Bicycles, Shingles and Loom Work - A Busy Two Days

Today is a rather boring day of La Tour de France, somewhat flat as the riders begin their cross-country ride towards the Alps. Their two days in the Pyrenees were wonderful, and I hope you got an opportunity to see some of battles in those famed mountains. The big question for all right now is will the Tour go on? COVID-19 testing occurred on Sunday and on Monday. Apparently the Tour Director is testing asymptomatic, so his assistant will take his place, but the team tests have not been released yet. As of the time I write this, all teams are still in the race, but that could change with  single positive test. I give you the stage profile below before jumping into a review of my own two-day weekend. 

Today is a day for the sprinters. Look at that ridiculously flat profile!
Thank goodness we'll have mountains again by the end of the week. 

DH and I (well, mostly DH, to be fair) worked on the woodshed for most of Sunday and half of Monday until rain pushed us indoors Monday afternoon. DH actually got quite a lot done. Sunday he spent putting tarpaper and drip guards on each of the three roofs. Monday was spent on shingles. Apparently it will take 11 rows of shingles for each panel (a full pack of shingles). He'll make sure the patterns mirror each other from the two taller sections, and that the mid-section is more of a meld of pattern. He's feeling much more confident about roofing with shingles now that he's done a bit of work with the one side. 

Sunday morning, this is what the woodshed looked like. Bare pressboard
sheets for a roof, nothing more. We had tarped the roof overnight to
protect it from any moisture. Now it was time to tarpaper. 

It was cold. Sunday the temperatures started dropping and on Monday the temps were in the 40's. He wanted me to sit outside and watch him to make sure he had help if he fell off the roof (he has occasional dizzy spells), so I bundled up in my long-sleeved t-shirt, a hoodie and a blanket. I was still cold, but a nice cup of tea helped. We gave up when the rain started, and after he cooked burgers on the grill, we dried off and had a relaxing evening. 

After the day on Sunday, we had tarpaper on the rooftops and
drip guards appropriately placed on the sides and backs of
each of the units. The front and the little bits of the center
section will get flashing instead of drip guards. 

I wanted to share a project that I've resurrected. I've been getting more into fiber again. In the early 1980's I was spinning fiber a lot, and one of the fibers I loved to spin was silk on a handspindle called a Takli. It's a small, brass spindle that's made to introduce high-twist into silk or cotton. I used to use it all the time, I rather miss working with it. My goal, was spinning silk for a triangular shawl. I spun a LOT of silk and made a mini-loom to try various weaving techniques and patterns to see what I wanted for the finished project, finally deciding to weave it as a simple over/under weave. It's BIG, though. The final loom I built measures 4-foot square and the actual fabric will be 44 inches from middle-back to hand. 

On Monday DH started putting up shingles. He's never
done shingles before, but by the time the rain forced a
halt to the work, he'd done pretty well and it was looking
really nice. 

I had started weaving this when my Aunt Hedda died. My mother, who hated dealing with or acknowledging death in any form, finally let me know about the memorial service less than five days in advance (thank goodness I was able to get Bereavement Fare pricing for my flight or I wouldn't have been able to attend the memorial).  When I returned from Denver and after cleaning out my Aunt's house and dealing with family crap, it took me a while to settle down. I put the loom aside and didn't pick it up again. When we were redoing the craft room last year, DH hung the loom onto pegboard hooks, and there it stood. I hadn't picked it up for more than 30 years. 

I set my loom up on the work area I use for my
painting (you can see all of my paints in the small
white bottles behind my silk threads). Each thread
you're looking at is actually four separate threads tied
onto a single nail. The small woven part at the bottom
of the loom is what I've woven so far. The weaving
edge of the shawl will follow that white line from
bottom right to upper left. 

It's been perched in the back of my mind now that my hands are able to handle fiber once again. I picked up the loom yesterday, perched it onto my worktable (my paints are clearly visible in the background of the photo) and grabbed a tapestry needle. I analyzed what I had done and where I had left off, untied the next thread, and started weaving. Before DH called me outside to supervise him and the shingles, I had woven five threads across. I'm working on that project now, and have the time for weaving in each row down to approx 35 minutes. That's pretty darned good, and I'm so pleased with the look of the fabric. When I finish this, it will be outstanding. 

So, that was my two days off. Today it's back to the grind. We'll be in the 40's for most of today, and then slowly start warming back into the 60's and low 70's by the weekend - at least that's the promise. We'll see if that's really going to happen or not. Have a wonderful Tuesday and please, be kind to others. Everyone needs kindness and joy in their lives.