Snail Spirals

Another wonderful weekend!  This time I went to Whidbey Island, Washington, because my friend Anne bought a LOOM!  We went up there to pick it up from the Craigslist seller.  Road trip to the Puget Sound area?  Twist my arm...



We had another weekend of gorgeous weather.  Sunny and bright, with perfect temperatures in the mid-60s. The flowers and trees were blooming, and these tulips outside of the little cafe where we had lunch were especially spectacular.



The cafe was called Mosquito Fleet Chili, and great googly moogly, if you're ever in Coupeville around lunchtime, GO!  Their mussel chowder with homemade olive bread toast was out of this world.

Sadly, I have no picture of this delectable lunch.  By the time I thought of photography, all the chowder was in my tummy.

However, did I mention that the flowers were beautiful?



We also went to The Weaving Works in Seattle on the way up to Whidbey, and I managed to find some yarn that had to come home with me.



I have great plans for these yarns.  On the left is tencel - 2 tubes of black, 1 tube of gorgeous deep burgundy, and a cone of blue/purple/burgundy variegated. These are destined for scarves.  I've never woven with tencel before, but I've seen lots of weaving bloggers use it, and the finished projects have wonderful shine and fluidity.  Can't wait to see what I get.

On the right are three tubes of cottolin (a blend of cotton and linen) that are destined for dishtowels.  I've never woven dishtowels before, but have wanted to since I started weaving.  Since I desperately need some new ones, this seemed like a good idea.

In the middle are two cones of rayon chenille, but only one of them is new.  I've had the dark green in my stash for years- I picked it up at a guild sale in Friday Harbor in 2004.  It was originally a 2-pound cone, and I've used about half of it over the years.  The light green is new, and along with the dark green is becoming a scarf.



This is a pinwheel draft from the January/February 2012 Handwoven magazine.  Love this design, and the chenille fabric is coming out very plush.  I have it set at 16 ends per inch and am beating the weft in fairly firmly so that the slippery chenille doesn't wiggle around.

I love how the pinwheels swirl across the fabric.  Weaving with two shuttles is somewhat slow going, but I've gotten into a rhythm now.  I measured the warp, sleyed the reed, threaded the heddles, beamed the warp, and wove half a scarf today.