Snapshots

It's both hard to believe and a relief that summer break is soon to be over. Of course I'm enjoying the slower days, having time to inhale books (I read both the second and the third Stormlight Archive books by Brandon Sanderson in a month each--they are well over 1,000 pages of awesomeness!), to tackle fiddly project, and to start brewing my own kombucha, I'm also looking forward to being with my co-workers and students again. While I'm sure the fall will have lots of challenges and frustrations, it's about time to change gears a bit. So, here are the crafting snapshots from my summer-

My new summer top--I love it!

A beautifully cabled gnome for a friend's new house.

I made bias tape for the first time--why did it take me so long to try this?

The reason I tried my hand at bias tape, was so I could use it on this vinyl bag project, using a Chickenboots pattern from SewSewLive.

While at my grandmother's memorial earlier this month I bought this yarn which reminded me of her from her local yarn store, and made it into this cowl. I'm looking forward to the cold weather so I can start rocking it!

I'm going to be going on another trip next week, on which I will finally get to meet my niece, so I decided on a whim to make her this elephant toy that's been sitting in my Ravelry queue for years. It's all in one piece which is quite clever, but I think when I make it again I'm going to place the ears better.

I continue to work on my huge double weaving project. Here is what things look like currently on my loom-

And here is the finished first half of the ruana. I haven't washed the fabric yet; I'm hoping the super obvious tight spot down the fold line will relax out. The second half has been fighting me after a great start; best I can figure I did a bad job of packing the warp, so after some desperate intervention tonight hopefully things will go more smoothly until I get the weaving finished.

Parting shot--my super talented sister took this amazing picture of me using long exposure when we were together for the memorial. It's good to remember that there is more to life than the challenges of 2020!