A brand-new year of weaving (and cats!)

Happy New Year, everyone!

After a bunch of errors too tedious to mention, I’ve got Grace up and weaving. So far it’s just the painted warp, but I’m working on the other one, too.

Here are the 880 knots in this warp. I didn’t lose a single knot while pulling through, which is amazing. Score one (more) for the knotter!

Here’s the new warp. I’m using this one to weave samples for an upcoming class:

The samples I’m weaving right now are illustrating the effects of weft color choices, weft size, and thread density (sett). They’re pretty simple, but I’ll be progressing towards more complex ones soon.

The velvet warp is not going so smoothly. It is fully tied on (thank you, knotter!), but I did something not-entirely-smart when I started pulling through, and as a result am having to pull each thread through individually – twice. All 1,320 of them.

So of course I barged ahead. But after doing about 200 of them, I started getting tendinitis/irritation from the repeated pinch-and-pull motion. I have a powerlifting meet coming up in just under three weeks, and I am NOT going to miss it with an arm injury! So I have stopped work on the velvet warp until things are completely healed, and am going to be careful afterwards. And doing massage, stretching, flossing, etc. (lots of etc.) to help it heal quicker.

On the powerlifting front, my wrestling singlet has arrived. This is mandatory wear for powerlifting meets, probably meant as an equalizer – wearing one makes EVERYONE look terrible! They are one-piece, skin-tight Spandex from the mid-thigh up. Unless you’re Chris Hemsworth playing the young Thor (yum!), it will make you look fat and lumpy. BUT, powerlifting (unlike bodybuilding) isn’t about looks, but about strength. The singlet enables the judges to determine more easily whether a lift is legal, so there you go.

Of course, I’ve elected to customize mine. For some *cough* strange reason, nobody sells 100% cotton wrestling singlets intended for dyeing. (Can you believe that???) But you can get custom print jobs, so this is the singlet I’ll be competing in:

I do need to get it shortened, though – it was clearly designed for someone much taller than me, so instead of mid-thigh, it comes down to my knees! That’s not legal for competition, so a friend is helping me shorten it tomorrow.

I’m super excited about this upcoming meet. It will be my second powerlifting meet ever, and it’s hosted by the gym I train at, so it will be on familiar ground. I have two goals for this meet:

1. lift as much as I can (a new PR – personal record – would be nice, but not necessary)
2. qualify for USPA Drug-Tested Nationals 2024, to be held in Las Vegas June 24-29.

Qualifying for Nationals isn’t going to be hard, assuming I don’t fall completely on my face. To qualify for Nationals, I’d only have to total 634 pounds between squat, bench press, and deadlift. My personal bests currently total 780 pounds. So as long as I don’t bomb out completely, I should qualify.

Since you get three tries at each lift, I’m planning to start with something very conservative, then go to match my personal bests, and if I get that lift, I’ll try to set some new personal records for myself.

One of the nice things about being over 50 is that nobody is watching you. All the intense scrutiny is on the 20- and 30-somethings lifting 600+ pounds (and may I say that Stefi Cohen is AMAZING?? There’s nothing more compellingly attractive than a woman who can lift 4.5x her body weight!). So, no pressure, just the chance to have fun and set some personal records.

(OK, I DO want to set some national records, but that probably won’t happen for a few years, at least.)

That’s it for now, but I’ll leave you with the Best Cat Photo of 2023: Fritz and Tigress demonstrating the lost art of Yin-Yang napping!