So you know what's cool?

Well, lots of things are cool:
spinning
and weaving
and looms
and friends
and solitude
and vaccinations
and sunshine
and rain
and baby plants
and one syllable four letter nouns...

Today, though
the thing that delights me
more than I can say,
is noticing--

that I no longer notice--

that I wear a hand spun/knit wool shirt
every single day
summer and winter.

Well-- truth to tell--
in the summer I occasionally wear
those handwoven linen
and  linsey-woolsey shirts.
But still--
(and somewhat to my amazement),
I've made more than enough
next-to-the-skin-soft
wool shirts
 to see me through.

And though I wasn't thinking at the time
about  why it was possible,
one of my great daily pleases
these last months
has been dressing up for my loom every day.
And I think the loom appreciated my effort.

But I had  forgotten--
until tidying up a stack of
"magazines with articles I wrote"--

that once upon a time
having enough such garments
was a deliberate plan--
my mid-life self
committing
to the sartorial comfort, pleasure
and general well-being
of me,
now,
at 60.

So golly thanks, former Sarah
for the serendipitous Magic Medium--
for the blissfully approachable Somewhat Slanted
(of which I now have five)--
for The Cloisters (pictured above)--
for Kestrals Alight back in 1996--
for all the unnamed others
(many of which I've given away)--

--for all the glorious fleeces
(and the sheep that grew them)--
and for uncountable days and weeks and years
of pleasure--
past, present and future.

And yes, also for my Sarah-Dippity Skirts
which though they are not shirts
and were completely unplanned,
I nonetheless wear so often
that I'm now having to patch them.

So you know what's cool?
That the midst of one of the weirdest
and most unsettled
and oddly fascinating times of my life so far--
that even as I am taking a break from knitting
to rest and reset--
it is yarn, once again,
that is seeing me through.

So how many photos
does a gal have to take
of her backside

before she finally decides
that enough is enough?

I mean honestly --
all I wanted was to show
that the reason
​for the long narrow tapestry
​with the endless slits--

--was nothing more
than a desire to wear this skirt
(photo below)
without the bunchiness
​of a belt.
And now  I can!
Yet for some reason,
though it feels great on the inside,
my inner model and inner photographer
were not communicating this morning,
and every photo of the outside
is badly lit,
out of focus,
has me posed in front of
the only distracting object
on an otherwise empty wall, 
or my hair is in the way. 
And each time I checked out the photos
and said to my model,
"fix the elastic on your braid!"
did she do it?
Nope.
​
Ah well.
​We all have our little skills.

At any rate,
the skirt is old favorite
that was designed, alas, 
in that sartorially awkward moment
when retail clothing companies decided
that a "waist band" should sit
somewhere below one's belly button,
yet I've always loved it'
so awkward photos aside,
 it is delightful to be able to wear it
​without tripping over the hem
and/or displaying an unnecessary
​amount of stomach.

Why it took me so long
to think of this solution
​I've no idea,
as the fit of this
otherwise heavenly garment
has been annoying me for years.

But I guess brains,
like cameras
do not always focus
on the thing
that in hindsight
one might have preferred.
And since ideas
have their own pace
​ and agenda,
I can only be happy 
that this one showed up at all.

As you can probably tell from the safety pins,
I just cut the tapestry from my loom yesterday.
and wove in the the ends before supper.
After a quick bath
(a thing I do with all wool weft tapestries,
especially if it is a thing I'm going to wear --
though now that I think of it,
I'm not sure I've ever
woven an 'accessory' before),
I squeezed it in a towel,
laid it flat to dry,
and by this morning 
it was ready for a nice steamy iron.

 I was pleased to remember
to weave slits/buttonholes at either end
so the suspenders (braces)
could also work 
with this pair of pants
(extra satisfying when structure and function work together),
and am always happy
when Tucking The Tails
keeps stray weft strands
from sticking out hither and yon
on either back or front.

 I'm not, however, entirely happy
with the bulges/folds of the tapestry fabric
above the tiny house center panel
where the front straps veer off to my shoulders
(clearly visible in the photo above),
and I believe next time I'd either 
weave two separate straps 
that literally cross in the back,
or make that center panel wider
so there was more of an H
and a shallower shoulder angle.

This last would also make
a useful design space--
room for an entire landscape perhaps,
or, as in many Coptic garments,
a face looking ever outwards
watching your back,
and noticing 
where you've been.  

So many ideas--
I want to try them all.
Woven words?
(Logger World is traditional 
though what a place for haiku...)

Or a person could use a backstrap loom
and a rigid heddle
to weave a long narrow strip
of needlepoint canvas
then embellish it
with.... anything at all. 

And what about
warp faced pick up?

Oh dear. Off I go.
Please--
save me from this idea storm
and try one or two yourself?
What better way
to show off your glorious work,
and saying what you have to say
than by wearing your heart
on your shoulders?

And now that I think of it
this 194 grams of milkweed fiber
​(and some willow as well),
are calling my name--
really loudly.
Perhaps they, too,
have a sartorial plan
 (not yet revealed),
that will allow them to travel
exciting places
like --
curbside pick up
at the grocery store.

Well, if I hadn't just spent
half the morning
(and a good portion of yesterday evening)
​with my iPad camera 
pointed at this little tapestry,

​I might have gotten
to writing to you
​a while ago.

marveling at the light playing with its facets,
and noticing
how a slight shift of angle
could render it
 statuesque ​from one direction, 

Outside the frame of the camera
it is actually somewhat diminutive--
here is my friend Poppy for scale--
and though I made the darned thing,
the relative power of framing and angle
is still a surprise. 

At any rate,
I had a lovely time weaving this tapestry 
(on a PVC pipe loom as you can see--
one of my all time faves for some weird reason)
 though what I actually made
​turned out to be not at all
what I imagined when I began.

The original point
was to let each facet
explore some color theory idea
​and see what happened.

I planned to
mess around with
hue, saturation, triads,
split compliments,
or relative warmth--
whatever grabbed my fancy.

But as so often happens these days,
after only a few little squares
I was the one that was saturated
and almost unwove
those first busy reddish-orange shapes--
even though I loved them--
as it felt like it was going to be
just too much in no time at all.

But before I could begin undoing though,
I remembered a thing Archie Brennan once said,
about changing your perception of yesterday's red,
by adjusting the colors you weave with today.
Unfortunately, I can't remember the exact quote
(Archie was a supremely quotable fellow
and I'm sure he said it with with perfect pith and pointedness 
so if you read/heard him say it, please let me know his real words),
but the principle was just what I needed.

So on I went.

And now that I think about it,
my variations on a theme of cream
actually has a little analogous/value stuff going on,
so I guess I got in a bit of inadvertent
​color theory practice after all.

At any rate,
since Marjorie asked
for more filter cutting/spinning info
in last week's comments,
​choosing these colors 
gave me a chance to try
to film a few of the steps.

Naturally, I got totally involved in that idea
but not being a video gal,
 had to cut quite a few attempts at filming
before I had something that made sense. 
And then,
even though I deleted a lot of footage,
 realized it would take forever
to upload all the video onto this post
so put them into the
"highlights" of my Instagram page.
You can see them by clicking
the three little circles under my name.
(Start with the circle on the right).
Below are two snippets  to give you an idea
of what I was about.
At the very least, the sound of hte scissors
​is weirdly soothing.

For those who would prefer still photos
this blog post  also has some how-to-cut pix
that cover essentially the same territory.

And now I've gone on and on as usual,
but before I close 
I do once again want to say
how VERY much I appreciate 
your supportive, kind, and heartwarming comments
which are more helpful than you can imagine
in the midst of this double  (or maybe quadruple?)
c-word moment:
cancer/chemo/coronavirus/Covid19.
And to show you that for the time being
we're well protected (after a fashion),
I'll end with a photo of the freshly blocked
Somewhat Slanted  Suit of Armor
I just finished for Dan--
(huge though it is, at 2 sts/in the knitting flew along).
As you might gather,
he's a teensy bit taller than me --like a foot, actually--
but suddenly, I'm thinking
that with slightly shorter arms,
I could sure do with
​ a Somewhat Slanted Dress)

I hope you are well
and staying safe
(at home if you can be there,
at work if you cannot),
and send a silent cheer to you/us  all.

Frankly, 
I haven't the foggiest idea 
​what to write about today.

Not for lack of ideas --
Oh no!  
I've been awash with those.
I mean, 
a paper gansey dress?
a suit of Somewhat Slanted armor?
There is much to talk about
​in the realm of my making existence.
Yet this is actually my third try
at trying to be coherent.

Part of the problem
may have been
that "somehow"
all sorts of non-blog things
have arisen ​to take over my Tuesdays,
and, deciding to be efficient
the first two blogging attempts
were made yesterday.

What a disaster!
Not a single coherent sentence
​ could I write,
and most of the photos
turned out badly lit
or poorly framed-- 
poorly framed, that is,
unless your hearts desire 
is. to see a corner of my
Sarah-Dippity clad butt
and the bra/underwear pile
of my laundry-in-waiting?

Tuesdays, you see
are old lady (and gentleman) day at the Food Coop
(actually member over 55 gets a 10% discount),
and what with the layers of gloves
and careful spacing and all,
it seemed a good idea
to keep grocery-getting
and blog writing
​separate too.

Tuesdays are also 
my husband's new chemo day
(used to be Monday)
and since I usually try to  do a little tidying
while he's off getting infused,
 I figured if I wrote the blog on Monday
I could take my time
​with the scrubbing,
​the shopping
and the writing.

But Monday,
as I said,
refused to cooperate. 
After a bunch of confusion and angst
it became clear 
that while there are times
and places 
when thinking ahead
and being practical
(wearing  rubber gloves
out in the world etc etc)
is just the thing.

So Monday got to be
the thing it wanted to be,
full of tunes and pink coffee filters,
and I headed out to the Food Coop this morning
where,
be-gloved and bemused,
I had several magical moments of
distant socializing with dear friends--
our plastic coated hands waving madly
from one end of an aisle to another--
and also got to feel
​ a good solid sense of gratitude
for all the beautiful produce
and marvelous, helpful coop stuff
who are keeping us supplied
​for our once-a-week excursions.

And  the cleaning?
Well, I shook out a few rugs
but mostly skipped it entirely,
save for washing
and blocking
the coffee filter Gansey dress
because my imaginary elf self
wanted to wear it
and anyway
I can mop things tomorrow.

But that, the elf comment, reminds me
of what I really wanted to say today,
and why I was trying to take selfies yesterday--

which is that is that my friend Vicki
has designed the coolest hood
for the Somewhat Slanted sweater
and I finally get to tell you about it.
Somehow she managed to combine 
both the utterly practical
(cozy, easy, protective, snuggly),
and the utterly "im"--
(I get to be a wood elf
and a Monty Python Knight
​at the same time),
while making something that is
totally in the "make it as you go" spirit
of the sweater itself. 

Such a favorite, indeed, 
that I'm giving you a second opportunity
to critique my slovenly laundry ways,
my pink Sarah-Dippity butt,
and the polka-dotted apron I forgot I had on,
so you can see the whole thing,
backlit and all.

And speaking of Dan
(though he'd probably rather I didn't)
I do want to say
how VERY much I appreciate 
all your wondrous words and hopes and thoughts
in the comments in last week's post.
I was going to try to answer them all,
but it only made me cry,
and also feel so very grateful
that you are all there,
that we're all in this together
in many different
and many of the same ways, 
and that I get to write to you--
even going on and on
despite thinking I had nothing to say--
and that we can madly wave,
our carefully gloved hands
at one another
from across the world,
and the other side of town,
and feel connected
with our yarn
and our thoughts
and the joy
of the fragile,
​the lovely,
and the absurd.
So, ah,
​thanks.
​
And, onward we go.

That about says it all, doesn't it?

Much more fun to draw my butt--

Because wearable, these are.
​I think I made three
before Shelley of The Yarn Underground
and The Palouse Yarn Company
nudged me to write up the pattern 
so others could enjoy it too--
and then she hosted it on her Ravelry page
until I got around to making my own a few weeks ago.

After that I knit another three or four more
in different yarns/gauges
and these (eventually) led to the changes in this revision --
but not before I'd thoroughly tested each one.
(note: these are my clothes you're looking at,
not pattern samples
​ so please pardon their imperfections).

And really, what is not to love
about a lightweight wool  shirt?
Cool when warm, warm when cool,
hypoallergenic, carbon-positive,
renewable, non-stinky, 
and endlessly stretchy without 
the saggy spots of dead lycra --
such a garment is
(unless you are vegan),
a freakin miracle.

Indeed, apparently a bunch of big outdoor companies
have finally figured this out and are using it for lots of stuff.
Wool is the technical fabric of the future!
Who knew?

Well  they they act like they just invented it if they have to,
as long as they keep working with it.

In the meantime,
we can go ahead and make
whatever we want for ourselves.
Because we already know how.
And living as we do
​on the cutting edge of technical achievement,
the right garment has always been a thing. 
Nothing says focus and physical accomplishment
 like weaving, spinning, knitting, reading
​and hanging out with dogs,

But gosh,
for all my messing about
with paper and linen,
I don't need to extoll
the virtues of wool to you.
What I really want to do
is  go on and on
about one of the most important features of this garment
which is that (assuming you are so inclined),
since most of it is knit in stockinette in the round,
the literarily-inclined knitter
can scale the heights
 of two of these massively important activities
at the same time. 

And no commercially made garment
will ever provide a pleasure
to equal that. 

Oh yes --OOPS.
One more thing.
The Pattern for the magic medium pullover 
can be found both on my Ravelry site
and my web store 
depending on your preference.
​
(Alas, the two are not linked, so the choice is up to you
but if you have already downloaded the pattern
from The Palouse Yarn Company site on Ravelry,
​you should, by now, have already received the pattern revision
so need to worry about any of it).

Now, what was I doing?

When I started weaving
the cloth for this shirt
I wrote about the pleasures 
of additive clothing construction
(building garments with rectangles),
and of how much I looked forward
​to bumping into my preconceived ideas--
whatever they might turn out to be.

Several weeks into said construction
it turns out I have quite a few
​preconceived ideas,
​not least:
 how the garment should drape,
how it is constructed,
​how it feels
how it fits
and how it should look.

As I mentioned last week
what I really want most
is to get this linsey-woolsey shirt on my back
so I can learn more about the 'feel' part of that list,
and thus continue to study the​ fascinating, ancient,
and sometimes deeply troubling history
of this combination of fibers,
from a yarn-centric point of view.

At the same time,
in order to put it through its paces
it needs to be truly wearable.

And in order for me to want to wear it
it has to be comfortable,
which, since I'm making it up as I go along,
means a LOT of trail and error.

The first version of the shirt
fit quite well in most areas,
but was, as the comic showed last week,
a little too right across the chest.
Though not actively uncomfortable,
there was an awkward bunching at the armholes
(there are reasons so many sewing patterns
have curved armholes....),
that I just couldn't live with.

Had it been all wool,
the close fit might have been OK,
but the linen portion of the fabric
makes it just a little too crisp 
for what I was trying to do.

After much basting and un-basting
and yanking and pinning
 to increase the shaping,
I realized I had two preconceived ideas
working in direct opposition:
--about fit (probably gleaned from sweater construction)
and
--about my love of woven rectangles.

Embracing the grid at hand
I decided to go bigger and add ease:
 two linen panels to the front,
and a peplumish 'wedge'
​made of graduated sections
of one of my linsey/woolsey samples.
(I did contemplate a knitted wedge for a while,
as per the Sarah-Dippity skirt,
but that is a garment for the future).

The additions made it
​much more comfortable,
and thus more wearable.
​
It is also made it less elegant 
(the lack of armhole lumps aside)
and meant that the garment
​is would no longer be fully hand spun.

And guess what?
Having it be entirely hand spun
was another of the preconceived notions
I didn't realize I had.

Possible Actions:
1-stop sewing to spin and weave matching panels
2-get over myself and keep going
so I can wear the garment already
3 -finish the shirt as is (#2)
and if the invasion of the non-matching
mill-spun yarn keeps bugging me,
make linsey-woolsey replacements.
???

A quick cloth review:
The first swathe of cloth 
had a two-ply spindle-spun woolen warp,
and a singles, spindle-spun linen weft.
Though traditional linsey-woolsey
seems usually to have a linen warp,
I chose to reverse it because:
1. I trust my wool yarn more than my flax
2. I wanted the cloth to be as light as possible
 (keep the linen as singles)
3. the wool was spun from dyed fleece
and thus is somewhat variegated;
if there were to be stripes
I wanted them to run lengthwise.

That said,
when I wove  the second (narrower swathe),
I  decided to try it the other way --
because, why not, right?
Stuff to learn.
So in the photo above
you can see the variegations in the wool weft 
and the slight shift in the grist
of the less well spun two ply linen warp
​ slightly to the left of center.
This cloth is, indeed,
slightly heftier than swathe #1.

For the actual weaving (backstrap loom),
it was easier to keep steady tension
with the unstretchy linen warp.
The wool warp was more forgiving.
In other words -- I love both.

In the spirit of Coptic tabby/tapestry experimentation
I also wove a small tapestry on each warp:
wool warp: linen tapestry ground with wool squares
linen warp: wool tapestry ground with a linen swirl.
The weaving of both was lovely
but truth to tell,
I prefer weaving tapestry
on a tensioned frame loom.
Next stop: Four Selvedge tapestries***
sewn into clothing???
​Talk about Portable Property...
(also, with individual panels
rather than fixed features of existing cloth
I could be more specific about placement).

Though the wool warp/linen weft is my favorite,
both pieces of cloth feel lovely.
​Finished (washed/fulled and pressed)
they are dense and light at once.
The wool fluffs out just enough
to keep it from being overly translucent,
and the linen lends a crispness 
that wool alone would not have--
though I expect the fresh pressed crispness
that you can see below in the sleeves,
 with relax and soften with wearing.

***PS: Quick tapestry heads up: Rebecca Mezoff and I
are planning a Four Selvedge Tapestry Webinar
on Saturday, 20 July at 10 AM Pacific Time (me), 11 AM Mountain time (Rebecca)
I can hardly wait!
Rebecca is such a blast to be around, virtually or in person--
fun, funny and always a total inspiration for me.
We'll definitely talk about using Four Selvedge Warping for the Post Card Project  ,
hopefully learn a  bit about Rebecca's Tapestry Book in progress,
and definitely leave room for  your questions
and other topics as yet undecided.
​Back with specifics (like how best to ask questions and register ), when I have them.
If you already follow Rebecca, you'll hear from her too.
In the meantime, you can also check out her Youtube channel and maybe watch a few of her France tapestry tour VLOGS, just to get in the mood.
The work she saw made me want to start tapping in some weft.

Truth to tell,
I had hoped to have
a finished shirt today.

Alas, I should have known better.
The path from fiber forward
(or any path I follow for that matter),
rarely runs straight
and is almost never speedy--
which of course is often the point.

Indeed, learning how to spin flax
with some degree of comfort
seemed more than enough
when this all began,
and it wasn't until this past April
that I began to get serious about linsey woolsey,
so why should the sewing part go quickly?

But wait -- no! 
I take that back.
I just typed "linsey-woolsey"
into the search box at the top of the blog page
and found that I wove some 
back when I was first learning
to use a backstrap loom--
cloth I later used
in an entirely different
​sort of experiment
in November 2016.
(that blog post written in hope, before the results were in).

Except, was that experiment entirely different? 
Wasn't that attempt to combine
​ backstrap-woven linen/wool cloth
with some kind of imagery 
part of the same endless quest 
as the coptic-inspired tabby/tapestry
​that keeps showing up in this project?

Well yes, I think it is--
even if I'm unlikely
​to throw an actual painting
(whatever the ground material)
into a tub of water and swish it around
​to soften it up before cutting,
as I have these swaths of linen and wool.

But I suppose one can be obsessed
with the juxtaposition of cloth and image
for decades and decades
and still ask a lot of different questions.
Right now, for instance
I want to know
​how  ​the combination
of linen and wool,
feels against my skin.

Historically, at least in the United States,
Linsey-woolsey has a bad reputation
and is often described 
as rough inferior cloth--
the combination of linen and wool
 highlighting  the worst
both of the materials,
and of human power relationships.*

* Plantation Slave Weavers Remember: An Oral History by Mary Madison
is heartbreaking, humbling and un-put-downable  (if that is a word)--
 essential reading for me as a white woman, a human being and a weaver.
The end of the book includes valuable background
on the textiles that are spoken of in the text,
as well as extracts from
The Politics Of Textiles Used in African American Slave Clothing,
a paper by Eulanda A. Sanders given at a Textile Society of America Symposium.

Linsey-Woolsey was also woven
by early American Colonists
and used in myriad textiles,
from clothing to coverlets
as a way to stretch
scarce and precious wool--
though usually not as a first choice.

Yet fragments Coptic cloth of linen and wool
unearthed by archaeologist Albert Gayet 
and exhibited at the Exposition Universelle de Paris 1900
may well have inspired
the wild and colorful paintings
of  Henri Matisse and his fellow Fauves
at the turn of the last century.

It's intense, actually --
all this history and judgement,
all this power and hardship
all this misery and mystery
​and pictorial delight
associated with 
this specific combination of materials
to which I am connected,
consciously and unconsciously,
willingly and abashedly, 
in ways both historic
and of the moment.
​
It's also fascinating. ​

And with all that I learn
and hope to keep learning,
with all the things I want to change
about the world we live in,
and all the ways I want to make all lives better
I am still 
a weaver devoted to wool,
and a spinner in love with linen,
 coming to this cloth
with spindle and shuttle
pins, needles, thread,
and curiosity. 

So here's what I know so far:

1. My chest is not quite as flat as I thought it was

2. Building with rectangles,
and basting before sewing
is a pretty great idea
when designing as you go--
or rather re-designing
for the third
(or maybe fourth)
time.

3. The combination of a fine wool warp 
(targhee/debouillet)
and singles linen weft
(spindle spun and well scoured),
​feels wonderful in my hands,
airy yet robust,
warm and cool and silky all at once,
and I very much look forward
to my future physical connection
with the weavers and wearers of this cloth
willing, and unwilling,
over the millennia. 

Back eventually,
​ with a shirt!

So i’m in new Hampshire,
knitting with coffee filters.

You know how it goes.
A gal is visiting family
and the conversations turns
​to making yarn out of trash--
as it does--

and your enthusiastic mother
jumps up to fish a couple of
used filters from the compost bin,
rinses them off and sets them to dry
so that when you return from visiting a beloved cousin,
​you can do a little spinning
​and she--your lovely mum--
can take photos of the process.

These large round Chemex (sp?) filters
were new to me,
so of course
it was extra interesting.

(I’ve written blog posts about spinning coffee filters but for some reason I can’t specifically link them while writing this on the road and in the weebly app so alas, you’ll have search a little to find them if interseted).

Then it turned out that a few
of the many wonderful people
​who have started Somewhat Slanted
weren’t familiar with beginning a row
with a YO (Yarn Over),
so yesterday I plied the yarn
and took some photos on the back steps
to (hopefully), make it more clear.

(Please forgive all out of focus moments
as I was using my big toe to click the button
while my hands were occupied).

So here goes:
​Yarn Over Increase starting from a single stitch:

1. make a slip knot and put it on the left needle.

2. Bring the Yarn Over the right needle
(or, as my mother says, bring the Needle Under the yarn)

3. Insert needle into the slip knot/ loop as usual

4. Wrap yarn

5. Complete Stitch
​ — you now have two stitches

6. Switch hands and repeat steps 2 - 5:

-Yarn Over
-insert needle
-wrap yarn
-complete stitch

Continue as per the
Somewhat Slanted Guide
until it is time to decrease,
by which time the YO thing
​should be easy as pie.

The other issue that has come up with Somewhat Slanted
has to do with making color changes with the stripes.
This is not, alas, a thing I can do with coffee filter yarn
(surprisingly pleasant though it is to knit with),
as I only have one color just now.
Also, coffee filter yarn doesn’t felt,
and I used a Spit Splice (aka Felted Join)
which requires wool or a wool blend (not superwash).
I may eventually do some drawings about the splice
but hopefully the Interweave link above will work for you.
Or just Google Spit Splice
and you’ll find all kinds of info.

Though I haven’t yet done stripes with cotton,
I imagine it would work
to tie the two colors together at the edge leaving long tails,
knit along as though they were spliced
then later untie the knots and weave in the ends to
form the YO loops.

But that is just theory right now.
Anyone tried it? Be great to know.

Also — has anyone knit more than a little square
with the coffee filter yarn?
It’s weirdly nice.
I might mess around with this little square
and see how it holds up.
Who knows?
​Who EVER knows?

A few months ago
my aunt had her hip replaced.
Happily, all went well
and she is once again
meandering in the woods with her dog.

Though totally surprised 
(I'm kind of weird about gifts),
I  was nonetheless thrilled
and knew exactly
what I was going to do.
The wall devoted to 
Harrisville Hydro Turbine
had caught my eye last winter
when I bought the yarn
​ for the Long Sarah-Dippity,
and for all my hand spinning ways,
I know yummy yarn when I see it.

No matter that bulky yarn season
should have been ending right around then --
these round and airy skeins
​seemed destined to become a heftier version 
of the  Summer Six Pack Sweater--
 a comfortable and versatile favorite for the last three years.

How fluffy Turbine yarn
would behave within the bias structure
remained to be seen--
​certainly it would be quite different 
than​ the collection of hand spun odds and ends
that made up the earlier striped garment.
And the not knowing made it extra compelling.

Luckily this sweater does not need
a gauge swatch before starting,
so I could cast on for the actual sweater
the moment I got home from the yarn store,
and start finding out.

 When I first blogged about The Six Pack Sweater
several people asked for a pattern
(or at least some kind of guide
 beyond  the vague thing I wrote on the post),
but somehow it didn't happen--
at least back then.
This spring, however,
​the versatility of the idea,
gave me the extra impetus to start drawing.

Alas, it is one thing knit
and design as you go,
and quite another to write a helpful guide
that other people can use
to knit a garment they love,
​ in the size of their choice,
with yarn they have, or want to try,
at  whatever gauge makes both yarn and knitter happy.
​
So it has taken me longer than I thought.

Plus ... ah...
​ I have been spinning
the odd yard of flax.

Today, however,
​I am now thrilled to announce that
A Sweater -- Somewhat Slanted
is now available in the store
as a PDF download.

Like my other zines and PDFs 
this is a guide booklet
for creating your own adventure
(not a pre-calculated set of instructions).
This means that 
some straightforward math
​ (formulas provided),
is part of the thrill.
Aren't you excited?

Somehow, I kind of think you actually are.
There is just so much pleasure
in making decisions--
even hard ones--
when it mean we will end up
with a personal and magical garment
we will actually wear and use.
(And somehow, I don't think armhole depth
will be the biggest decision you'll ever make).

If you give it a try,
will you let me know how it goes?

Yesterday was wonderful.

Honestly, the prototype shirt  
I talked about last week
is just so satisfying and comfortable
I couldn't wait another minute.

Anyway, I really like to warp--
​for tapestry or plain cloth.

What's not to love
about strand after strand
undulating through a pair of lease sticks?​

My earlier linseny-woolsey samples
had both wool and linen in the warp.
The cloth is lovely
but warping was a total pain
so for this first swathe of actual yardage
 I'm using 2 ply wool as warp
and singles linen as weft.

​Historic linsey-woolsey 
apparently used linen warp and wool weft,
​and maybe I'll try that next time.

It is also amazing
to run smack into my fixed ideas--
whatever they may be
though in this case
that garment sewing
is all about subtracting shapes
from someone else's idea
of how wide cloth can be made--
and suddenly see
that those ideas
are but illusions
 I can stroll right through.

There is more exploring to do
along these lines
--building garments in an additive,
minimal-waste way--
and I'm definitely planning to do some,
even as, for the moment,
I'll keep geeking out
on the pleasure of using paper purns
and this old boat shuttle
to slip shots of flax
across the open shed.

Speaking of geeking out --
I just moved my newsletter host 
from Mailchimp, where it has been for the last few years
to Weebly, the outfit within which I have this website and blog.
There were myriad reasons for this,
​and the odd hassle,
but all I can say for the moment is -- it's done.