{"id":5545,"date":"2018-08-12T17:09:24","date_gmt":"2018-08-12T17:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/?p=5545"},"modified":"2018-08-12T17:11:57","modified_gmt":"2018-08-12T17:11:57","slug":"dog-days-are-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/?p=5545","title":{"rendered":"Dog Days are Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

It must have been moments after my last post that summer’s heat arrived with a vengeance. Ouch!\u00a0 We’ve had a full week now of temperatures close to 90 and even a little higher.\u00a0 I’ve been hiding inside my climate controlled house.\u00a0 I miss fresh air, but it’s hard to breathe 90* air with an equal amount of humidity.\u00a0 Boy, have we had some impressive thunderstorms.<\/p>\n

Hiding out from the heat is a great way to get things done.\u00a0 I finished my first attempt at weaving on a taka dai, thanks to my friend Clare allowing me to use hers while I wait to for mine to arrive.\u00a0 It’s an 18 month wait, so I won’t be holding my breath.<\/p>\n

This is the standard first braid that almost everyone makes.\u00a0 I used 60\/2 silk from WEBs.\u00a0 There are 12 strands on each tama, and a total of 25 tama make this pattern.\u00a0 It is just plain weave, and therefore it’s relaxing to weave.\u00a0 I twined the fringe that comes to a point at the end of the braid.<\/p>\n

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It’s been a good week for doing a little re-organizing.\u00a0 Bob built some shelves for me in our den where we had a useless closet that had only one shelf<\/em> and a horde of items we need on occasion.\u00a0 I wish I had taken a before photo.\u00a0 In a closet with 8 feet of height there was only one shelf at the halfway point.\u00a0 Now it holds an array of things, neatly organized.<\/p>\n

You must be thinking I’ve lost my mind to take a picture of a closet!\u00a0 Well, that’s how excited I get when chaos is momentarily curbed by order.\u00a0 Thank you, Bob!<\/p>\n

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This little activity sent me down to my studio to re-organize some of my cabinets and drawers there.\u00a0 I won’t bore you with more photos.\u00a0 My studio is still quite a mess at the moment, but it’s comforting to know that my cabinets look a lot better and are more useful.\u00a0 Once I knuckle down on some projects I’m preparing I can straighten up the studio–just in time for fall.<\/p>\n

The Big E is coming in about a month.\u00a0 For those of you outside New England, this is a nickname for the Eastern Exposition, a mammoth country fair that includes all of New England.\u00a0 There are all the traditional country fair events on a large scale–livestock judging, baked items and canned items judging, dairy judging, butter sculpting competition, handwork competitions in various categories, and of course there is a midway.\u00a0 Members from my bobbin lace guild always submit an arry of entries in order to educate the public on what bobbin lace is and to demonstrate that there are people who still make lace by hand.\u00a0 I’ll be demonstrating there on Sept. 19th, which is Connecticut Day this year.\u00a0 I thought that was a good day to be on hand.\u00a0 If you’re in the area, please stop by and say hello!\u00a0 I’ll be in the building that has displays of handwork.<\/p>\n

I’ll be submitting the christening dress I made for Tori last year.\u00a0 It has about 2 1\/2 yards of lace on it, and I made the dress to boot.\u00a0 I’m no seamstress so making the dress was a bigger hurdle than making the lace.\u00a0 Also, I’m far<\/em> from the best lace maker in CT, much less in New England, but I’m submitting the dress anyway.\u00a0 It’s not about getting an award; it’s just about showing that it’s still possible to make enough lace for a garment.\u00a0 Even a clumsy newbie can do it!<\/p>\n

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I still haven’t mounted my little Portuguese Man of War tapestry, but I have got all the mounting materials gathered in one place now.\u00a0 I just need to do it.\u00a0 Perhaps today.<\/p>\n

While escaping the heat I’ve been googling around.\u00a0 Did you know that Jean Pierre Larochette and Yael Lurie have a daughter, Yadin, who weaves tapestry? She wrote a brief post <\/a>about her family tradition of weaving related to the exhibition “Woven Gold: Tapestries of Louis XIV.”\u00a0 You can scroll through photos of this exhibition on the Getty site.<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve watched this 10-minute video before, and may have posted it here in the past.\u00a0 It’s worth a re-visit if you have a few minutes.\u00a0 It makes my fingers itch to be weaving!
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