Fun with Friends

On Thursday, my friend Linda came to visit here in Santa Fe, and she took me on a yarn crawl to visit the yarn shops in the area. It was so great seeing her again. We started our expedition by locating Miriam's Well, a yarn shop that features weaving classes and yarn. We met Miriam and had a nice visit before heading off again. We struck out at shop #2, Oodles, which unfortunately had not survived the recession, but we forged on and managed to find Looking Glass Yarn & Gifts, despite a change in location. I picked up some red beads for a project and some jewelry findings.

Then we hit Yarn & Coffee, and I fell in love with this:

Isn't it lovely? I plan to make a lightweight shawl out of it, just right for summer evenings.

Linda and I had so much fun! For the second time I forgot to take her photo, but next time I will.

On Friday our friends Kathy and Ron came up from Albuquerque to take us to Chimayo, one of their favorite places in the Santa Fe area. We stopped at El Santuario de Chimayo, a shrine and National Historic Landmark that receives almost 300,000 visitors per year and is considered the most important Catholic pilgrimage center in the US. It was a beautiful setting.

We had lunch at Leona's Restaurant and sat outside on the patio to eat. The food was so good! After lunch we enjoyed visiting some of the many gift shops within walking distance.

At Ortega's Weaving Shop we saw a walking loom. This tall loom is meant to be used while standing up, and the weaver walks back and forth on the huge treadles to change the shed. It actually looked like a comfortable way to weave, but would never fit in our motorhome. Too bad.

On our way back to our campground we stopped in to Tesuque and visited a sculpture gallery. We had lots of fun looking around and chatting with the woman in charge of the gallery who happened to be from New Jersey. Small world!

It was so great to see Kathy and Ron again. Here they are outside our motorhome.

On Saturday we decided to get things done around the rig; Bob worked on the water softener and the water filter while I baked some bread, hemmed some sheets, and started weaving a new band. I am learning to weave Sami bands, which are Swedish pickup designs. Labor intensive, but very intriguing.

This one is made with 10/2 cotton and is only 3/8" wide. Not, perhaps, traditional colors but I like them. Typically these bands are woven on a backstrap loom but I am using my Ashford Knitters Loom with a double hole heddle for these.