Another Pic-less Post

I've been absent, but not idle.

Every evening I spend time washing fleece. I've been workign my way through nearly 20 pounds of raw fleeces, including the mohair I whined about oh-so-long ago. It gets cleaned a handful or two at a time, and has to soak at least 8 hours prior to scouring to loosen the caked-on mud. It's working. It's long and tedious, and it's kept my hot water heater turned up way too high for being in the middle of a heat wave, but I'm doing it daily anyway. Since the heater is up and I'm paying for it, I'd hate to waste it. And it's coming out beautifully.

I started a new project: my first Faroese shawl. It's from Shawls and Scarves, which I only discovered the other day. I've never been much of a shawl person until recently. Now I can't knit socks because of the de Quervain's (which is slowly healing) and I've gravitated to the low-tension of lace. Now I'm finding dozens of shawls of different types that I want to try. I'm doing this one first because I had the yarn in the stash, rejects from a different planned project.

Busy. I'm going to an international mercury conference next week in Madison, WI for work, then taking a little vacation time. Maybe I'll actually get this thing up to date and get the site up to par!

The other thing I've been up to lately has been researching weaving looms. Not little ones, either. Floor looms. Yeah, I'm a little insane. I have a 650 sq ft house (2 bedrooms!), and I'm looking into floor looms. I'm looking into bigger houses, too, but that's a slightly different story! If I can't knit what I'd like, then I'd like to weave. I've always wanted to weave. I've had some kind of weaving apparatus since childhood, and have tried table looms, finger weaving, card weaving, inkle looms, bead looms, tapestry. But I never had the funds or opportunity to do full sized weaving, which has been where I preferred to go. Everything else felt too small and confining for me. So I've been checking into prices, haunting the weaving used equipment sites, and researching looms and books. And enjoying the process of finding a bargain. I always enjoy that process.

Ever have one of those weeks where you feel lonely and isolated and in need of hugs but can't quite describe in words why you need the hugs so badly? I'm so glad I have some vacation time coming up.