Bob and Weave

This past Friday and Saturday were the beginning classes for Navajo Weaving at the shop. Betty Forsyth is the instructor. She's been studying Navajo Weaving for many years and I am so happy we could put this class together. We have four students in this class that begins with an evening and a full day followed by 5 weekly evning classes. These pictures were taken on Saturday at lunch time after all of the students had gotten their looms warped and up on the tables to begin weaving.
The looms and the warping method are all traditoonal Navajo. There are a lot of steps and I am amazed at the amount of tension the warp is under after it is all on the loom. I will be taking pictures to show the student's progress each week. All of them had gotten at least 2 inches woven and learned a couple of different stitches done by the end of the day on Saturday.
Today when I got home I found this beautiful package waiting for me. It's from another swap pal from the Fiber Frenzy Swap. This swap was for handspun yarn.
Diane sent me two skeins of Polwarth - which I love! I have a little bit of Polwarth in the shop and keep hiding it. I want to use it for one of my COE skeins and we looked at this breed in the Fine Wools Breed Study over the summer. These skeins are both very squooshy and lovely. I may have some problems knitting it though. I think it's more for use as pillows. Then again, that may not be a great idea since there is sometimes drooling and I wouldn't want to felt it. =)

Also in the package was some dark, dark, dark chocolate in my favorite brand and some silk (yay), Caramello Koala Chocolate - ate one, yummy-, beautiful stitch markers and some handmade soap that smells lovely (it's cinnamon from Covent Garden Market in London). I don;t know if I can handle all of these fab packages and I know I'm still waiting for one more - hee.
Now, because I have no, no, no self control I started the Highland Triangle Shawl. I did the swatching on Saturday during the Navajo class. This is the beginning of the gauge swatch on Size 6 needles. I was slightly off on gauge so I tried size 8s and the gauge was perfect! I'm excited because US8 is the size that was called for in the pattern. Know what that means? The yarn was the correct size!
Here it is as it looks tonight with about 75 rows knitted. I like it a lot. The stitche pattern is pretty easy to memorize and, though Wensleydale is not the softest yarn, it is so very shiny.

Today before all of the floor loom weavers came in I was practicing a little on the Reeves Charkha that I borrowed from Faina. This is not my strength. I'm having some great difficulty. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

What? Where's the Feather and Fan Shawl? I'm still whittling away at it. Little by little but it doesn;t look that much different. Give me another week and I give you another picture.

And now for something you'll really like. Here's Maggie on Saturday at her first skating lesson of the season.