Is It Over Yet?

It seemed like forever, until I had to go back to work yesterday. The holidays, that is. Too much traveling, not enough resting. I tend to suffer from trip anxiety as it is, and when the inside of your car looks like this when you leave, you know you're not going to sleep much during the trip.

All in all, they went well. Lots of good food, family and great weather. Although I didn't sleep at all on the trip up, I did get some knitting done. Did I take a picture of it? No, of course not. I made daughter #2 Anne Hanson's waffle mitts and hat, from my own handspun. Daughter #1 got her hat, from my handspun, but her mitts are still here in Georgia, waiting for thumbs. At the rate the weather is going, she won't need them anytime soon.

I did manage to wrangle an Ashford rigid heddle loom out of my husband. I got the 16", because I plan to upgrade to a 4-harness loom of undetermined type in the future. I figure the 16" would be easier to sell when the time comes, because it's the least expensive! It's a new loom, so I had to do all the waxing and setting up, which is not fun for someone who likes to dive in headfirst, without testing the waters. Putting it together was easy, because sometimes I do follow instructions. Sometimes.

I bought a cone of cotton for warping the thing. About 2 pounds worth. DK weight, maybe. So yeah, I have a lot of cotton warping thread now. I guess I thought I was bringing home some monstrously (is that a word?) large loom, like the one I use at the Agrirama. Turns out I'll be using this cotton for my next 600 scarves. I used some Peruvian Quechua yarn in rich olive from Elann for the weft. Just something I had hanging around from a previous project. Nothing fancy, plain weave. No, not balanced. I guess I should have done some reading first! Keeping your selvedges neat is enough to send you over the edge, but I dug out my Learning to Weave by Deborah Chandler, and I've learned a few things. I'm almost done with this dog, ready to start another scarf, something exciting this time. See Cheryl, I told you there was nothing to fear!! As soon as I was finished taking this really bad photo (once again Cheryl, I told you so) I noticed a very obvious mistake a couple of inches down. Being a bit OCD, I unwove it (yes, I think that is now a word) and fixed the mistake. I wish I could just let these things go, but I would end up tearing my hair out just thinking about it. And no, I'm not going to point it out to you.