Sea turtles and spring cleaning

I decided to finish putting the new warp onto the loom this weekend. AVL is sending someone to fix the loom on Monday, and I thought it would be better to have a warp on the loom for troubleshooting purposes. So I finished threading the long-languishing sea-turtle warp, tied on, and wove my first row of sea turtles:

It came out surprisingly well, though I think the background ripples aren’t showing very well. After the loom is repaired (no more floating shafts, please!) I may play with the network drafted background pattern to see if I can make it show more distinctly. I may also change the aspect ratio on the sea turtles to make them a little longer.

Plans for the rest of the weekend are to work on the book and do a bit more spring cleaning. I finished reorganizing the garage two weeks ago – a Herculean effort that involved moving every item in the garage at least twice. I put up three sets of 2′ x 4′ utility shelves and moved all the clutter off the floor and into neatly stacked plastic boxes. That took an entire three-day weekend, working eleven hours a day! But it was worth it – the garage is much neater now, and (more to the point) the loom is now accessible from every side, to make for easier repairs.

So now I’m turning my attention indoors, and will be cleaning up the dining room, living room, kitchen, and bathroom. I am a terrible housekeeper at the best of times, but things are cluttered and dirty even beyond my ability to tolerate, so tonight and tomorrow will be spring cleaning.

I realize spring cleaning may be a bit of a ways away for most of you. But out here, spring came about a month ago. It started with the violets:

(The white things on the violets are almond flower petals – the almond tree, while harder to photograph, was in dazzling bloom as well.)

We now have California poppies, blueberry bushes, and peach trees flowering. And, of course, the ever-enthusiastic artichoke plant is pumping out a bumper crop of tasty, tender flower buds:

Artichokes are amazing. We cut the plant back to the ground last summer, and it’s already a six-foot mound again. And, of course, the artichokes are delicious. Since they are so abundant, we pick them young, while you can still eat the “choke” in the center – much more tender and delicious that way. I love this time of year.

I also had a lovely trip to Seattle, where I got to meet some wonderful people at the Seattle Weavers Guild meeting. I presented one program about the creative process and the evolution of designs, and another one about my wedding dress adventures. I had just enough time for a cup of coffee with a fellow Caltech alumna before flying back. My latte arrived looking so beautiful I had to snap a photo:

Not much book progress this week as I was mostly working on my presentations for the Seattle Weavers Guild, but I did read through the entire manuscript twice on my trip. This morning I finished integrating the changes from those read-throughs. I will make a few more edits, update some diagrams, and add some illustrative photos before sending it off to the editors for comment, but it’s in pretty good shape, I think. Nowhere near polished, but I have all the content in, and it’s almost ready to go out to the artists I interviewed so they can review their quotes and send me photos of themselves and their work. So I am feeling fairly good about that.

My last task for the next two weeks is to figure out post-surgery projects. Surgery is March 12, and as it’s abdominal surgery, I’m likely to be stuck in bed for at least a couple of days. So I am casting about for things to do. I already have a big stack of books to read (hallelujah, a chance to read through that three-foot stack on my worktable!), weaving videos to watch, and so on. But I’d like to do something with my hands, and I’m guessing that inkle or card  weaving will involve too much abdominal movement/stress for the first few days. So I’m thinking I may try a knitting project. Perhaps a fabulous pair of socks is in my future?

Speaking of socks, I am developing my own set of feline sock woes. I admit that I had been waxing somewhat smug about the fact that Fritz steals B.’s socks but leaves mine alone. But pride goeth before a fall, as they say, and a few days ago I found about half my sock supply had fallen off the shelf and onto the floor, along with a couple of my T-shirts. Wondering how they had gotten there, I scooped them up and started putting them back on the shelf. Suddenly a head popped out!

Apparently those shelves now belong to Tigress; they are perfect for napping, once you push off those inconvenient clothes that the silly human keeps putting there.

I tried to reason with her, of course. Here’s what she thought of my remonstrances:

Apparently I need to find a new place to put my clothes!