It’s not you, it’s me. Now you’ve had your edges fixed there’s nothing wrong with you at all. You’re good looking in an elegant understated sort of way. It is true that I’d rather spend my time with something that’s a bit more lively, even (dare I say it?) “stripey” but that’s down to me being a shallow weaver with a short attention span. We’re going to have to be apart for a little while, please don’t listen to the whispers because whatever they say this has nothing at all to do with the more interesting yarn that I bought at Fibre East at the weekend. There’s nothing between us at all and it’s not true that I was sketching out jazzy striped tea towels as soon as I got home. I am true to you right to the end of this warp and I’m sure that I’ll be more in love with your plain elegant lines after a week apart.

Seriously, it is down to me. I’ve been nursing a dodgy knee for weeks and I’ve decided that it’s time to try giving it a rest with a complete absence of treadling (both loom and wheel) for a week. If it’s better after that then I might stretch to another week, if it’s the same then it’s clear that treadling isn’t part of the problem. This means that the teatowel will be hanging around for a bit longer. It has a wobbly thread on the left that needs fixing and a couple of loose threads that are making weaving a pain (not just in the knee) but once they are fixed it should be a relatively quick job to get the rest of the warp woven off. I have six inches to go before the pattern change for the next towel and I’m ready for it already.

There’s still plenty of weaving about, just without treadles and not in cotton. I’ve been pulling yarn out of the odd ball bag in an attempt to make it go away or at least fit into a smaller bag. The first scarf (on the left of the photo) used the leftovers from the last scarf together with a few odds and ends, the second one was all the leftovers from that with a few more odd balls thrown in. The grey weft really calms the whole thing down which was what I wanted because I’m aiming for plainish, unisex easy to wear items. The third piece was neither plainish nor unisex because I found the ball of sequinned yarn that I made back in 2007. I’m undecided whether that will be a scarf or three bags, I need to see what it looks like after a wash and whether those sequins are too itchy to be worn. It currently has the drape of a cardboard box but that’s because it’s not had its beauty bath yet. The bag that keeps on giving has less choice than it did but it’s still a long way from empty. At some point I’ll need to go looking for some more yarn to pull the random leftovers together but I’m still a couple of scarves away from that yet.

I’m planning the next project to go on the floor loom after the teatowels but the weather needs to co-operate as it involves dyeing which necessitates drying. It’s summer and getting dripping wool dry should be as simple as hanging it outside then bringing it in a couple of hours later but that’s not the sort of summer we’ve been having. As soon as the weather forecast promises a few days of warmth I’ll be dyeing, in the meantime I’ll be skeining in readiness. The yarn crept into the previous two photos, it was holding the scarves up off the slightly damp wooden table. Here it is revealed in all its glory. You may well be asking why I bought such unlovely yarn. Yellow yarn is usually cheap because no-one wants it, it’s often much cheaper than white yarn. If you look on this as 2kg of dyeable wool then the original colour doesn’t matter as long as it’s light enough to overdye. This could be red, brown or green without trying too hard. I bought these last summer, I was already paying for the postage by buying some other reasonably coloured yarn so I got 2kg of pure wool for peanuts. My current plan involves blue dye but I might try red and brown too, there will be samples before I start for real because it’s not as if I’m afraid that sampling will run me short in any way.