I’m back from my week with my parents, being company and an extra pair of hands for my mum, who had a hip replacement. She’s doing impressively well, and thank you, everyone who asked!

Two things:

First, while I was there I read pretty much a book a day. Here’s what I inhaled:

Boneshaker, Cherie Priest
Safe-Keeper’s Secret, Sharon Shinn
The Red Door, Charles Todd
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley
The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag, Alan Bradley
Chill, Elizabeth Bear
Odd and the Frost Giants, Neil Gaiman
Blackout, Connie Willis

And I’m two-thirds of the way through Sarah Monette’s Corambis, too.

Second, and perhaps what most of you are waiting impatiently for, is the loom.

This is what it looks like, all folded up (with a Useful Cat for scale):

And when unfolded (Helpful Cat is Helpful):

There are no pictures of what it looks like when warped, but I’m sure if we wait long enough, that will occur, yes?

This is what the 16×16″ sample square I wove when I got it, though:

That’s Lion Brand Homespun; the cream colour is Deco, and the variegated colourway is Tudor. It’s incredibly soft. It is also not appropriate for a 10 dpi reed, because it’s about 6.5 wpi and bumpy like a boucle, so it kept catching on the slightly rough edges of the plastic reed. My fault; I hadn’t seen the reed before I chose the yarn for my experiment, and the grist of the yarn really calls for a reed with more space between the dents (a lower dpi). The yarn is also very fluffy, which I think contributed to the catching issue. Still, it made a spectacular fabric that’s warm and drapes beautifully, and I’m going to use it again when I get a new reed with a lower dpi. (Which will be very soon; my local Ashford dealer is checking stock for me right now. Yes, Ashford; their much-less-expensive-than-Kromski-reeds fit the Harps, hurrah.)

There you are. What am I using the sample square for? Well, the boy has already used it to cover two very feverish stuffed bunnies to help them get better, every cat as curled up on it at least once, and Nixie was tucked in with it last night. It is nothing if not versatile.