Summer Duldrums

  Last week, I had nothing to say here.  I'd made no progress on any weaving.  Okra dominates my work day.  It's been too hot to care what the yard looks like.
  Finally, the heat seemed to have relented a little in the past week, and it's actually a little cool when Bella and I go walking.  The hydrangeas are perking up a little, and the lawn guy finally came back to mow.  We snuck some peach preserves into the work schedule, just enough to make my quota, and just enough to NOT look at okra for a day or two.  We even made some peanut butter yesterday!
  This weekend, I started winding the warp for my double weave project, in the mornings before work.

I've been trying to keep the two colors separated by a finger, as it shows in Jennifer Moore's Doubleweave book, but it's not always easy!  You can see here that the colors kind of switch back and forth a little.

But here I have the first 96 threads ready and chained.  Since then, I've wound 152 more; I need 288 total.  My warping board is pretty, and it's mounted nicely to the door, but the pegs are a bit short!
  Not everyone is excited that I've been working in the mornings, instead of playing.

Bella and Weftie are kinda bummin', since they brought me their best toys and I've ignored them.  Leo and Etta gave up long ago, and are looking out windows elsewhere in the house.
  Besides okra, work has been extraordinarily busy.  My assistant, Abby, has given notice and is headed back to Iowa.  Next month, she'll be flying off to Europe for five weeks, and then on to pastry frontiers of her own.  I'll miss her, but the day she gave notice, another  woman started working on the farm who wants to make jam with me. I'm not going to tell her about the 3000 jars of pickled okra we have left to make for a little while.  I don't want her to run off to Europe, too!
  And work has cut my weekend short, as well.  Normally, I have Monday and Tuesday off, but this week, I'm sad to say, I won't be at Norris on Tuesday.  I'll be hanging out with famous chefs from France, by way of New York.  Here's a link to the website of one of the best chefs in the world:  http://www.danielnyc.com/  Daniel Boulud has a lot of restaurants, but his flagship restaurant is Daniel in New York City.  In 2005, we went there, and had a five hour, many course meal that was one of the best meals of my life.  Chef Boulud is at the farm this week, and after I gave his pastry chef, Dominique Ansel a tour of my kitchen, he asked me to come in Tuesday to help him finish his dessert for the Gala dinner.  How could I refuse?  It will probably be a 16 hour day, my first since moving to the peaceful, serene preservation kitchen, but it's the chance of a lifetime, and I'm immensely flattered that he wants my opinion of his dessert!
  Today is incredibly busy for a day off, but mostly fun stuff to do.  I'll miss my Tuesday weaving buddies this  week, but I'll have good stories to tell next week.
 Until then, Happy Weaving!
Maggie