Spring!

I'm continuing in the spirit of Tina's blog, writing about all kinds of things except what's supposed to be woven on my looms, like the waffle towels that have sat there for a week with hems ending one and beginning the next, not exactly conducive for a picture! or the other towels that have sat there since we wove in Townsend. My workhorse Nilus has had a couple of warps on it but they're all natural or variations thereof, not really great for picture taking. The one with the "fur" is off and waiting to be serged, another done and about to be cut off, the warp about to go on also natural but with another accent yarn in it. Hopefully that will be off this coming week and I'll get something more interesting on the loom. I do have plans!



This week we wove at Knoxville Museum of Art on Thursday. LouAnn did a great job writing about what happened there before 1pm. That's when I came. This first picture is what they wove. She and Carl had fun experimenting with strips of black with their colors. I hadn't thought of that!
I was there for 2 hours and had a blast! I continued their color ideas and wove a few bobbins of color. Then a mother with her about 8 year old came and started winding bobbins which I wove for them. They live just about 10 miles from where we weave each week and the high school colors are orange black and white. Of course they filled bobbins with those colors and only the 3 of us know that in this bolt of fabric are the colors of the Clinton High School! They had so much fun!
It will be hard to say goodbye to this project. We've had so much more fun than we thought we would! It has been a learning experience for all of us. We're no longer afraid of a temple! Might even use one on occasion depending on the project!

Part of spring in Knoxville is the Dogwood Festival. It's huge! There's 2 weeks of all kinds of exhibits, trails to drive or walk on to see the beautiful displays of color. One of the traditions is the craft fair that now is downtown at Market Square. This is a Fine Crafts Fair with booths of good quality crafts. I haven't done an outside show in 3 years and don't intend to again so this year I went to enjoy visiting with friends. I thought this view from the south looking up toward the Square with vendors on the left, azaleas in the middle, and out of view on the right more booths in another area gives just a glimpse of what was there.

A couple of my best craft friends that I do all the shows that I do with (they do tons more) each year are woodworkers. We've done some swapping. I have great pens and other items and they were my vests and jackets! They were situated in the square to the side near Gay Street. Martha was demonstrating woodturning her pens.

I hadn't seen her do that before so seeing her with goggles and mask was interesting! She had all the kids totally enamored. She let some of them help her and you know they won't forget that!
Terry makes alot of things like tables, chairs and carved bowls.

I think I mentioned a week or so ago that I had to make a baby quilt for a friend. The shower was supposed to be yesterday afternoon. Friday the Dad called to say that their baby was at children's hospital with an infection and would be all weekend. So, we had to postpone it. Talk about trying to remember who all we invited and calling them all..........so I didn't panic as I'd planned to finish the quilt Friday! Instead yesterday afternoon I worked on it. It just had to be quilted. I'm almost done that. Have done all the straightforward quilting but need to drop the feed dogs, change the foot and do some free motion quilting around the pictures. That plus add the binding and remove all the safety pins that keep the layers together. No sweat, since we figure it'll be a month before we try for that shower again! I think they're going home today or tomorrow.

Last week I took a picture out of one of our 8 windows around the kitchen table. Today I poked my head out the window and took a picture of more of the redbud tree. It's still gorgeous.

At the top of the tree, kind of the middle of the picture is wisteria that's just starting to come out.

Wisteria here in this area of the world is an invasive plant. We moved to this hill in 1980 and a few years later we saw way down the hill, actually on neighbor's property that there was some wisteria. We were jealous but didn't get any. We have 3 acres of hill, lots of trees, ivy, etc. Can't grow a decent garden! Well, about 5 years ago that wisteria had come right up the hill and is around our house. Each year we cut it back because it will kill the trees, but it comes back! I'm sure that once this bunch finishes blooming, DH will be out there trying to kill it again!

Here's a close up of the wisteria, almost peak, gorgeous to look at and a bit like the lilacs that I miss so much from growing up south of Winnipeg!

We don't have the winters they have up there and apparently lilacs like it really cold in winter. Up there they have full hedges of lilacs that smell wonderful when they bloom and fill the area with gorgeous color.

About 3 years ago DH bought me several lilac plants. Last year we had a few blossom them. This year, two of the plants are at least 7 feet tall and have some really nice blossoms.
What's a girl to do? Of course, cut some and bring them inside to enjoy!

This to me is spring! Lilacs blooming in my kitchen! They're happy sitting among my African Violets on the ledge just above my kitchen sink. In Winnipeg they aren't even thinking about lilacs yet. They won't bloom til probably June!

This week I'll weave some more and hope to have some pictures of a good warp or two on the looms. For now, I think I'll just go over and get another whiff of lilac...........

Carol