Hobbies at last

The great draw to living in Florida is that we can take a leisurely walk outside in the middle of winter without freezing our fingers off.  We are here for the weather, and we make sure that we take advantage of it as often as possible.   Yesterday was a beautiful, mid-70's day, so we ventured out for our morning walk.  As we turned the corner from the backyard to our driveway, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.

"Well, hello," I said.  Before Rick could ask who I was talking to, he saw the recipient of my conversation.  There, taking in the morning sun, was a 3 foot tall snowy egret, perched on the roof of our house.  This fellow is a regular in the neighborhood, but he still is a majestic reminder that we are in Florida each time I see him.

A snowy egret enjoys the morning sun on our roof.

We finally are to the point of being able to set aside our remodeling agenda and to turn to some of our hobbies.  That includes weaving.  For the past six years, we have had a small table loom to use.  While it allowed me to weave a few things, it had many challenges and limitations.  A couple of weeks ago, we sold that loom to a woman in Tampa, just in time for us to take delivery of our new, eight-shaft Baby Wolf loom.

Rick spent a couple of days putting it all together, and then I chose a pattern that I wanted to try.  We decided to weave something that we both could weave and use.  Each person weaves differently, so me weaving half a scarf and Rick weaving the other half would have been a noticeably different product from beginning to end.  We decided on one warp on which we each could weave a placemat.

We spent a couple of days counting out the yarns (called the "warp") and putting the yarns on (sleying) the loom.  Once the 270 threads were on the loom, I started the first placemat.  The pattern we chose is a series of red poinsettias on a white background. As I started to weave the first placemat, I noticed a problem.  I was only getting half-flowers instead of the whole bloom.  I discovered a problem in the way the threads were threaded through the heddles on the loom, so we had to take it all out and start over.  I redid the first half of the threading, and Rick did the last half.  Then he drew each of those 270 threads through the reed and we tried again.

Oops!  This time we discovered that one thread (of course, in the middle of the whole group) was still in the wrong place.  Out came half of the threads again, even though we had both double-checked our work.  Sigh.

The third time was a charm.  We got the threads sleyed through the proper heddles in the proper order, and I started to weave.  I love the feel of the new loom.  The pattern emerged beautifully, the weaving was fun, and the edges of my work were even and easy to maintain.  I finished the first placemat in about 1 1/2 hours.

Christmas placemats on the loom.

We chose the poinsettia pattern for a festive look.

Now it is Rick's turn to try the new loom.  He can weave the second placemat for our holiday dinners.  I wish now, after weaving the first one, that I had made the warp longer so we could have woven a set of four rather than two mats.  However, this was our "getting to know" first project on the loom, so we wanted to keep it short.

We are happy with our purchase.  I am satisfied with the results so far, and we both are delighted that we finally can relax and enjoy ourselves as we renew our interest in our hobbies.