The Joys of Winter

I'm sure that most people hate me for saying it, but I love winter! I finally get to relax a bit. The holidays are over, real estate is slow, and it's too cold and snowy for anything much in the line of farming which means I get to clean up all the loose ends on half finished projects. Today I have finally returned to the Clint Eastwood serape.

Clint Eastwood in Fist Full of Dollars

After digging it out a few weeks ago to find the moth eaten yarn fiasco, I'd done basically nothing with it, other than storing it in a slightly more "moth-proof" container. But today, I actually added two inches to the loom. 

I was too, shall we say, lazy to be authentic enough to weave the white yarn patterns into it, so I'm kind of cheating by weaving the green part first, then embroidering the white lines on afterward. I love crewel wool embroidery anyway, so it's double the fun. 

Thus far I've got the entire first side woven with about half the white lines embroidered. I figured I'd weave the second half before doing anymore embroidery since the weaving is the harder part and I'm always up for getting rid of the harder parts first.

The loom itself is just the old-fashioned kind, four pieces of scrap-wood nailed together, the warp strung on that and a little wooden sardine box cover that I wrap yarn around to use as a shuttle. Hand weaving at its most traditional. 

In all, I've got around 6 inches of the second side woven. Only two more feet to go! (I'm gonna be here a while.)