have things to show for it.  First, the hemp towels are woven, finished and ready to go to good homes.  I will keep one of them but that leaves six.  Here they are:

I am so pleased with the hemp yarn that I have beamed and nearly finished threading a second warp of towels.  Instead of threading a twill block pattern, I am threading the new ones into a fancy pattern, using 16 shafts.  You'll see them later.

Raspberry season is on here.  That means that every other day I need to pick raspberries and then make jam.  Yesterday I picked for several hours and made several batches.  The temperature got to 101 (Farenheit) which meant it wasn't pure joy picking them.  The humidity was just 5% and it was windy, to boot, which helped me a little bit but made the work of firefighters who are battling wild fires south and a little west of here very difficult.

There is something very satisfying about looking at jars of richly colored jam lined up on the table:

The entire picture, then, makes me feel as though I have accomplished a lot, even with the heat we are experiencing:

It's summer as the ripening raspberries attest, and I have a bouquet of Shasta daisies, larkspur and achillea (a variety called Moonglow) for my kitchen table.  None of the flowers are fragrant, which is too bad, but they are a treat to my eyes, nonetheless.

I hope to finish threading the towels tomorrow and also go shopping for the tiny threads I am going to weave into grille cloth for a 1930 radio for a man who restores them.  The threads are tiny, black in the warp direction, and sett quite closely.  Finding the coppery-looking threads that run in the weft direction may be challenging, but what's life without challenges?
(Boring, I suspect.)

Back Again

Where have I been?  Here in Salt Lake City, mainly.  How have I been? 
As my father would have said "as busy as an ant on a hot rock".  Yes, scurrying and getting things done.

When I wrote here last I was headed to the Art Ball at the  Springville  Museum of Art.  It is a formal affair that takes place every year shortly after the annual Spring Salon opens there.  I drove down that Saturday evening and mingled with the folks at the Ball and a while after I got there my friend, Lee Benion, also arrived.  Lee is a painter (that's sort of like saying Isaac Stern is a violinist) and a dear friend.  [She also makes Mom's Stuff a salve that smells of pinyon pine and works wonders. www.momsstuffsalve.com]  There was a light buffet and then the awards ceremony.  Lee got a cash prize; I got to stand up and be recognized.  Still, out of about 1000 entries, 224 were accepted and mine was the only fiber piece.  There were a handful of photos, fewer sculptures and just one fiber piece. 

I had a student here in my studio which meant finishing something on the loom and dressing it for her use and tidying up after myself.  I had been keeping my head down and working hard and tidying was needed.

In between I have been cutting the lawn, weeding, nurturing my vegetable garden, doing laundry, volunteering at the nursing facility, exercising  and spending one whole weekend volunteering at a festival in the heart of downtown.

Right now I am waiting to hear whether I have the go ahead on a project reproducing the grille cloth for some radios built in 1930.  I have done the analysis of the teeny, tiny black and gold fabrics so I am ready.

I have wound a warp using a fine hemp yarn, the first I have ever purchased.  It is 16/2 so is pretty fine and a light tan color.  It's nice stuff and I put on enough for six or seven large towels woven in a two block twill.  Here is how they look on the loom:

I'm hoping that the pattern shows up a little better in the lower photo.  The twill blocks form circles (almost) over and over again across and down the cloth.  I am weaving the fourth towel now and really want to see how they look after being washed and ironed well.  The warp is sleyed 4/dent but vigorous washing ought to even things out.  I believe that they will be very absorbent and perhaps rival the linen towels I have made and use with pleasure daily.

The raspberries are starting to ripen.  I had enough for a generous serving over my morning cottage cheese for two days now and took a close look while mowing in the back garden.  I might be able to make a jar or two of raspberry jam in the next day or so.   Oh, boy!

Progress

I have been working on a series of four fabrics--all meant to be worn--that will co-ordinate with each other.  The first one had loop mohair squares arranged in a half-drop pattern on a plain weave ground.  The next two are woven and finished so that they look like this:

The cloth on the left, a skirt fabric, is woven of 2/20 worsted using a 5 shaft satin.  I wish you could touch it because it is smooth, soft with a very nice hand.  The fabric on the left, intended for a vest or a jacket, is woven of 2/8 worsted.  It's also very soft to the touch.

The fourth fabric of the series, intended for use as a blouse or similar garment is woven of 10/2 cotton with an accent yarn, a blend of cotton,  rayon, linen and hemp.  You will notice that part of it is checked and part is striped.  I had in mind that perhaps the yoke of the blouse could be checked with the remainder striped.  Now that is something you could never buy off the rack!

In between weaving I have been working outside, preparing my vegetable garden (tomatoes--four varieties--swiss chard, pattypan squash and straight yellow squash) and mowing the lawn.  Last summer and fall I couldn't work much in the garden because of the now-replaced knee so I am having to catch up with work not done then.  Little by little...

There was a spot of color in my quiet existence last Saturday.  I went to a ball.  I had entered pieces in the Springville Art Museum's annual Spring Salon and won a merit award.  Now a merit award is pretty modest as awards go but when you consider that a woven piece was up against all kinds of paintings, sculpture and some photos, it isn't bad.  The Art Ball is a formal affair--not my natural habitat:  I am wearing shorts, tee shirt and sandals as I write!--but I have one dress that qualifies so I suited up and went.

It's an interesting life!

Back at last

I have not dropped from the face of the earth.  I have been weaving and doing the usual things in my life.  It turns out there is a long list of the latter to which gardening and lawn mowing have been added.  Phew!  Anything that gets done at my house is done by me.  No exceptions.

The tartan was finished, including inspection, correcting and washing and pressing a couple of weeks ago.  The man who commissioned it picked it up Saturday a week ago.

While I was waiting for him to come and waiting, too, for some yarns to arrive I made a silk scarf from 20/2 hand-dyed silk I bought from RedFish Dyeworks.  I had purchased it some time ago and it was getting close to Holy Relic Designation--that thing that the longer I keep it the more valuable and untouchable it seems so that I can't bear to weave with it at all at the end.  Well, these skeins escaped that fate.

The warp is a shade of blue green and the weft a frank purple.  The cloth is iridescent, as I had planned it would be.  The colors reverse on the back except for the plain weave field in which the figures appear.  I like it a lot.

The yarn I was awaiting arrived and the first cloth from them is well underway.  The taupe-y color is worsted wool and the fuschia is a loop mohair.  I arranged for the mohair to appear in small squares on the right side of the cloth.  The squares are arranged in a half-drop:

Those thigs alone would make me very happy--and they do--but to add to that is the fact that the lily of the valley is in full bloom.  My whole front garden is scented by them. (O! Bliss!)  A small bouquet is in my kitchen table:

If only you could smell them!

Progress

There is progress.  The tartan is coming along.  The first picture I showed you implied that more was woven than had been woven; that is, the cloth just went around the breast beam at the front of the loom but now it is much farther along and headed toward the cloth storage beam at the back of the loom.  Not quite a yard yet but close:

If you look closely (or click on the picture for a closer look) you can see a narrow strip of heavy cardstock on which I have marked the color sequence using colored pencils.  I use that strip to be sure that the plaid is truly woven to square.  I have used this method for decades now to be sure that plaids can be sewn without problems matching at seams.

There is progress in the garden, too.  Yesterday afternoon, when the light wasn't good enough for a photo, I noticed that one of the early daffodils was nearly ready to open.  You can imagine my surprise this morning when instead of just one, I saw this:

It was a warm night and that was all it took.  Now, it will be warm tonight, too, they say, before the storm blows in tomorrow with lots of rain which will turn to snow.  These sweet flower faces are likely to be plastered to the ground by heavy snow.  If that happens, I will rescue some to enjoy on my kitchen table.

Along with the daffodils, there are new things blooming, more tiny, early bulbs:
This is blue pearl crocus, an extremely early variety and quite small (less than an inch across).  The trace of blue is on the outside of their petals.
Additionally, I noticed another early arriva (pushkinia or striped squill):

It's pretty breezy outside right now so they are very slightly out of focus.  What appears to be pale blue petals are actually white with a narrow blue line that leads to the tiny, pale yellow cup where the pollen is.  Seen under ultrviolet light the blue line is very bright and is sometimes called a pollen guide.  I think of it as landing lights for bees so that the can see right where to go.  Unlike us, bees see into the ultraviolet.  For two or three years after I first planted them, I thought the petals were pale blue--until I took a closer look.  This little plant convinced me to look more closely ALL the time!

Wonderful things!

There are three wonderful things I want to tell you about today.  First, is the fact that the tartan weaving is finally underway.  I have been so sick for so long that I have lost nearly a month which means it will be delivered a lot later than I had planned.  But here is is:

The weaving is going smoothly so far.  There are six (6!) colors which adds to the work.  Most tartans have just five colors, a few have fewer.  But it is what it is and now you can see it.  It's 37" in the reed and I have yet to weave one yard so there is a long way to go.

 The second wonderful thing is a book that arrived in the mail yesterday from England.  It is a copy of Ann Richard's book.  Here is the cover:

Because of the third thing I have to tell you, I have not had time to go through the book well and certainly no time to read it.  But, from the limited look I have had it is just what I expected from Ann:  it is beautiful, quiet in its design, gorgeous and very, very well done.  I am going to enjoy this book very much!  It won't be available in this country for a while yet.



The third thing was the performance I attended last night.  The Utah Symphony and Opera is putting on Donizetti's The Elixir of Love now and it is lovely.

The sort of singing required (bel canto--and what a good name because it is "beautiiful singing") is very exacting particularly for the main characters, Adina and Nemorino.  As you probably know the story is set in a small town (for us an American town in the mid-west in the decade right after the turn of the 20th century) where there is a naive young man, Nemorino, who is madly in love with the prettiest, smartest girl in town, Adina.  He isn't subtle about his interest in her and moons over her;  she scorns him.  A travelling patent medicine salesman blows into town selling bottles of cure-alls.  Because Adina had been reading to everyone about Tristan and Isolde where a love potion figures in, Nemorino thinks his only chance is a magic elixir.  Do you see where this is going?

An army recruiter comes to town and sweeps Adina off her feet and a wedding is set up for the same evening.  Meanwhile, Nemorino has taken the elixir (actually Burgundy) and confident that it will work, relaxes, flirts with the other girls and waits for results.  Adina is cat-like in that solicited she walks away, but ignored she comes around our of curiosity with the inevitable result:  In the end the two young people realize their love for each other and all ends well.

The sets were completely charming, with the action taking place in the town square in a gazebo structure, the kind used then for band concerts.  Costumes were pretty.  It always interests me to notice how the colors are chosen so that our attention is directed to where it ought to go. 

Our Adina was played by Arya Matanovic and Nemorino was Aaron Blake.  Both were definitely up to their vocally demanding roles and acted convincingly as well.  Rod Nelman was the travelling medicine man, Dr. Dulcamara.

The opera is in start contrast to the last.  There is nothing light or cheerful about Rigoletto, a truly horrifying tale, but Elixir was just lovely in all kinds of ways.

So, three wonderful things to report this afternoon...how fortunate am I?