The pleasures of puttering

Now that the house inspections are just about done, the business travel is over, and Autumn Splendor is complete, I’m mostly just puttering around.  This doesn’t mean that I’m not busy – I’m constitutionally incapable of sitting still – but I’m not focused on any Big Projects right now, and I’m not under time pressure for anything – which is unusual in my life, since I’m goal-oriented and like to set deadlines.

Which gives me time for things like shredding the giant pile of credit-card offers (which have been accumulating for – I kid you not- two years!), organizing my samples, cleaning up the studio, and lounging about.  I’m deeply enjoying it, after two weeks of highly goal-focused time pressure.

I did, however, finish weaving up the new pattern sample, and cut it off the loom and wet-finished it today.  It doesn’t seem to have the soft hand I expect from cashmere, though – probably because the cashmere weft is very tightly twisted – so I may try finishing it the way the seller recommends.  Which means dampening it and throwing it into a warm dryer to bring up the softness and fuzz.  Radical, but it works; I’ve done it before.

I have also decided to dye the yardage, primarily because the recipient isn’t really a black-and-white kind of person.  I went through my dye swatches this morning and pulled out these four candidates:

The colors are somewhat different in real life, but you get the idea.  The black will tone things down considerably, so I’m starting with fairly bright, high-contrast colors.  It will be interesting to see what comes of it.

Meanwhile, I am spending tomorrow at Sharon’s place, where she is going to teach me how to drape in one all-day extravaganza.  So the dyed samples may have to wait until Monday, which I have off because it’s a holiday in the U.S.  More time for playing!