Bright Spots in the Viral Fog

You know how when you're mostly over a cold, you're restless and want to be doing something, anything, but your body isn't cooperating and so you are bored to tears? Yep, I've been there. Recently, too, as a matter of fact. So, I was particularly happy to get two different packages in the mail which cheered me up immensely and kept the boredom at bay.

A month or so ago, Terry at Knitting the Blues had a little contest for her readers - guess the number of different teas in her tea cupboard and you win the prize! Well, I didn't guess the correct number (which was 142) (I want to see Terry's fiber stash, if that's her tea stash), but I did get drawn as the random-number entry, so Terry sent me this:

Perfect. Perfect in every way. So perfect, the chocolates in that little turquoise box with the brown bow were gone before I could focus the camera (or as close as I ever get to focusing). And did you notice that mug-warmer? It's essentially a little hat, slipped onto the mug from the bottom. Perfect. See what's under that little mug hat?

And Terry remembered that I commented I loved Lapsang Souchong tea, so she sent me some, which I really appreciated because: a) she remembered - sniff; and b) I can't find any Lapsang Souchong in my usual haunts (OK, that's only your basic grocery store, but still, I used to be able to get Lapsang Souchong in grocery stores). Lapsang Souchong is a very smoky, heavy tea, perfect for cold, raw, virus-laden January. Thank you, Terry, your gift really warmed my heart! And I am so glad she's posting to her blog every day, too ... now if only I were that focused!

Next up: Now, as you've noticed, Dear Reader, apparently I've gone over to the dark, aka weaving, side. Thus, when I saw that the Manasota Weaving Guild in Florida was selling off their extra weaving magazines, I ordered me a bundle:

Boy, there is nothing like a stack of fiber magazines to keep me out of mischief. See those yellow sticky notes in most of the issues? I want to weave everything. Everything, I tell you - rugs and placemats and napkins and shawls and scarves...

Speaking of scarves, I finished Scarf #2 off the purple Harrisville Shetland warp on my floor loom. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! Many fewer broken warp threads, a gorgeous interplay of the Cord Weave structure with the Rowan Tapestry weft, a nice handle of the finished item (weeell, maybe a little heavy), much better selvedges - I'm a happy weaver.

As I wove that scarf, I thought to myself: Hmm, you know, this weave is basically like overshot - one plain weave row followed by a twill row. Which means I could gradually move over the lengthwise columns formed by the twill rows and maybe I'd get an undulating sequence of columns. So I tried that with the next length of the purple warp, with some needlepoint yarn I have, but the needlepoint yarn was too thin to make even the nice thick columns the worsted-weight Tapestry yarn did. I pulled out the needlepoint yarn and cast my eyes about, landing on a couple of cones of Brilloso I bought at WEBS a year or so ago. Pretty! Shiny! Close at hand! So, I tried it, still using the same Cord Weave I used for the Rowan Tapestry scarf:

I like. I like a lot. The Brilloso is still not thick enough to really define those nice columns, much less allow any undulations to show up, but I'm committed to weaving the last scarf off this purple warp with this weft.

After that, who knows where I'll go!