And the wind still howls

Conditions at 5:15 am: clear and windy and 0'
Ecpected later: 1' and maybe some sun

But yet again they are predicting huge snow for the end of the week - 15 cm on Saturday. They've done that the last two weeks - told us to expect lots of snow but then it never materializes. Except of course, last Friday when they had taken the snow OUT of the forecast and then we got it anyway! Maybe it's an April Fools joke this week.

 I picked Brenda up last night on my way home where she was delivering the bus. When we got back to her place I enjoyed a quick supper ( I had to get home to let the dog out, and she had a meeting at the church) so I didn't feel too badly about eating and running. While I was there, she showed me the scrapbook that Caitlin has started on her far east adventures. What an amazing job she's done so far. This girl certainly doesn't need any help - she's totally got it. And now the two of them can bounce ideas off each other. They are both well on their way. Awesome job, ladies! 

Well, let me tell you about my weaving experience. I traveled out to Belfast on Saturday morning and easily found my way. The mills are about 7 kms past the arena down a fairly long lane. I followed the signs to the store and parking lot, which was adjacent to a fenced field with one cow, a llama and an alpaca. I chatted briefly with them although the cow was by far the most sociable of the lot, coming over to the fence to get her face scratched and to lick my hand.

I went inside the store and it was quite a lovely set up. They also have a tea room adjacent to the store that's open during the summer.  I was greeted at the door by Sheila, a lovely woman who moved to the island 16 years ago from BC. She and her husband were manufacturing the milling machines out there in the mountains, but as their business grew, and they began shipping to Europe, it made no sense to do it from the west coast. So they packed everything up and moved it here. Unfortunately she lost her husband a while ago but she has several family members who assist with the business, including her two twin daughters- Hazel and Linda. I had a lovely time and she had a loom all set up with a warp on it for me to play with. It was not quite the same style of loom as mine, but it gave me a chance to actually do some weaving. After a few minutes of instruction, she left me to it. I worked away and got the hang of it. She suggested that it would take two visits to actually finish the project - a tea towel (or dish towel, as I'm told it's called : thank you Craig!)

Off the loom, ready to be serged, washed, then hemmed

Anyway I continued on for a bit then Linda came in with tea and a Tim Horton's donut for each of us. We took a little break and then I got back to it.  Before I knew it my towel was long enough. I was amazed at the amount of shrinkage to expect, according to Sheila. We made it 36 inches long and it finally finished up at    30 1/2 inches when it was all finished.  They were both very impressed that I got it done in one sitting and joked that they had a production weaver in their midst. I think I was just too eager to have something to take home with me.  It has a few little errors but I now  know how and  why they happened. It's all a learning experience. But it really didn't take that long as I arrived at 10:00 and I was on my way home by 2:20 and that included a tea break and a tour of the production facility in the building where they actually run spinning machines.  They have a couple of small spinning wheels in the shop, although they are new ones, so I mentioned that I had a small one that was quite old so Sheila suggested that I bring it in sometime and they can have a look at it and see what we need to get it up and running. But I told her that will be a project for a later time as I have too many on the go right now and I need to master the weaving first before I go on. But she did show me some yarns that were spun with Samoyed dog hair. She says they do custom spinning and have spun all kinds of dog hair. I knew those fuzzy balls of dog hair were being stored under the bed for a reason!

The finished product!

Sheila is originally from London, England and I told her that London is one of my favorite cities (not that I've visited that many) so we had a lovely chat about that as well.  Because it's the off season, and it's all run from their home, she is very flexible with her time right now so I will start going out there on Sundays as I really need to work on Saturday. It also gives me a deadline of sorts as I told her I need to be finished instruction before kayaking season starts but that feels such a long way off right now.  So next Sunday we're going to wind the yarn to get it ready to put on the loom. We're going to do two windings, one for the loom at her place and also one for my loom at home so I can bring it home and try putting it on, so this week I have to decide just what I want to make, colours, etc. Exciting stuff!

The other exciting thing is the weavers and spinners guild here in town is open every day. Apparently they have lots of looms set up so people come in and use them all the time but Sheila is only there on Tuesdays. I'm going to drop in this morning just for a few minutes to look around and see some looms like mine in action, then I'll have a better idea of how it should work. I'm quite excited about that. I can only imagine how much trouble I can get myself into once I retire. I suppose I could have used one of their looms until I tried it but who knew?  I suppose it makes sense to assume that you don't have enough space to house a loom in your living room and to take your creative efforts elsewhere. But that's never been me - I'm more of a jump in with two feet first, then ask how deep the water is, kind of girl!