A productive day

I finished the shawl I’ve been weaving!

I’m still not sure how I feel about the colors–I think they’re OK, not ugly but also not stunningly beautiful. I figure I’ll let that sit and percolate for awhile.

Overall it looks pretty good–the selvages are relatively even (although I did have significant draw-in), and apart from one area where I inexplicably wound up with very long floats on the reverse side, it’s well-woven. I rate it “not bad for beginner’s work”.

I still have to twist the fringe on it (I did a few threads before aborting to work on chocolate), wash it, and finish it, but the weaving is complete. I cut it off the loom this afternoon, just after B. got back from his race. WOW! What an accomplishment. I’m feeling happy and proud.

Also happy because I’ve completed the first round of chocolate-making: chocolate-dipped apricots, pears, plums, candied ginger, macadamia nuts, and cherry-almond clusters. I’m not happy with the cherry-almond clusters–Trader Joe’s, my source of dried sour cherries, has changed their cherry formula to just plain dried cherries (instead of whatever they had before), and they’re not nearly as good/tart IMO as the ones they had before. I’m going to sample them again in the morning, and if I still don’t like them, they go to the coworkers, not friends and family. Same with the macadamia nuts – I used salted ones this time since they were all I had, and I suspect unsalted is better. I’ll have to try some in the morning.

And, I managed to get rats to feed to Isis and Astarte. The pet shop has been out of rats for several weeks now, but they had them today and I bought four. Isis gets three, Astarte gets one, and I get to feel good because my sweetie Isis is FINALLY eating again!

So all in all, it’s been a productive day, and I’m feeling pretty good.

Now, of course, the next question: what do I put on the loom next?