Wool For Brains

You have to have a certain perspective to see this as an improvement. Personally I thought it was a fantastic piece of work because after it was installed I could go to bed. This is usually where I sit to spin, my chair would be in front of the wooden window and the wheel in front of the glass window. Spinning is off for the moment due to lack of light and my total inability to find a different spot in the house for the wheel. The woodwork has been further improved by the art department being let loose on it, the idea was that instead of looking at it and shuddering we looked at it and smiled. That worked then. These are Worms, not just any old worms but the Worms from Worms:World Party, Worms: Open Warfare and various other games. We have Worms with jetpacks, Worms with TNT, Worms blowing up houses and Worms drowning in the sea. The artwork will be staying until next week because our extensive social calendar this week (dentist, 3D special agent guinea pigs and a lunch engagement) has meant that we can’t be measured for new glass until Friday. I shall miss it when it’s gone but some more light would be nice.

This is Wormy, he should probably be Wormy II if we were being picky. At the moment we are in the grip of Worms, I have sheets and sheets of paper covered in Worm drawings, Worms at the cinema, Worms at school, a Worms theme park. The common thing is that they all end up with TNT and big explosions. A quick search failed to turn up the Worm that I knitted him the last time that Worms were big. I decided that it was faster and less painful to knit another than to search for the original in the Beano pit that is the bedroom of a nine year old. I’d like to say that I followed the same pattern as before but it is more true to say that I made it up in the same way as before with the same yarn.

This looks very like the last photo of the new and improved dog blanket except that it isn’t. If we are playing spot the difference then this has white yarn as the scrap header and the thin yellow stripe is at the other side. This is the third of four strips for the blanket, there will be more than enough warp for the fourth and I think there will be enough weft. I haven’t actually checked that four pieces is enough to cover the back of the settee, if it isn’t I’ll come up with something because by then I will be well and truly committed to a finish. Weaving is much faster than knitting, I timed it today and at double knitting thicknesses I can weave an inch in a minute. Over longer lengths it is slower than that, the shuttle needs filling and the woven fabric has to be wound on to the front roller. It does explain how I can warp the loom one morning and have a 57″ piece of fabric by the next day. You would expect weaving to be making major inroads into my stash, I’m expecting that too but as yet there is no evidence to support this.

It’s too early for the before and after shot on the dog blanket, realistically I’m two weeks away from that (four days to weave it, ten days to ignore the making up and then an hour to sew it together and make the fringe). This is the “before” shot, this shows why the blanket needs to cover the back of the settee as well as the bit he sleeps on. I have the “before” for the door too, you can just see the bag with all the warp yarn in it down there at the left corner of the door. The whole interior pane came down with one crash while we were giving statements. The glazier knocked the outside pane out later. None of our neighbours heard any glass break but two of them told the police that they’d heard a funny noise about 3am. The moral of this story is to never attempt to saw your way into a house, always smash the glass.