New Year Miracle

Miracle, you say? Isn't she being a bit dramatic.

Well, yes, that is true. But I do have a miracle to report. First, there's the fact that I have posted to my blog TWO DAYS IN A ROW!!! That in itself is jaw-droppingly awesome.

But wait, there's more!

I decided this will be a year with NO resolutions. We don't need no stinkin' resolutions.

But last night I went to a burning bowl ceremony at the Unity Center. This is a powerful exercise, where you meditate, then write on a piece of paper all that you wish to release from the past year. We went single file past grills with blazing fire, and got to toss our lists into the fire. Then we went through another meditation, followed by writing down what we wish to be, do or have in 2009. The final question, to ponder and take home, was "Who must I become to bring this forth?"

I thought about it a lot last night. The result was that I woke up this morning and decided to spend the day doing the things I love that I end up seldom doing due to fear or procrastination.

So, I ...

• made a healthy smoothie for breakfast,
• flossed my teeth in the morning,
• spent some time playing the piano,
• and wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, I spent some time weaving!!!

This is special for several reasons. Mainly, it helps justify the fact that I have this incredible loom that I haven't used enough since I acquired it. In addition, this weaving is evidence of getting over some hurdles that have kept me away from the loom. (Sadly, they don't have to be very high hurdles to stop me cold.) For one, my wonderful loom was donated to our guild when one of our members passed away a couple of years ago. I bought the loom from the guild. But... there were a few things missing. For one thing, it has a fly shuttle mechanism mounted on the loom, but her children decided to keep all of her shuttles for memories of their mother. I could understand that, but they included the fly shuttle that fits this mechanism. I have almost purchased a few fly shuttles at guild sales, but careful measuring revealed that they were too wide to fit my loom's mechanism. A while back, a member of my study group gave me a fly shuttle she was no longer using. But... by then the loom was gathering dust.

Well, today, I got out that fly shuttle, which works fine. I didn't get bogged down when I had to go find a crochet hook that would fit for feeding the thread through the tension gizmo. I actually found the weft yarn I had been using. I started out with only one pirn, wound that, wove, wound it again, wove. Tedious, because the weaving went fast with the fly shuttle, and I was having to stop frequently. So I went and searched on one of the shelves of "stuff", and lo and behold, I discovered a bag of pirns, all of which fit this shuttle. Yeehaaaaa!! So I wound a bunch of pirns and spent some blissful time weaving.

This is the tail end of a warp that was used for something else. I don't think this fabric is particularly successful - the warp is a rather open sett, but I still find this wave pattern rather pleasing, and the weft is a cotton/acrylic baby yarn, so it is very soft. I'm thinking it may end up suitable for a baby blanket - if I've got enough warp left.


Whatever - the important thing is that I'm weaving, and have cleared a hurdle that has held me back for a while. Now I just need to figure out how to get the rotary temple working. I purchased the temple gizmos from the seller's husband, and the brackets for the track were mounted on the loom already, but the track was missing. I purchased it from Fireside at a regional conference, but it came without bolts, so the next step is to track down what size bolts I need to mount the track on the brackets.

For now, I think I'll go spin for a while, and bask in the happy glow.