A Project Started

We are still in the icy grip of winter.  Yuck!
Our area has been lucky with only small snowfalls of about three to four inches at a time.  No major blizzards here but it is COLD!

We took a drive on Sunday for lack of anything better to do.  I finally remembered to take my camera along.  Not that there was much that was bight and colorful to save and enjoy.  Would you believe BLEAK???  This is the vew of our valley from the top of the mountain in back of our property.

 

Since it was Sunday, churches were a good subject.  The Mennonite church near our house.  Love the rows of buggies.  And that is only about a third of them.  There are long open fronted shelters all around the sides of the church that are parked full of more buggies.  The bicycles belong to the young unmarried men and women.  The smaller kids and babies ride in the buggies with the parents.

 This is a little old church in Upper Strausburg.  I don'[t know if they still hold services there.  There were no cars around when we stopped by in the afternoon.  There is a nice little graveyard on the other side of the church that I doesn't show in the picture.

 We drove along the Big Spring near Newville.  This is one of Zip's favorite fishing spots.  He belongs to a spring preservation group that helps maintain this old mill.

I love this little abandoned spring house.

Like I said, it wasn't the most colorful tour but it did get us out of the house.  And the car has a great heater!  It's warmer in the car than it is in the house.

I've decided I need to get back to some creative projects.  I spend too much time sitting and reading.  I cranked a warp on my loom over a year ago and never finished threading.  Yesterday was the day.  It didn't take nearly as long as I expected.  I started threading in the late afternoon and by 9 p.m. I was weaving.

Threading the heddles.

The paper on top of the loom is my threading plan.

 Pulling the threads through the reed.  This keeps them evenly spaced.

Strung, tied, and ready to weave.

  The first little sample. 

When I had finished threading, I counted threads and was one thread short.
I thought I was missing a thread. Panic!!!  A missed thread that is still stuck somewhere in the roll at the back of the loom comes back to bite you big time later.
When I did my first two inches of weaving, I found the mistake.  Two threads were stuck together. I was able to fix the problem without too much hassle.. Sometimes I get lucky. 

This is a lattice twill pattern.

I'm also going to work on my Baltimore album quilt.  I had it basted by a woman who has a long arm quilter and then I was going to quilt it by hand.  I haven't done any work on it because I wasn't happy with her size.  It was just too big.  After all that work, I hated to have to tear the border off and do another narrower one.  Now that several years have passed, I'm ready to tackle that mess.
No pictures yet.

Last but not least, a word from the kitty contingent.
Isabel says she is ready for the windows to be open.  Fresh warm air is always welcome.
Winter makes her grumpy!

Thanks for stopping by!