Oh baby blanket!

The last weekend in August, Elaine, a friend from Salem, came up and joined us for a whale watching excursion in the Salish Sea. It was a wonderful day at sea and we spotted humpback and minky whales.  Peter had to break the rules which nearly caused my head to explode  (I'm a great stickler for rules!) but I did get photographic evidence to black mail him with should the need arise in the future.

During Elaine's visit she became quite intrigued by my loom. Around our sight seeing adventures (Downtown Lynden, Fort Langley) she made a small weaving project.  She had never used a loom before so I tried to guide her in a simple project that could be done in the few hours she had.  Needless to say, things didn't go perfectly.  But as I was trying to show her all the steps in the process I figured out a lot of things that were giving me trouble.  After a few mis-steps (mostly caused by my inattention or misinformation) she ended up with a nice strip of woven fabric in a yellow and blue plaid.

I ended up inspired.

With inspiration swirling around me and a grandson on the way I thought it was a good time to try weaving something special for him.  I planned and plotted and started setting up the loom.

I know.. boring.

But it got more interesting..

After nearly a week of running back and forth to the warping board and the loom.  After threading more than 200 all-cotton strings through heddles and reeds.  After numerous bottles of beer and in the midst of an awful, snotty head cold, I finally started weaving:

An hour later I had a blanket.  A little anti-climatic.  I mean a week in prep and then an hour of weaving.  sigh..  I had enough thread left on the loom that I wove in a separation area and continued on to weave a second blanket in a slightly different pattern.   My nephew and his soon-to-be-wife are expecting a baby boy as well.  I'm not sure how much my nephew's baby will need a warm cotton blanket (they live in Florida after all) but it's the thought that counts.. right?

Today I finished the detail on the blankets:

My grandson Jack's baby blanket

My great nephew Jake's baby blanket

I had to go to the fabric store today to purchase the blanket binding and got further inspired by cute little fleece hats and home made booties and big fabric letters that can spell out words and names.  It all confirms my theory that I need to become independently wealthy so that I not only don't have to work - but I can hire someone to do all the things I don't like to do (like dishes and laundry and vacuuming and dusting and cleaning up cat yack) so that I can spend my time just doing the things I WANT to do.