Heatwave, Voles and Placemats

This seemingly endless heatwave continues.  Every day is very hot, but yesterday was exceptionally so -- 108 degrees by late afternoon.  I turn on the misters in the chicken coop and behind the house to provide some relief to the birds.  The chickens very quickly learned where to stand to get the maximum amount of spray.  Out back, the wild birds -- scrub jays, woodpeckers, hummingbirds, titmice,  finches -- come and go all day long to cool off.  They flit about the mister strung through the trees and shake their feathers and preen the droplets drifting onto their feathers.

The battle against the voles continues.  I read in our local newspaper that this rodent explosion that we are suffering from is going on all throughout the county.  The article (front page) corroborated what I'd heard that this is a direct result of our exceptionally wet winter that produced a super abundance of grass.  The irony isn't lost on me -- what a price to pay for finally getting relief from our drought.  These days it does seem like we are being hit by extremes of everything:  deluge of rain in the winter, unrelenting heat in the summer, huge populations of voles and gophers and the perfect conditions for catastrophic fires on a regular basis.  Is this what climate change looks like in our little spot on the planet?

In between occasionally killing voles with a shovel and running outside at regular intervals to move the hose from one surviving shrub or tree to the other, I've been working on a weaving project.  Actually, it's taken me over a month to get to the point of actually getting the project on the loom.  I was a mass of paralyzing indecision at every step along the way:  what I wanted to make (a shawl?  a throw?  A runner?  I finally settled on placemats); the colors; the type of yarn; the pattern... Even after I'd decided on something, I'd go back later, undecide it and then have to plan everything all over again.  It was an endless loop.

In the end, what "unstuck" me was attending my first meeting with a small group of weavers I'd been invited to join.  After a potluck by the river, each of us brought out a piece of work or finished product that we wanted to share.  I brought my patterns, a basket of yarn possibilities, and a ruler wrapped with the sequence of stripes I was planning on using (or not using).  The ladies gave me the exact kind of support I needed and my fixation on achieving perfection dropped away. Such a relief.  My marching orders were to be ready to bring what I'd made to next month's meeting.  Somehow, through them, I've regained my ability to accept shortcomings and mistakes.
                                                             

The planning stage: after endless calculations, I still got the width wrong and had to remove two stripes.

The kittens sleeping below the loom

I think my two "helpers" were busy

Hecuba holding things down

 

Two days later: Despite a tangled warp (how on earth did it get that way?), incorrect yarn calculations, a broken warp thread, and a skipped heddle, everything was sorted out.










Today I start to weave.  This is the part of the process that always has me biting my fingernails -- all flaws will be revealed.

I'll start with a sampler to check for threading errors.  After I've fixed what needs fixing, I'll go on to experimenting with the color(s) to weave as my weft.