Weaving Inkle Bands for Purses

This past week I have woven a couple bands on my inkle loom for purses. It doesn't sound that interesting but I really enjoy it and love using all sorts of yarns, especially ones that I have just small amounts of. I started out the week trying some tablet woven pebble weave of cats. Between how slow it is, reading the pattern chart and having the weaving get out of control and narrowing, I just gave up after 5 cats. It just was not enjoyable weaving and I wasted over a full day on it. The next 2 bands are woven of handspun wools, some variegated or blended in various ways, silk, some shiny variegated viscose rayon, and dragon tales variegated cotton...all in various blues. Despite the seeming hodge podge of yarns, the colors blend beautifully and come in and out of the weaving because of all the variegated yarns. I need one more narrower band for a purse and it should be gorgeous after I embellish it with some beads and maybe a little embroidery. For some reason, I don't use blue that much in my work so I wanted the challenge of using it in something. I don't dislike the color, in fact, I'm enjoying using it very much so it has been just an unexpected pleasure weaving this week, after the cats, of course.

Last week was beautiful and part of spring is washing fleece. Since I'm trying to use up the huge stash that I had rather than buying anything new, I went through some fleeces and a few were washed several years ago and got sticky waiting around to be used. I probably didn't wash them well enough the first time. So I washed them better this time and laid them out on a sheet in the back yard. Those dried nicely so instead of repacking them up, I decided to card them so they would be ready to spin and then I could dye the colors I wanted after spinning. These were a couple corriedale fleeces from when we had sheep over 6 years ago so they were special to me, and for some reason the fleece spins much easier before dyeing than after. But it was more fleece than I realized and took a long time this week to drumcard but I do have a mountain of batts to work on now when I need it.

Last Saturday, we finally were able to hike in the mountains and it was a gorgeous day. We didn't see any other wildlife besides zillions of Painted Lady butterflies even though the sign at the trailhead warned of moose near the trail. The butterflies were swarming all over and even landing on us. On Monday, it snowed 11" and was cold all week but getting spring like again this weekend so we can go hiking again. Might be snow in the mountains but it will be warm. It is so good to be able to get out every weekend again. I wonder where the butterflies go in the snow.