In a Manner of Speaking

 

The Stash Room tidying job is finished, sort of. It's an interim measure: it's less dangerous, I can fetch things, and I can weave on two of the three small looms in there. You can even see parts of table tops.

I went through the wool stash and brought half downstairs. In the beginning I chose yarns about 18/2-16/2 or ones which would work well in combination, but the policy blurred in the afternoon heat. It was lovely to handle the yarns, as you can well imagine.

I came across a few cones of old, fine-ish wool, possibly Polesworth, harsh, all but one in dull colors. I contemplated "downloading'" them to the Hospice Shop but kept them because they are old, so most probably with scales, and potentially great material to do something different.

The cotton and linen box had some knitting cottons I bought at the dawn of my weaving days; they will be used in a few color-and-weave type projects as I bought reasonable number of cones in coordinating colors. I also have some I have no idea what to do at the moment. I also have three or four synthetic decoratives; they look wonderful but I only use biodegradable yarns so I'm not sure if they will be culled in the next round. 

The silk box, I stuffed everything on the floor back into the box but the skeins and balls have more than doubled in volume while resting beautifully on the floor. (Yes, this box used to close, and I have one skein downstairs so I technically have fewer items here!) This box I hope to revisit soon as I'd really like to use silks, perhaps in combination with wool or cotton at first. I'm still intimidated by silk. 

I have two and a half pillow cases of wool to be spun, in addition to Elizabeth's merino. The ones in the pillowcases, I can spin in a week or two, and I hope to finish this this summer. Because I want bumpy, irregular singles, this won't take much time. 

Some years ago when I thought I "had" to venture into "textile art", I collected one supermarket-bag-full of interesting swatches. I think I had in mind a combination of embroidery, beading and patchwork/assembling in mind, but a) I could never see where I was going with it, and b) I preferred to spend the time on weaving; I gave it up pretty quickly. The swatches went into the trash. The beads I kept, though, because earlier in the week Bonnie Tarses shared this picture on Facebook and I was smitten.

I didn't touch the collage material, that's for another day, but I cleaned and reorganized my art supplies. I found all the acrylic work I did in August is now one big wad; they're drying, once again, in the living room but I won't rework then at this time.

I confirmed what I long suspected; in our house wind blows from north and west because even though yesterday was pretty breezy and nice until late afternoon, even though trees were rustling gently outside the east- and south-facing windows, no air came in. I haven't spent much time in my "design" room because it's only ever been stash storage. I used to iron in this room while looking at the cones on the shelves; I can do it again now. 

But moving is not reducing, which is why this has been an interim measure; I wanted to make the yarns more accessible, more visible, so more are constantly on my mind when I design. In fact, today while winding cones this afternoon, I chose some comes from the shelf to be made into warps so a small box came upstairs again.  

Yesterday I heard the first cicada of the season. Around here they go on for months, though. Months!

And this year W2W15 is a lovely small group of five; I do look forward to assembling my envelope.