We've made it home safe and sound. It was great to see Da Man's family, we don't get to see them as much as we should. On Saturday it took us about 8.5 hours to drive up to Massachusetts and about 8 hours to drive home today and that's not including all of the pit stops with Willy Weak Bladder and driving through that wretched state Delaware.
I drove both legs of the trip because Da Man's "Man Mobile" had just gotten out of the shop on Thursday for the fourth time this month and so we felt safer taking my truck. Audi's are great cars, until you need to have repairs done by the dealer -- utter crap I tell you, but that's another story! And to boot, I am a horrible passenger. I do so much better behind the wheel.
And since I drove, my left arm is a tad red right now and I will have a great tan -- on one arm. I give you Trucker Tan! That's how you can spot a truck driver in a crowd. Their left arm is so much darker than their right arm. Or in my mother's case, she has no butt from the years of sitting behind the wheel. Ha, ha, ha! She'll kill me, but whatever.
Anyway! The blanket went over really well, I in my fashion, couldn't wait for Baby's Momma to open the package and sort of forced it on her like a four-year-old. In my haste, we didn't get baby action photos and I need to email Baby's Momma to get a couple. But you know, I am so critical of the stuff that I make and see the mistakes and worry that what I make is not going to be good, period. I think: "Lord, they're going to see this, it's not 100 percent..."
For instance, I found a spot on the blanket where somehow I managed to miss a couple of warp strings with the shuttle. It totally wasn't a threading error, but by golly I managed to slip the shuttle around the threads completely avoiding them.
In this picture the error is at the tip of the scissors. It's a just one purple and one white warp thread, sitting side-by-side that I managed to skip.
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As the blanket goes, Friday afternoon I finally finished it. I found some Fun Fleece called "Poodle" at Jo-Ann's and sewed that to the back of the panel because of the loose threads from my first real big go at inlaying just seemed to be a tad loose for my liking and I figured covering it would be better than having the threads falling out and the blanket going to pieces. And that Fun Fleece is really cool. It really looks woolly and with the sheep pattern it just clicked.
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I finished the blanket with a purple quilt binding. I should have gone with the larger size of binding, I will add that to my memory banks for the next time. And I should really learn how to sew in a straight line, but I think the quilt binding was the issue -- yes, that's it.
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Like I said yesterday, I really learned a lot doing this project. I've added a photo album in the right column and it has all the photos you will ever want with this project. The initial warping photos are back in the archives, check late-January, February, and March.
Here are some 'Final Fun Facts on the FO':
- I adapted the Sheep from the March/April 1991 Handwoven, Page 55 and Instruction Pages 88-9.
- I used Classic Elite BamBoo in Citrine, Lilac and White. It's a splitty yarn that I won't weave with again, no matter how pretty it is.
- My sett was at 10 and should have been at 12, but my PPI was only 8 no matter how hard I bashed at the beater bar.
- I should have cleaned my reed a lot better
- I started this thing at the end of JANUARY!!!! I let it sit for 4 months because I was cheesed at the pattern and after much consternation just sat down in front of it and it all came together in two days. I blamed Handwoven for the errors but 9 out of the 10 were mine. I really think the sheep butt view has an error in the feet portion of the pattern. It wasn't coming together at the loom for me until I reversed that pattern portion. So ha-ha. :)
- Even though it needed 22 treadles the pattern is so easy once you work out a decent skeleton key.
So enjoy the photos. If you have any questions let me know and I will answer them the best that I can. I did add Lavender oil to the blanket and I will ask Baby's Momma how that worked for her.