Not 1 but 2

The weaving of the Colours of New Zealand Placemats is going well - up to number 7 at this stage, but then comes along the first broken warp thread.  The last placemats I did, I recall I had quite a few to contend with so had been thinking myself fairly lucky and wondering if the source and processing of this lot (half-bleached instead of fully bleached) might have made the difference.  I hadn't even made it half way through that thought and the next warp thread broke!!

Repairs were quickly set up (extra length on the warp thread and pinned into the weft down from the fell line).  Coincidentally the first break occured as I wound on a bit of tension ready to start the next placemat (in the photo below the blue thread is my 'cut' line between each placemat).

'Fixed' broken warp thread ready to weave in.

The second breakage was my floating selvedge - it must have worn on a weak spot.  I anchored it back in the same way, but will need to do some repairs to the edge of this placemat as without the tension of the selvedge the weft shots around the break have gone a bit wonky.

The other thing that has slowed me down a fraction (although I confess to only weaving in the the 'holiday mode' - two or three hours a day at most :-) was running out of dyed weft half way through the first stripe of placemat number 8.

Taking a pause on placemat #8

 I wound some more yarn onto the card and soaked it and Anne has now painted it.  Ready for a full day of weaving tomorrow to finish off the run and then try some experiments with what is left on the warp, which I'm not too sure of as I forgot (again) to allow for the fact that I don't measure these placemats exactly, but rather begin/end/place the stripes based on where the pattern (62 weft shots) is.

Other activity for the day was - more batts carded - the first bag is full (of 2 oz batts) and the flicked locks bag is hardly showing a dent!!  I was able to spin for an hour on some singles that will make 2-ply for the next Right Side of the Bed Rug.  The next spinning (actually concurrent) is more Clun Forest combed top to make up more skeins for either sale or the making of a cable jersey - I have a ways to go (and have to find a knitter).

Lots of Clun Forest batts

Off out tonight to another live band - I could get used to this holiday lifestyle...