Seaweed and Vvv-rrrrooooomba

Lovely Sea Silk warp waiting for an open loom.

	Time for naughty Gigi to give up her hammock!

OK, new year, new beginnings. In honor of our upcoming March/April issue on plant fibers, I'm designing a handwoven scarf made with Handmaiden Sea Silk fingering weight yarn. (After all, seaweed is a plant.) The skeins are in a dark green that reminds me of the water of my native Puget Sound this time of the winter, and a beautiful variegated mahogany the color of giant kelp. The scarves will (I hope) be a visual pun: cloth in a kelp forest pattern woven with yarns made from seaweed.  I'm doing a variation on an undulating twill from Marguerite Davison's Handweaver's Pattern Book.

Sadly, however, the course of both true love and weaving never did run smooth. Before I start my scarves, I have to weave off the warp on my Baby Wolf loom, which has been there long enough to become a cat hammock. (More new beginnings: naughty Gigi cat needs to find a new place to sleep.) Then I have to shovel the snow off our driveway because we've been snowed in for days and we need to get out for groceries.  But the warp is wound and waiting, and I'll be happy to sit and weave after the heavy work of snow shoveling, so it will be a cozy evening.

If you need a short break this evening, here's your chuckle for the day: check out tapestry weaver Nicki Bair's  blog about the dangers of letting a Roomba loose in your weaving studio. I laughed so hard I nearly fell off my chair!