I sold my Gilmore. You may remember this post from last year about my beloved Gilmore loom which I was forced to sell due to the sheer number of looms that were falling from the sky into my lap (all from my grandparents who had to move to Connecticut and abandon their weaving equipment to their ecstatic granddaughter). I had that loom posted for sale on the internet for a very long time and had resigned myself to visiting it now and then in my storage shed and reassuring it that I would find it a good home--that really I still loved it but just didn't have room for it in my little house. A very nice woman named Nancy and her husband rented a truck and drove all the way from Oklahoma (a state I have paid little attention to as it has no mountains) to pick up my sweet loom. The fact that they rented a truck and drove all that way reassured me that the loom was going to a good owner, and frankly, what with tripping over the other two looms in my house (and I'm not even going to talk about the other three looms in the storage shed--no wait, there are four plus two inkle looms--oh geez I need an intervention here), I really haven't missed the Gilmore much. I hope she has a long and lovely life weaving beautiful fabric in Nancy's studio. Thanks for coming to get her Nancy!
And in a completely random switch in thought, I finally got around to looking up Saint Maurice on Wikipedia. Lyn alerted me to the existence of this particular saint after my fumbling invocations surrounding the death of my computer. Saint Maurice's history is full of a lot of Roman Emperors, bloodshed, martyrdom and a lot of other things that make me squirm, but if you're looking for someone to pray to, he is, according to Wikipedia, "the patron saint of soldiers, swordsmiths, and armies. He is also inexplicably the patron saint of weavers, dyers, and invoked against menstrual cramps." I have to agree with Lyn that he could be one useful guy!
And here is my progress on the 48 inch square tapestry (which I'm not revealing the name of it yet mostly because I don't have one--but you can pretend I'm trying to be mysterious.) That is 20 inches baby!!! Only 28 inches to go. The color here is completely blown out and it looks like I just gave away my sneaky warp-tension fixing device (called a T pin). I'm rolling along at the average rate of 2.5 inches a day. Most excellent. There was a frightening moment earlier this week where my teacher suggested that I consider tearing out 3 inches to change a color. I was praying to Saint Maurice and swearing under my breath at the same time. We finally decided that leaving the color as it was fit with my intentions for the piece. The truth is nothing could have made me back out 3 inches on a 48 inch piece anyway. I know weavers who would have (my teacher is one), but I just can't do it. I have a lot of patience, but not that much.