New Band Started

On Monday Bob and I left beautiful San Antonio and drove 285 miles to the Escapees park in Livingston, TX, a few hours northeast of San Antonio. We made good time, getting there before Carolyn, one of my fellow Ravelry members, arrived. Carolyn drove there with her husband  to buy my Columbine wheel. I really haven't been spinning much so it didn't make a lot of sense to be bringing it everywhere. I had first advertised it when we were in Tucson a few months ago but there were no local people interested. Carolyn was really patient, waiting for us to drive through Arizona, California, New Mexico, and finally Texas before we came to a campground near her. She left happy, and I was pleased my wheel found a new home.

Going to Livingston is like going home...our mail is sent there, people are friendly, and it is familiar since we've been there several times now. We only stayed two days but it was nice being there.

While here I warped up my 12" Ashford Knitters Loom with a 13 pattern thread Sunna heddle for a sampler band. I'm using 8/2 cotton for the ground threads and embroidery floss in five colors for the pattern threads. Details are on my Ravelry project page here.

On Wednesday we left Livingston and drove to Louisiana for a night, on Thursday we should be in Alabama, and on Friday we'll be in Georgia for a couple of days to visit our friends Retha and Mike. We are really looking forward to seeing them again. We are eating up the miles and are in "traveling mode" until we get back to our visit with family in NJ.

San Antonio, TX

This weekend certainly has been the highlight of our season. Bob and I have been spending as much time as we could with our family, who have traveled from various parts of the country to celebrate the marriage of my niece, Michelle, and her new husband, Danny.

 The newlyweds in the beautiful and historic Mission Concepcion in San Antonio.

Here I am (in the center) with my siblings: l-r, Wendy, Jim, Cheryl, and Gail. We had such fun at the reception. 

It has been a wonderful, yet exhausting weekend, and tomorrow we start our journey to NJ. So I will leave you with some of my favorite photos of the Alamo and the beautiful Riverwalk area. 

Sleep Number Bed

We arrived in San Antonio yesterday afternoon, stopping in the way into the city to pick up our new mattress from Sleep Number. It was in two large boxes and I was glad we picked it up when we had the motorhome because only one box fit in the car and the other was put in the aisle of our coach. We settled into our new home at the campground  San Antonio and started opening up the boxes. 

It's a bit of a chore setting up a Sleep Number bed and fortunately it came with good instructions. Bob and I worked together and after a couple of hours or more we got the thing together and inflated. Wow, what a comfortable bed! I had a great night's sleep on it. 

We are waiting for mattress removal guys to come and take away our old mattress, since we can't just find a dumpster and toss it. But at least these folks clean up old mattresses and donate them to people who need a place to sleep, so I feel good about that.

The rest of this week will most likely be taken up with wedding activities and family gatherings so I may not be posting for a few days. But have no fear, I will return!

On the Way to S.A.

When we are on the move between longer stops life becomes simplified. We tend to depart between 9:00 and 10:00 am and settle in for a few hours of watching the world go by. It's fascinating to see changes in topography, but I don't get as much handwork done. A lot of these roads are too bumpy to weave on, so I turn to my Kindle and read.

Last night (Monday) we stayed at a little hole in the wall place, not far off I-10 in Van Horn, Texas. As is typical of these campgrounds, people are friendly when approached but no one will actually knock on your door, so it feels pretty private.

Living on the road can be as social as you want it to be. You can stop and chat with people or not, depending on your preference or your mood. Bob, because he spends a lot of time outside tinkering with the rig, often has a set of friends in a campground that I've never met. I enjoy socializing, but I have a lot of activities to keep myself amused and don't hang around outside as much. It all works out though, because not being joined at the hip gives us a bit of space. Every couple needs that at times.

This morning we continued along I-10 east towards San Antonio, Texas. It's pretty desolate around here with nothing but hills and desert.

We stopped for the night Tuesday in a little campground where we are just about the only visitors, except for a herd of deer that stopped in to drink from a nearby stream. They hung around for a few minutes before dashing off.

Tomorrow we should be in San Antonio! 

White Sands National Monument

On Friday we left the beautiful city of Santa Fe, NM and traveled south along country roads to the town of Alamogordo.

Bob and I have grown to love New Mexico, and we enjoyed the drive. We made good time and settled into our new campsite.

On Sunday we took the car to White Sands National Monument. We started seeing drifts of white powdered sand around desert plants. 

The effect was odd; our brains kept switching from thoughts of snow to thinking the ocean was around the corner. Even the road looked like packed snow.

Dunes grew higher, and we passed families sliding down sand dunes on snow saucers. Temperatures were in the 80's and people were barefoot in the powdery sand.

We parked the car and hiked a portion of the Alkali Flats Trail, which is not exactly flat. Portions of the trail pass over some fairly large sand dunes.

We enjoyed the lovely views of the mountains that encircle the dunes, which were only formed 7-12,000 years ago. 

The mountains themselves are the source of the gypsum that makes up the sand dunes.

We learned in the Visitors Center that the dunes can move as much as 18 feet each year,. That movement is a result of the near-constant blowing of the wind.

Tomorrow we get back on the road and head towards Texas. We will miss the beautiful and varied scenes of New Mexico, and her friendly people.

My Version of a Zina Pueblo Belt

One of the belts that I sketched yesterday was a simple band, made of what appeared to be heavy worsted wool. It was woven by Lorenzo Medina from Zia Pueblo, NM in 1936, and was the only band I saw in the museum's collection without any pick-up pattern. I really liked the floating center bars in this design, so I thought I would chart it out using a wonderful inkle band pattern generator found here. Without this generator it would take so much longer to create a draft. Here is my version of the Zia Pueblo belt.

The original band was about three inches wide. As you can see, there are 63 threads in my interpretation of Mr. Medina's beautiful band. I'm not sure what yarn I have in my fiber closet that will be in the right colors, so my version will probably be a different size.

This Pattern Generator is so much fun to play with. Here's a tip when using this: I don't worry about the number of threads when I design, and usually say it will be more than I think I'll need. I fill in the colors from left to right, then count the number of little blocks in two rows--that's my number of threads. I can change the thread number after I have finished my design, before I print out my pattern.

Today is the last full day in Santa Fe, NM. Tomorrow we head for a campground near White Sands National Monument, which we will visit on Sunday before heading on to Texas. 

Native American Sashes

I have been fascinated lately with band weaving, and was delighted to find several examples of woven Native American sashes at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture here in Santa Fe.

Unfortunately, this museum, as I had mentioned before, does not allow photographs. They do, however, allow people to sketch to their little hearts desire, so today I went back with a little sketch pad to study these sashes. I found ten of them, and sketched them all. The sashes were made by Navajo, Zuni Pueblo, and Hopi weavers, and were dated from 1880 to 1960.

While there are many books on Native American rug weaving, I have found none devoted exclusively to sash weaving. The techniques used to make them are quite different. While traditional rugs are weft faced tapestries, these sashes are warp-faced and typically have a pickup design.

My notes are crude but I'd like to weave some of these designs. 

After I left this Museum I decided to see what the Wheelwright Museum had to offer. There was a beautiful and extensive Indian jewelry exhibit going on, but what caught my eye was a book I found in the gift store.

L

What a little gem of a book! And at $5 it was a bargain. While only 28 pages, the artist's commentary and photographs are well worth the purchase. From it I learned about the symbolism in these designs and gained a better understanding of the process of designing a sash. Mr. Musket also weaves rugs and wall hangings. This book features ten sashes, four wall hangings, and four rugs. There are no instructions on weaving them, but the photos are quite nice.

Copies of this book are available from the Wheelwright Museum. I only saw a few copies left, so if Native American sashes interest you, you might want to grab this while it is available.

Yesterday I was bound and determined to finish knitting my shawl. And I did, after a whole day devoted to it. What a relief to be done, and have it turn out the way I envisioned.

Here it is, unwashed and not yet blocked. I'll take another photo when it has been wet-finished. I love the colors in it.