It seemed simple enough when I began:
a big spinning project completed last week
means it is time for the next idea in the queue, right? 

And the last 1 .5 lbs of this Targhee/Deboullet fleece​
has been very patient,
and was totally ready.

Indeed, despite having sat for two years post scouring,
the locks were clean and lovely--
still easy to tease and card into silky batts .
The goal is a spring/ summer
 spin-and-knit-as-I-go portable project
and I wanted to get both parts going
so I can pick up either part
at a moment's notice
without much thought. 

(Yes, I know it is sensible to spin all the yarn 
​and mix up the skeins before plying,
or at least before casting on,
but who can be sensible
when  one's fingers absolutely ache
for this fresh fluffy, fine yarn,
especially since the spinning portion
of other recent projects in progress
​ actually did need to be complete
before I could commence the next phase?)

BUT, ​which spindle is the one for the job:

--my reliable, superfast 24 gram cherry Hepty,
whose steadfast nature
has, over the last three years+,
been the tool of choice for several sweaters
and enough yarn for a couple of good sized
but as yet to be designed swaths of backstrap cloth
or
--the cheerful, fast and balanced but mostly untested
20 gram blue and yellow Hepty
that my son 3-D printed as an experiment
for wet-spinning flax 
and is just as happy with wool?
(the shaft is painted wood, the whorl 3-D printed --
and no production of these is planned, fyi...)

They both make me happy.
And so does working with one tool at a time,
​especially for a portable project.

Why, then, was I simultaneously so susceptible
to this glorious strick of Belgian flax 
singing sweet songs from the cabinet
where it had been waiting for months?
Well.... cuz... um....
​I'm susceptible to wooing?

There is actually a super cool story about this strick
 connected with my search for local flax
(short of me growing my own-- another future project),
and the heart-stoppingly exciting work being done in Oregon
by the women of  Fibreevolution.
No room today for the whole surprising tale,
except that I feel most fortunate to have this strick in my hands,
and am thoroughly enjoying turning it into yarn,
especially with an appropriate spindle.

Not that I'm great at it or anything,
but it is good to slow down and develop a rhythm,
since, in my flaxen eagerness last year
I got ahead of myself,
and found, among other things,
​ that the blue and yellow Hepty
is far too fast
for the yarn I'm able to make
with my slowly emerging skills--
and perhaps too fast for flax at all
as the long fibers do not need the kind of twist
demanded by the fine wool yarn I love to make
and that my hands think spinning is all all about. 

Luckily, practice is a thing,
as is really nice fiber
and a slow-and-steady
long-armed, lightweight spindle--
even if it's not water resistant.
(this Jenkins Spindle is a 17 gram Lark
now discontinued but perhaps similar to the Wren?)

Good thing wool and flax
use slightly different hand and finger muscles
and switching back and forth
actually gives my hands a break.

Except, you know,
just because my hands know when they need a break 
doesn't mean my brain does
and my friend Jodi had sent me
another batch of coffee filters,
many of them a weirdly enticing light brown
and I was curious... so...
Another 3-D printed wet spinning spindle
was the tool of choice this time
(coffee filters, in my experience, are best spun damp),
and I had a swell time cutting and adding twist.
This 10 gram cross-arm spindle,
also a slightly too speedy flax spinning contender,
turned out to be ideal, both in weight and speed, for the filter paper,
and a worthy and portable alternative to 
on the slow charkha
I talked about in the post linked above.

 (Note: Public domain code is available for these spindles;
 it can be found with a little googling and printed by someone in your area who knows how to do such things --
​local library/maker space/ etc).

So -- um-- that was yesterday.

Happily, last week's lessons are still with me,
at least mostly,
and ​having learned what those brown 
bits of paper look like spun into yarn,
 I returned the coffee filters to the cabinet,
moved the associated tapestry idea
to ferment at the back of the cue,
​and returned to the pleasures at hand--

which might actually,
eventually,
if I don't get distracted again,
join the completed skeins of wool
to become the linsey-woolsey cloth
I've been longing to wear.
​
​Stay tuned.

You never know what is going to happen
 on a trip to our cabin. 
Sometimes the Glacier Lilies are blooming,
and all is peace and birdsong and rattlesnakes.

And a big pile of possibility
always seems a good idea when I'm at home
where distractions are everywhere.

Those of you who got last week's newsletter
might remember that I do try to limit myself,
for experience has taught me
that too many choices 
actually makes makes it harder
to settle in.

Because it turned out
that what I really needed
was to wander around in my muck boots
​between rain storms

How could I possibly forget

how easily I am amused?

Artistic turmoil --what a thing.

I mean there I was, 
longing to wear my new skirt,
when I was derailed by a hand full of dead leaves.

It seemed to be a thing I HAD to do--
 yet it bugged me even as I worked on it.

The materials were a delight to be sure--
I mean what's not to love
about dead leaves
and used coffee filters?

​And it was great fun to  shift back and forth
between a sett of 4 and 8.
But the tapestry itself didn't satisfy--
indeed, once I got beyond a certain point,
every photo I took was out of focus.

But perhaps the whole idea
was out of focus --
more of an itch I had to scratch
than a compelling path.
​I don't know.

Ideally, if I can bring myself to pay attention
to the way different aspects
of the process
and the thing
make me feel, 
(rather than just tossing idea, object and regret
straight into the compost pile,
pretending they never existed
and moving on),
such projects are sometimes more valuable
than those that make me sigh with satisfaction,

2. It would have been better had I included
the tiny house I refused to weave
(you've no idea how hard it is to NOT weave a tiny house
​but I was trying -- well, just that.)

Audible Sigh
​(of satisfaction).

​When last we left our heroine
she was basting the skirt together,
contemplating waistband options,
casting on another wedge
and gnashing her teeth over closures.

Today we find her blissing out
over drape, texture, comfort, lustre,

and trying to share those qualities
using the tools at hand--

with varying degrees of success 
​(me and photo timers -- not a thing...)

For there HAS been much
to contemplate and decide,
beginning with waistbands.

The first possibly
was a backstrap rigid heddle experiment 
(pictured above)
that I wove a couple of years ago using Kestrel,
​  a knitted linen tube from Quince and Co.
The yarn was lovely to work with 
and the finished band drapy and soft.
It was not what I had wanted back then,
but it had potential as both button and waist band
for this Sarah-Dippity.

On the other hand...
I  still had plenty of the cotton from the skirt,
and at the last weaver's guild meeting
my friend Helen gave a program
on  straps and bands --
and I hadn't made a warp faced band in ages--
so...well... you know how it is.

It turns, alas, out warp faced bands
are not as fun for me as a balanced weave,
(though my weaving cards are still singing a siren song from the drawer).
But I got her done and had some selvedge practice to boot.
Of course I also had to choose between them.

While deciding,
I finished knitting the fourth wedge,
began the final panel sewing (vs basting),
and finally saw that, matching aside,
the older linen band suited the garment best.
This was a satisfying decision
as I was still dithering about closures.
​buttons? zipper? frogs? 
The internet is not always a decision-making friend.

But a local weaver's guild--
there a person will find compatriots
who fully understand
the enormity of these dilemmas.
So at that same (woven band-centric) guild meeting
I just happened to mention my closure angst to Helen
"What about snaps?" she said.

"SNAPS!" I cried. "NO!
Erm --I mean thanks,
good idea,
 but I don't think so.
The knitted part is too fragile.
And what if they came undone?"

"You must lead a very exciting life," she said, lifting an eyebrow.

"It's just that the fabric might catch the corner of something,"
I hedged.
"Maybe a zipper?"
​
Helen didn't reply.
She's very polite that way.
And anyway, she had done her work.

Continuing to chew on the options at home,
I sewed the panels firmly together
(replacing the rough basting),
and by the time that was done 
knew absolutely
that I wanted a zipper.
Definitely.

Except...
it was raining too hard for a bicycle,
and though I could have walked the two miles
to the fabric store in the mall,
it was windy enough to turn my umbrella inside out, 
and my raincoat leaks,
 and I was NOT going to start my car just to get a zipper,
and... and...
darn it.
Better make some Oolong and think.

Filling the kettle, I switched it on.
and decided to have a quick rummage
in the sewing machine drawer
while the water heated.
Who knew?
I might find a cast off zipper
under the spools of purple polyester Woolworth thread
that my ex-husband's Grandmother
used to buy on sale and send to me
when I lived in the wilderness
where, heaven knew,
there were probably no Woolworth stores.
(not sure she understood that there were actually no roads or people either,
or that the brownies she baked sat in Hamilton Montana
for a month or two before anyone brought us our mail,
but that is another story,
and anyway I didn't find a zipper).

What I did find,
waiting quietly in an Altoids tin,
as they had been waiting since about 1985
when I moved from said wilderness
to a teensy shack 
where though I had to carry water uphill in a bucket
there was a roadish kind of thing
that would eventually take me
to a fabric store of sorts,
were.....
​OH SNAPS!
​
​Thanks Helen.
​Those words are just delicious.

Astonishingly (or not)
I also happened upon a bit of linen tape,
hand woven in England and purchased just for me
by my dear friend Rochelle who knows I hate gifts
but always finds the ideal thing to give me anyway
in a form of friend torture for which I love her dearly,
that was perfect
 for reinforcing both knit and woven edges
and ensuring snap stability and security.

Now, however, I no longer needed
the full length of the linen band.
But as I was loathe to cut it,
and it goes twice around my waist,
I'm going with the time-honored
double wrap and safety pin solution.

Here are a few stats:
-400 grams (just under a pound) for the finished skirt
-waist: 31 (ish) inches/78 cm
- hem circumference: 73 (ish) inches/186 cm
-length (including waistband): 31 inches/78 cm
-woven panels (finished) are 8 1/2 inches/22 cm wide
-knit panels: 9 1/2 inches/24cm at the bottom
and taper evenly to 1 inch/2.5 cm at the top.

The skirt is flexible and stretchy.
The knitted sections do intimate that there are black leggings beneath
(at least when stretched out while sitting crossed legged on the floor),
but don't feel remotely immodest 
when outside without leggings
dodging raindrops,
clutching a hot cup of tea,
wondering what on earth to do with two giant willow balls,
and pretending it is perfect weather
to wander around barefoot
in a Summer Sarah-Dippity Skirt
(slightly wrinkled from three days of wear),
on wet green grass
amidst leafless trees
composing really really long sentences,
that hopefully make sense.
Au Revoir.

​Usually it happens in the middle of winter --

But there was a lot of snow this year.
​And it was cold.

So the urge to tromp across field and marsh,
gather willow and red osier dogwood,
fill my studio with multi colored sticks,
and twist, twine and weave them into something,
didn't show up until a few days ago. 
(same link as above--an old blog post about willow projects over the years,
so no need to click it twice)

Funny how such ideas appear--
the sudden irresistible need
​ to make a thing
I hadn't even imagined
ten seconds before.

Does this ever happen to you? 

and I had to do my part.

As often happens with such projects, 
I had/have no idea how to weave an orb. 

so I made something up.

The willow wands and grape vines
were long and satisfyingly resilient.
The Pear shoots not so much,
but they are pretty,
and since Ana was cutting them, 
it was less trouble to weave with them
than to put them in a pile.

 I ended up making two
largish, round(ish) objects.

An heir and a spare for the flamingo, perhaps?

Guess, I'm done for now, though.

Except, perhaps,
for taking another stab
at removing the grass stains
from the knees of my pants.
​
​Or not.