or any checked pattern for that matter,
is that these squared off weave structures allow weird mixes of yarns
to become balanced lengths of cloth.

Sparked, perhaps, by slightly cooler temperatures,
I've been dreaming of thick tweedy fabric--
something spongy but light,
sturdy but... well, I'm not quite sure of all the characteristics I'm after,
but I'll know it when I see it. And feel it.
 Actually, I don't even know what I want to do with said cloth,
other than find out what I'm after.

But they only way to learn
is to start
because pictures on the internet just don't cut it,.

To that end, I've been grabbing dibs and dabs of leftover yarn from my stash,
filling  a couple of gaps with the odd skein from The Yarn Underground (four blocks from my  house),
spinning a bit,
and weaving them all together.

New things are so messy, so unpredictable, interesting and annoying-- and sometimes sometimes utterly useless.
But they  also spark my nerve endings to moments of design possibility,
and I think that is a good thing.
​We all need a few new ingredients, now and again,
at least I do:
​ideas, people, techniques, tomato varieties.

It keeps the path compelling.

Because you never know things are going to turn out.

And speaking of not knowing -- 
I'm in full on travel angst/freakout mode because I'm heading off next week and 
have no idea what I'm going to pack -- knitting and spinning and concertina and sketchbook and a change of undies?  Or skip the change of undies but add two or three of these houndstooth scarf-like sample thingies in case there is a blizzard...
​
I do, however, know that I will be closing my Etsy shop for about three weeks,
so if you planned to get Backstrap Dialogues or How to Weave a Bag on a Box  in that time, best to do it before Friday.
 No worries though -- I should be back up and running by the second week of  October! 
Not sure if I'll be able to blog or not --
Guess we'll have to wait and see...

Houndstooth is a bit of an obsession just now.
It might be that I love my shuttles so much that I want to use two at once.

Or it could just be that the possibilities of plain weave continue to unfurl before me like an endless enticing road,
be it balanced or weft faced. 

Or it could be that I am a cheap date.
(Four selvedge Warping Instructions here).

But whatever the reason, I'm having a swell time.
Naturally, my inner Storymaker is busy thinking up things to do with all these pieces of cloth, 
but for now I'm letting the Luminist have her way,
--at least, as much as I can.

Thanks so much to everyone who wrote in about their inner helpers last week-- goats and spinning wheels and as yet unnamed beings. Lovely.

ALSO --anyone who ordered a copy of The Backstrap Dialogues before the last few days, (digital or paper), please note that at the bottom of  page 29 I put the wrong web address for Laverne Waddington's wonderful blog about backstrap weaving. It is a fantastic resource and I want to make sure people know how to get there.  So here is a link.  And here is the correct address so you can write it in your zine for future reference: ​https://backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/

I contacted Laverne the moment I noticed the error and she has been most gracious!
Astonishingly, there really  isn't all that much specific information about backstrap weaving(and almost none that I could find about using it for tapestry or gauze -- thus my zine),
 so it is worth getting it right.

​