Doctor, I need a consult! [Scarf 15]

Gooood mornin' all, and a big hello to anyone who's visiting for the first time after reading my letter to quilt.net's weaving list yesterday. For those of you who aren't members of the listserv, I heartily recommend it: it's a wonderful resource for weavers of all stripes, skill levels and interests. My letter was a plea for guest scarves in order to keep Scarfaday going past the end of the month; I'll be posting more completely about my plans in that regard next weekend. In the meantime, if anyone out there would like to contribute a guest scarfa complete with pics and a write up, please get in touch!

Phew, so that's the paperwork out of the way. Now back to scarves!

Today's post is gonna be a quickie 'cause I'm due at the library in a couple hours for our usual Fibre Friday and then set-up for tomorrow's knit-a-thon afterwards. Because of that, I trotted downstairs bright and early this morning to get started on the scarfa. I got distracted for a bit by email and Twitter and my usual breakfast of weaving blogs. There were also a few trips up and down the stairs (the only exercise I get in a day so I try not to mind when I forget things in one place or another) during which I stopped by the living room for a consult.

I imagine all weavers call for a consult from time to time. Ron, being a long time fibre-husband, is completely used to them by now. I'll throw some apparently random question his way with two or three options presented totally out of context, and expect him to come up with an answer. Today it was "yellow or peach?" to which he promptly replied "peach!" - no questions asked and no details required, bless his pointy little head. :)

Granted, I'm not quite so laissez-faire about these little consults if I'm really in a quandry and don't know what to do. This was a no brainer sort of thing where either answer was correct and I knew I'd spend more time than was required deciding between two equally good options. I'm sure by now he can read my tone of voice and realize when this is the case; in other situations I'll give him lots more details and he'll ask very knowledgable questions in order to give an informed response. How great is that? I have said it before and I'll say it again: I am the luckiest thing!

So today was a peach chenille day. Turns out Bella's got some issues with peach - I tried to balance the whites a few times and no matter what I did the peach came out more yellow than it really is. It's actually a pretty pink peach. I fiddled the colours in Picasa with varying degrees of success but, as you'll see, the peach looks a bit different in each shot. Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter all that much anyway since it's just going to show up differently on every monitor on the planet anyway. Ahhh, colour - ain't it grand?

Anyhoo, I wound my first bobbin, fired up WeaveCast Episode 2.0 which I downloaded last night, and sat down to weave scarfa #15 - the end of Week 3 already, can you believe it!? It took a little bit longer to weave than the others have done, partly because I was listening so intently to the podcast and partly because I'd finally tightened up a nut on one leg of the beater that's been loose for far too long and now Joe's a bit stiffer to beat. No doubt he'll loosen up again before long - he's definitely one loosey goosey kinda guy no matter how often I tighten up his nuts and bolts.

At any rate, this is how it went:

8:33 am: Bobbin's wound, podcast's on and scarf's underway! Just about to do the hemstitching on the first end here:



9:25 am: The first pirn ran out at a bit more than 40". I know it's all just basic maths but I'm still surprised at how much sooner lengthwise the pirns run out when the warp's just one inch wider.


For anyone who's keeping track, I used a 1-5-3 tension for this scarf and the other chenille wefts I used on the last warp.


10:15ish am: (Why won't Twitter tell me the exact time of my tweets for 24 hours? Argh!) My second pirn ran out at 67". I'd planned to weave a little more than 70" so I'd aimed for about that much on the pirn when winding the second one, but obviously I miscalculated. Now I had to decide whether 67" was an okay length or try to wind just the right amount again. My usual MO would have been to call 67" done but now that there are People Watching, I felt obliged to stick to the original plan and weave a bit more. That's peer pressure in action, that is!

10:30 am: Overwound the next pirn by a very little bit but decided to stop at 77" even though there was still a bit of weft left on the pirn. If I'd made this scarf longer and then wind up with a stubby at the end of the warp, I'll be Very Sad Indeed. I don't like being sad, so I broke off the weft and hemstitched right where I was:


At this point the phone rang - someone from ACOA asking if I want to participate in a Product Tours mission to NH, VT and MA at the end of March aimed at "artisans/craftspeople considering how to make their production process into a tourism experience." They're going to be touring through the studios of artists and artisans "that have capitalized on the experiential tourism trend and have created experiences involving production processes and facilities." Sounds like a lot of the usual government and marketing mumbo-jumbo and yet I find myself mildly curious about it. Maybe that's just because they called me specifically rather than just sending out the email (that I ignored), but I can't help but wonder if there might be something useful in it for my Studio 649 idea... Still, it's expensive, and it's a five day trip at a time when I really ought to be making stuff for the shop. Sounds like I need another consult!


10:43 am: Peach scarfadone!


Now I'm off to lunch and the library, and then the knit-a-thon this weekend! Have a lovely weekend everyone. See you Monday, when I suspect it'll be a yellow cotton kind of day.