Guess what?
I don't want to work.
This should not be surprising. Working is what I have been doing for last two months, to the exclusion of most other fun things, like posting about the minutiae of my life (bad blogger!!). It wasn't supposed to be like that, but at some point over the summer I accepted some work that I then totally forgot about. Didn't write it on my schedule, didn't even remember that I had it coming. So when the work itself showed up in my inbox, I had to figure out how to squish it in with all the other work that I had accounted for. It took a little lot of whining and a few long days and extra Saturdays (along with some very lame dinners), but everything is under control now. I have even been in a more business-like frame of mind, where I actually sit down and get to work at a reasonable hour, rather than putzing around on the internet all morning. Yesterday, though, was a sick day around here. My daughter and I spent the entire morning visiting our respective doctors, who told us we had strep throat (we knew that) and should take antibiotics and rest and drink lots of fluids (we knew that too). So we did. We spent the rest of the day curled up with herbal teas and soups and movies and, in my case, knitting. And now I want more. Not of the meds and teas so much, but definitely more afternoons with movies and knitting and permission to ignore all of the things I normally am accountable for on a Wednesday afternoon.
It's Thursday now, though, and the meds have kicked in and sent my sore throat packing, so here I am getting ready to work. Soon.
While we are waiting for me to become a productive working citizen again, please enjoy this brief sojourn into my life as a weaver of comically mis-sized linens.
A little less than two years ago, I set up my new-to-me table loom. It involved a bunch of planning, and then another bunch of re-planning, as I noted here, but my intent was to make placemats--an item always in short supply in my house-- or maybe towels and I noted with pleasure how quickly the weaving was going here.
20 months later, the placemats/towels/whateverthehelltheyweresupposedtobe were done.
Oh how marvelously speedy this weaving thing is!
And here they are:
Beauteous, no?
They have been hemmed and washed. For this first picture, they were even ironed. That will never happen again because I am not a person who believes in ironing things. But it was their first day on the job and, just once, I wanted to see them looking all sparkly and professional before I put them to work as fingertip towels.
Fingertip towels? Weren't they supposed to be placemats? Or kitchen towels?
Yes they were. Right up until they came out of the dryer demonstrating a genius-level aptitude for shrinkage, one that far exceeded my wildest expectations.
Here is one of my towels, the largest one, laid out with a real kitchen towel.
And now you see why they have been designated "fingertip towels." They started out 17"x14" and ended up 13.5" x 11.5". In hindsight, the original pre-washed size was not one that would ever have yielded a placemat or kitchen towel. Now instead of drying dishes with them and marveling at my ability to make my own useful kitchen items, I hang them in the kitchen and try to remember to use them to dry my hands--very daintily, as befits their name-- after I wash stuff.
Oh well. I am pleased that I have finally cleared the project off the table loom (one less project taunting me with its half-finished state) and can turn that bugger over to the kids, who are entirely immune to UFO guilt. And the floor loom is now warped for some real kitchen towels designed by someone (not me) who actually knows what she is doing.
They have to turn out better, don't they?
