Random Textile Stuff
	My wedding dress. Designed and sewn by yours truly, in sandwashed silk, hand-appliqued gold and white lace, and beaded with 14K gold beads and freshwater pearls. It took over eighteen months from start to finish, mostly because I knew very little about sewing when I started. (I admit to being more bullheaded than practical.) Sharing the photo with me is Isis, my beautiful Brazilian rainbow boa.

	A quilt I've been working on (off and on, but mostly off) for three years now. The picture does not do it justice; there are over 300 different fabrics in this scrap quilt, in all the colors of autumn. Because I didn't want to use the same fabric more than a few times in each square, it's been very slow going--I'm still waiting to find the right shades for some squares. Heaven knows when (or if) I'll finish it.

	I learned to knit in December '99 and promptly discovered handspinning. 11 months later, I had two spinning wheels, a 36" floor loom, and over 150 lbs (!) of wool and other fibers. Also a small library of books on sheep breeds, wool physics/chemistry, color theory, knitting, weaving, dyeing...well, you get the idea. Pictured here is 30 lbs of llama wool and my Ashford Traditional wheel.

	Me at Burning Man, dyeing wool with Kool-Aid (yes, it really works!). Click for an even sillier photo...

	Okay. It's not the best of pictures. But this is interesting stuff--it's handspun yarn from a painted roving (wool dyed in horizontal stripes), knitted up into squares. This is a neat exercise in color theory and optical mixing--as orange transitions to purple, for example, the orange and purple fibers mix together to make brown. It's the same principle used in TV sets, color magazines, and Monet paintings. Unfortunately, it's hard to make out in a photo, but I'm really looking forward to the finished sweater. Someday I intend to explore optical mixing in textiles more thoroughly...

	I finally managed to design my own lace pattern! Here it is (click on the picture to see more details). The pattern is available here, but treat it with caution--as should be obvious from looking at it, I'm still working on it. About the only thing you can be certain of is the pattern of the holes (yarn-overs). I'm still playing with the kinds of decreases and the positioning to see what looks best. Lace design is absolutely fascinating--I have been trying to figure out the "rules" for making horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines. I keep thinking it's not that hard, but then I run into more complications...neat stuff, though! Very appealing to the mathematical brain. :-)

	Here's my latest project: a handspun shawl knitted in the round, in a spiral pattern, with four different knitting patterns (so far). It's a lot simpler than it looks--it has eight segments, each of which gets one additional stitch every other row. Below are two other shots of the same shawl...
	This is a photo of one shawl segment--there are three patterns here. The top one is "Drooping Elm Leaves" from Barbara walker's First Knitting Treasury, the second is "Quatrefoil Eyelet", from the same; the third (which is just barely visible in lower right) is "Chinese Lace", from Barbara Walker's Third Knitting Treasury. I'm currently adding a fourth pattern, which is an unnamed pattern from Susanna Lewis's book with the knitted lace sampler.
	Here is a photo of the entire shawl (so far). It's currently about 30" across--I expect that, when it's finished, it will be about 60" across, and will fit through a wedding ring. I'm knitting this shawl on size 3 (3mm) needles, and spinning it using the silver spindles the Akha tribal silversmith made for me in Thailand. It's a lot of fun.
	An updated photo; the shawl now measures 51" across (unblocked), and you can see the spiral pattern quite clearly. There are six full patterns in this photo, and halfway through adding a seventh. (Click for a bigger version.) I have been working on this shawl for nine months now, spinning at 80-100 wpi singles, 9000 yards per pound in the finished yarn. (For non-spinners, that's about the thickness of fine lace crochet thread.) I'm using a one-ounce silver spindle, the same one the Akha silversmith made for me in Thailand.
	A closer look at the patterns. From left to right, they signify earth, air, fire, water, light, and darkness, all of which are important in Wicca; the clockwise spiral indicates the Spiral of Life. I haven't decided yet what the seventh pattern will be. The bits of yarn tied onto the right side of the segment (upper right corner) indicate where I changed balls of yarn. Each ball is about 150-175 yards, and takes 8-10 hours to spin and ply. Add the 7-8 hours required to knit up each ball, and each bit of yarn indicates 15-20 hours of work. So it takes about 20 hours to add an inch and a half to the shawl (!). Each "round" of the shawl now contains 824 stitches; I estimate it will be 1000 stitches/round, before I start the border.
	A slightly closer view of the same set of patterns. Click the thumbnail to see the bigger version. For the final version of this shawl, see my Spiral Shawl page.