Spring

We are having lovely sunshine these last few days and it really is giving the idea that Spring is arriving. Nights are still cold but with the clock having gone to Summer Time (clock gone forward one hour) the light in the evening is longer so enjoying the sun even longer in the garden.
It was lovely to have my granddaughter here, as I surely miss my DH as we loved to chill out in the garden. She is back home now though but it was lovely whilst it lasted.

Felting and more

The weekend before last, I did the picture felting workshop with Helen Melvin at De Spinners. In total there were 4 workshops going on that weekend. Saturday evening we ate Japanese together, it was a really nice meal. I had never eaten Japanese.
For the felting workshop we were given a bag full of natural died wool and yarns + a photo. The wool and yarn colours were taken from the photo. First we felted a small piece of felt. Next we felted the bigger piece in the colours of the photo. Best was to take just a small part of the photo as inspiration for the felting. This was all wet felting, the next day we were going to use the sewing machine to get it all together. The small piece we made was to get used to using the sewing machine for this. I managed to do some but the thread kept braking so in the end I gave up and used the embellisher machine to get the bigger felted piece together. I'm still hoping to use my sewing machine to give the finishing touch to it all but I had great fun using the embellisher. I had not used one myself before.

My Magic Dobby is still not working. I phoned with Louet and they were very helpful and I tried out what they advised but still no luck so I will phone Louet again this week and hope to get to the bottom of the problem. I cannot get my computer to talk to the interface. I really miss my computer goeroe next to me.

The warp is rewound and ready for weaving. Problem was the Louet raddle being to narrow with the half centimetre division for the mohair yarn and in the end I used my own raddle (made by my father years ago when  he could still see) and that worked fine for this type of yarn.

I'm planning to weave a network draft taken from Thrilling Twills from Fiberworks, I've had to delete some threads from the design as my warp did not have enough threads to weave the original. But I'm happy with it.

I had some distraction this weekend as my granddaughter came to stay with me unexpectedly. Today we went to the seaside as she had not been before. Still to cold to bath but we have been looking at shells and had great fun together. Tomorrow she is going back home again.

She is not yet 4 and she really enjoyed herself in the sun. Is it not lovely to be young? Her older brother will come at Easter and I'll take him also to the seaside as he too has not been before and he loves shells and stones.

This, that and the other

My dobby loom is not yet working. Not sure what I'm not doing correctly or if it is the interface itself. I'm very much missing my computer buddy now. Also still have to re-wind the warp.

For the moment I'm concentrating on other things. I'm having guests this weekend arriving tomorrow from England, we'll be going to a 2-day workshop this weekend in The Hague.

Always great fun these English teaching workshops at De Spinners.
I'm going to do the felting workshop given by Helen.
Monday/Tuesday will be sightseeing days with another friend who is also coming over for the workshop but staying over in The Hague.
So Wednesday is the earliest I can start sorting out the dobby loom.

We have had some lovely sunny days this week. A real feeling of Spring is in the air. The garden is calling too, I've done a bit of tidying up today. Not all my lavender plants were cut last Autumn so that is a job still to be done.

Also took most of my father's clothes to charity today together with a few things from David. Taking small steps at a time.

Celebration of life

Today was my father's cremation. So much to sort beforehand. Up until this morning I was listening to music for this afternoon. All went well and I was able to say whatever I was going to say.

It is all so final.
When my husband died, I found out that you could go all the way to the oven at the crematorium. This was such a help for me to be able to do that. So, with my father I wanted to do the same. It was a different crematorium, so all was different but we were able to go to the oven again.
If you ever go to a cremation, I highly recommend you try and go as far as the oven. It is only for the close family but it really brings things to an end.
I have tried to make it a celebration of life rather than doom and gloom.
We finished with this music.
 It was his own wish to have this music played. He loved that film.
So many people said afterwards that this music made all the difference to it all.
Tomorrow I have some legal things to sort out, but afterwards I can start to sort out my Magic Dobby loom with the new interface. Watch this space.......

Magic Dobby

Today the interface arrived from Louet!

It will have to wait until after the cremation on Tuesday for installation but it will be something to look forward to. By that time I hope to have the Silver Plus update for PCW.
I have a small 10" laptop that I'll use for operating the loom.
I have warped the loom with this warp but the tension was not even everywhere so a friend will come and help me to redo the warping. The uneven tension is because of the Louet raddle. To keep the threads in place I used an elastic band but as the warp is mohair it has been pulling in some places giving the uneven tension. The previous warps were silk and Tencel, so smooth, and that went ok doing it this way. Just did not think what I was doing at the time (my thoughts where elsewhere...). A good learning curve. Next time I have a woolly warp like this, I will not use an elastic band but may be use tape on top of the raddle to keep the threads in place.

The sun is shining, temperature not yet high, but what a difference the sun makes. Spring at last?