Done, done, and done

 The celebration towels came out of the dryer!

They're all washed, pressed, and cut apart!

 

 

 

 

 

 

In other news, the yard has been coming along nicely.  I spent some time working on the two cherry trees and the rose bushes out in the backyard.

Everything is just so bushy and overgrown.  I know it's the wrong season to prune some trees, but this is the only time I have to do it!  The last thing this area needs is the cleanup of those leaves, now that I can reach them.

I also worked on getting all the weeds picked at the property line.  Thanks to the help from my dad, I could have never accomplished this much in one morning!  It looks so much better!

Next weekend, not only do I need to get the rest of the leaves under control, but I also want to get started on the garden beds and maybe trim some dead branches from a few trees around the house.

 

While I was out, I noticed a lot of fruit growth already on some of the trees!

The half-peach tree is chugging away on those peaches.  I can't believe it came back to life!  It was almost dead when we moved into the house 2 years ago.  I wish our other peach tree would have survived.

 The apples:

 And I just can't believe how many roses are on our bushes!  They aren't looking as good as they were a few days ago, but this is the most I've ever seen on it!

 I re-discovered a forgotten rosebush deep down in our yard.  It looks so pretty, too!  I forget it's down there and I always miss out on the prettiest pink roses.  There are so many this year!!  I hope that's a good sign and means our fruit trees will be very productive this year!

And the celebration is over!

  The celebration towels are off the loom!

 

 Check out this cool texture that is forming now that the tension is all gone!

 More texture... and now with stripes this time!

 I love looking through fabric and seeing the structure better!  So fascinating!

This picture shows the front and the back of the towel side by side.

 I can't believe that these towels are done!

Now I need to figure out what I want to focus on next!

Striped towels

 I've started weaving the very last towel of my celebrations warp!

I decided to use up the last of my bobbins and make a striped towel with all the colors.

 I'm just going to be doing some random stripe patterns, nothing at all will be planned!

 So far... so good...

And in the humor section today, we have a picture puzzle invented by one of my students:

I had to laugh out loud when they came up with that one!  

Enjoy!

Grape Flavored

I like looking at it at different angles!

 Each angle looks different!

PINK!

Check out the weaving detail here!  I like how sometimes there are two threads running vertically and sometimes there are two threads running horizontally.  So neat!

The pink is just perfect for spring and Mother's Day!  It is a 20/2 unmercerized cotton that I bought in Utah during a summer trip in 2010.  The warp is the same 16/2.  I took a chance with the pink because it's only one size smaller than the warp.  I am also thinking of taking a chance with a weft yarn one size bigger than the warp, like 12/2.  I have a lot of color choices for 12/2!

 

 The design reminds me of bright cheerful flower petals!

I think the pink is my favorite so far!

More on thick and thin denim

Making progress and moving right along with the thick and thin denim yarn!

Symbolically, the thick and thin weft goes well with the project as a whole because we have been through thick and thin!  If you're lost, see the post here:
http://weave-away.blogspot.com/2012/04/celebrations.html

 

It sure feels good to be doing some dishtowels again.  I missed weaving dishtowels but didn't really realize it until now!

By the way, here's a back shot of the fabric:

Different sizes

I finished the first towel with teal colored yarn and now I'm onto weaving the second one.

 Here's a up close shot.  Notice anything unusual?

I'm weaving with thick and thin yarn for the first time!
Look at all that texture just waiting to get woven into my next towel!

 This time I chose a denim colored yarn that has been spun into different sizes.  The yarn is thick in some spots and thin in other spots.  It's a cotton/rayon mix about 16/2 in size on the small areas.

 

I think this one will look really neat when it's off the loom and washed up!  

A clean canvas

This natural colored warp looks soooooo refreshing!  It's been a long time since I've had a warp that looks like a clean canvas....

... a clean canvas begging for designs!

I checked it twice!

I swear I checked my tie-ups twice, or maybe even 3 times!  But the other day I found one error and it made a world of a difference!  Personally, I think that the pattern is so much clearer now that I fixed it!  I probably should have completed the one dishtowel all the way before I made the change...

Here are the errors pointed out.

 Here is a section of "good" cloth.  Notice how much easier it is to see the pattern!  That one error made quite a difference...

Here is the original draft, in case you missed it!

 I'm glad I caught this before I went on and wove them all!!

In yard news...

We have 6 bags of yard debris going out tomorrow!

The peach tree has been cut mostly down.  It's in far back in the center.  The rose bush on the left was tamed down.  Now we have two really big piles of debris to slowly dispose of!  The city is doing a dump day next week so perhaps we can get rid of it then.  I need to take care of the bushes in the very back, too.  They are soooo bushy!

I'm really sad we lost our peach tree.  It gave us half a tree of peaches our first fall here, but then no more.  They were the best peaches I've ever tasted!  The bugs pretty much bled the tree of all its sap.
RIP peach tree!  We will definitely be replanting as soon as we debug the ground.

 This tree went really quickly.  It all happened in a matter of less than 6 months!

At least we have somewhat revived the peach tree in the back yard.  It's only half a tree, but it does have little tiny peaches on it!!!  Hang in there half tree!!!