Wynken, Blynken & Nod

Sailed off in a wooden shoe....and ended up in my barn. W,B and N are actually feral cats that have been released into my tack room for the moment to acclimate. SYNP has a Feral Cat Fixathon several times a year. Feral cats are trapped, spayed and neutered and then released back into their colony or, if they are believed to be tamable or young, they go into foster care. These are probably not tamable but we'll see. As long as they understand where the safe haven and food is, that's all I ask along with mousing my barn and surrounding areas. All the cats are females. Wynken and Blynken are late adolescent grey/brown tabbies (maybe siblings), and Nod is an all black adult female. This group of three met the criteria. They had to be dark colored, and woods savvy. These cats all came from a wilderness area around Bear Creek I believe.  I'll keep you all posted on their progress.

Martha at Thistle Rose Weaving had asked about my old Murphy loom. She had never seen one and I'm not surprised. These counterbalance looms were made in Seattle in the late 40's early 50's by Charley Murphy. It would seem few have traveled out of the Pacific Northwest.They were patterned after the Arthur Allen Folding looms also of this period and maybe a bit earlier. This X looms fold for storage but it does need to rest against something if you do fold it up. The counterbalance shed was improved upon by Mr. Murphy. Instead of using a heavy wood dowel and ropes, he used sprockets and bicycle chains.



 Works perfectly too I might add. It's a simple loom with 4 shafts and 6 treadles and a weaving width of about 42".

 I'm told there may be some that are around 36" and I know of two for sale right now that are 52ish inches. If I had room I would certainly pick another of these gems up. Easy to warp and easy to weave on, the action is light and responsive, the shed excellent, friction brake in back and ratchet and pawl in front. The loom itself a beautiful and very heavy oak and the full length shelf provides plenty of storage.



This was the loom I learned to weave on and other than a brief hiatus away from me a few years ago (WHAT was I thinking??!), will likely be the loom they sell off at the dead weaver's sale.

The Gilmore Gem is seeing some weaving action with these runners in 5/2 mercerized cotton.



 I love these mostly white warps. So pretty and simple, the color stripes can be the star. There is also another warp wound and ready for beaming onto the Murphy, maybe this coming week I'll get it done.

Up in the sewing room, most of the towels have been hemmed. I still have three to do, but I do love this color assortment.



The bright yellow/orange and magenta towel went to live with my folks. The green linen towel also found a nice home. The other two will grace my kitchen. I could probably spend the next year weaving towels and still not have enough to give to all the people I would like to, but we'll try. ;-)

While I was in town last week I passed by one of our wonderful local indie bookstores, Tree House Books, the bookstore that makes me wish I was like 8 again. They had this in the window and I couldn't resist running in and grabbing one for myself.



 He now lives in my weaving studio and makes me smile every early morning when I turn him on while I do things like my blog posts! He's studying weaving drafts, I am sure of it.



There has been a little sewing and a little work on the Macomber, but nothing ready for pics. Next post.

Parting shot: Smoochie and Marigold. Smoochie is the Forrest Gump of the dog world, there is no one and nothing he doesn't like. Life for him is like a box of treats. They are all good.