Last Monday Miss Binky Brittany came home with a note from school saying that the kids needed a costume for a "multicultural" party on Friday.

After a few complaints (not mine!) Miss Brittany's school had been giving us 3 weeks notice about costume days, but apparently this party was a last minute celebration for doing such a good job on their current course work. So Brittany handed over a big oddment of horrible red acetate(?) that's been hanging about the house for years, with the request that I make a kimono.

5 hours later, (somewhere around midnight), I ended up with something that looked a bit like a kimono made by a gifted 6 year old. She liked it, but I wasn't totally convinced. We added a big plastic yellow rose with a safety pin on it to keep it closed and a piece of pink ribbon for a belt and I thought that was it.

Last night she started rummaging around and managed to come up with all the things that make an ordinary costume quite cool :-). Red pantyhose (how she found those, I have no idea), a scarf, a paper fan and a pair of ornate platform soled flip flops (that I'd forgotten about because they were a size too large until her recent growth spurt!), suitable makeup and a pair of chopsticks for eating lunch and she was all ready to go!

I took this photo before she found the shoes and the right colour nailpolish :-)

The Magic of Waffle Weave

I love waffle weave. I love waffle weave so much it's the reason I took up weaving.

In fact, I love waffle weave so much that I cut my sampler from the loom before finishing it so I could see what happens when you take it off the loom and wash it.

It was just as magical as it promised to be!

On the loom it looks all taut and smooth like this:

But when you take it off and wash it, it all squishes up and you get loads of added depth and interest like this:

If I'd used a softer yarn it would be more textural and squishy but I like it anyway :-P

Don't worry, I didn't waste the rest of the warp, I retied it so I can finish my point twill sampler. I'm thinking of trying some sort of pile weave on there too since I've got a threading that works with plain weave as well.

I am totally enjoying being immersed in something new that, until recently, I knew absolutely nothing about.

Stay tuned for more geeky beginner weaver gushing!