A 90% chance of snow tomorrow and tomorrow night, 1-3 inches expected, the last I read. That would be nice. I’d kind of like to make a snow sculpture. It’s been so long since we’ve had the right kind of snow to do that. Guess who I’ll make the sculpture of?

Perfect timing to run to the grocery store too, because everybody would have wiped out the bread and milk on Wednesday night in preparation for the ice on Thursday. This is a Southern cultural tradition. So when we made our beer run to the Teeter tonight for my 3-day weekend, there were no long lines and I was able to score a loaf of bread. And munchies. Wheeee!

I hope that it won’t stop my milk delivery tomorrow though. They have to drive a long way to the rendezvous point. Oh, it’s so mysterious and exciting - the life of a raw milk consumer!

I really do hope that I will manage to get at least one tapestry project started tomorrow. A recent article in the Jan/Feb 08 edition of Handwoven by the amazing Sarah Swett has very clear instructions for making a tapestry bag using a cardboard box for a loom. The bag is shaped as you weave it. She first covered this territory in Spin-Off several years ago and I always meant to do it. It is the PERFECT use for all this coarse wool yarn I have been given over the years by other weavers, back when I was doing a lot of tapestry and my back had not given out.

The little pin loom tapestries actually grew out of that back blow-out. I couldn’t do anything but lie down or walk for a while and a foam core pin loom was something I could manage lying down. I had this big tapestry project on a weighted warp loom (Navaho style) for years because I could never finish it because of back pain. I finally cut it off and most of this yarn is part of the leftovers that I never used for it. It was an abstract of a sandstone slit canyon.

My chiropractor and yoga finally repaired my back. I can definitely weave around a box, I think!

I’d like to hang out in the studio this weekend, but I’ll probably cozy up to the wood stove in the house. That’s another plus for this tapestry bag project - portability. The studio is too cold for comfort when it is not sunny because the little heater just can’t handle it. The electrical system has been acting very funky so I don’t want to overload it with another heater, although that’s what Sandy says that they used to do when he used it as his war gaming room with the boys.

(Seriously, don’t leave without checking out the Sarah Swett link.)

I also ordered some supplies from Eclectic Etc. Beads to make some earrings, since I assume that I’ll be hearing from Focal Point Gallery soon once they get ready to open, and it would be nice to have some new work. I don’t really care much for making earrings. What I love to make is intricate beadwoven bracelets and little bags. But I’ve got a pile of those already. The earrings sell. The bracelets, some, but not so much. The bags, not at all. That’s probably just as well until I get some bifocals!

Another project would be to photograph these bracelets and load them into my Etsy store, which currently boasts NOTHING for sale. In a way, that is appropriate for me, eh?

Is this not the coolest thing ever? There is definitely one of these in the Back Forty’s future. Everyone was invited to weave on the Earth Loom at “Farm Fest Five” at Rising Meadow Farm to the sounds of live Celtic music in the background. The event included local food and drink from local farms, sheepdog demonstrations, hands-on crafts, sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas, and lots of wool, yarn, crafts, and fiber supplies for sale.

Sandy had indicated that he was ready to go before I was. When I found him sitting under the music tent, he was so entranced by a spinner that he wasn’t ready to leave.

I bought two balls of Navaho-Churro roving and one ball of Cotswold roving, just in case I get the urge to do some needle-felting. Also, fresh (soft) apple cider and Granny Smith Apples from Windy Hill Orchard. We ate lamb kefta (burgers) (Rising Meadow Farms) in pita with tzatziki (Zaytoon) and local fresh chopped tomatoes for lunch. I topped it off with chocolate ice cream from Homeland Creamery. Sandy went for coconut cake from some local bakers.

The drought is just as tough on livestock producers, especially those depending on pasture. The grass is all dead and any hay has to be bought from out-of-state.

Alpacas are so cute. If I had any desire to raise anything that required a commitment past a clean litterbox, two meals a day, and fresh water, I could go for them. The wool is so soft!

I received my mill-end yarns today from R&M Yarns, and I am so happy! I misread the web page - the yarn was measured at 20 wpi (wraps per inch) rather than epi (ends per inch), making it perfect for what I wanted. Now I want to order a few more colors - told you that it was a slippery slope.

I finished weaving my set of kitchen towels and finished measuring off the warp for a new set. So it’s been a productive day. Now I have to hem the towels, which I’m NOT happy about and wonder why I made this choice at the beginning. My sewing machine hasn’t worked for years so now I’m considering getting it fixed and relearning how to use the thing or buying a new one and giving this one away. It probably just needs a tension adjustment but I know nothing about it. I’ve never been good with a sewing machine, and god only knows that I have tried to learn. It seems like it’s a good idea to try again.

I may have started down a slippery slope. Yesterday I ordered some unmercerized cotton yarn mill ends from R&M Yarns. Sight unseen, other than the photo on the web site. $5 a pound!

This is good, and bad. Now I’m thinking - 20 epi. Do I want to do more fine weaving? And the main baddie is that I swore off buying new yarns until I could make a serious dent in my stash. Stash is barely touched. I need to save money to go to Spannocchia for the book making class. Yes, I am still planning to go back next summer!

In my defense, much of my stash had a serious cat hair problem, and I was fairly ruthless in getting rid of a lot in the house move and the recent studio reorganization. I had to wind a lot off the cones before I got to the layers that don’t have cat hair on them. I don’t consider throwing the stash out as fair play, and so that doesn’t count in my stash reduction goal.

And while I used to be completely in love with dyeing, I’m not really interested in it now. If I need a certain color, I’d rather buy it that way. Since I have had two weaver friends with terminal brain cancer, it makes me more aware of all the chemicals my skin soaked up during my dyeing phase.

The first crack in the yarn buying dam was going to John C. Campbell Folk School and the Yarn Circle in Murphy, where I decided I needed an 8-dent reed for the Baby Wolf so that I could use some bigger yarns without a lot of warp wear. Then I just had to have two cones of rich purple and golden perle cotton and a small cone of unmercerized black “carpet warp” cotton. If you are in the Murphy area (the far western tip of North Carolina), the Yarn Circle is a great weaving/spinning supply store. If I lived nearby I would surely go broke.

Then I ordered natural bulrush from H.H. Perkins to make hats, but I consider that a good purchase. I still intend to buy some different size hat forms from another supplier so that I can make a variety of sizes, and I’ll start using more cattails, which are free. (My brother: “You got cattails out of that ditch? There are big snakes in that ditch!”)

Then I visited Spinners Ridge (housed inside Yarns Etc. in downtown Greensboro), where they didn’t have much in stock as far as weaving yarn. She carries some Maysville carpet warp and Henry’s Attic yarns and can order yarn for you, but she’s not big enough to carry much in her inventory. The shop generally caters to knitters and has beautiful knitting yarns, and it also has basketry supplies. I bought one small cone of blue carpet warp there, and she’s going to get her husband to make me a new tension bar for my inkle loom. When I go back I may buy some more Maysville cotton, since it makes good dish towels.

Weaving can be an expensive addiction. It doesn’t have to be. In the early years when I had no money and no credit, I wove rags on homemade frame looms. But once you start down the road of letting yourself spend money on it, it’s so-o-o-o easy to run up that credit card.

I’m obsessing over weaving now because I’m in the middle of what I’ve come to think of as my “midsummer meltdown.”  Thinking about weaving is the easiest thing to do these days. Actually, I think that I’ll head out to the studio right now.