"Starry, starry night, paint your palette..." ~ Don McLean; "I've seen fire and I've seen rain..." ~ James Taylor

TWO DECEMBER SCARVES---

Starry, Starry Night

Fire and Rain

The first December scarf I finished, Starry, Starry Night, was knitted at the suggestion of Mardi (puddlejumper2008 on Ravelry) in the Rav Jane Thornley group--just a small project between Knit-Alongs.  Some of us have done scarves, some made bags.  If you're on Ravelry, you can check out other people's projects on this thread--http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/jane-thornley/1416577/176-200#199

Starry, Starry Night is my adaptation of Jane Thornley's pattern, Baked Squash.  I used yarns left over from my Roadtrip Wrap project.  And it's more Feather and Fan stitch--love it!

My other December scarf, Fire and Rain, is the first SAORI piece that I've woven on my own, seen here on the loom with part of my spinning fiber stash behind it--

I used several shades of blues in commercial mostly-wool blends, along with my hand-spun, hand-painted Blue-faced Leicester yarn in reds/oranges/yellows/purples.  The name came to me after I had woven a few inches and saw how the color was going to fall.  So I put on a James Taylor CD, continued to weave, and was carried away....so much fun....

The free-style SAORI weaving has really captured my imagination and my heart in much the same way that Jane Thornley's free-range knitting designs have done.  This has been a wonderful way to spend the pre-holidays before our trip to Fort Bragg.

And Rosie loves my rigid heddle loom--she sits under it and stares up at me through the warp, but I haven't been able to get a picture.  She does, however, do some of her supervising from the other room, where she has apparently claimed my In A Violet Bed shawl and continues to dream our story--

"...and a partridge in a pear tree..." ~The Twelve Days of Christmas

No partridges here, or pear trees for that matter, but my backyard on December 7 is ablaze with maple--

And, with the cool weather, Rosie snuggles into the closest fiber--an alpaca batt awaiting the spinning wheel...

"SAORI weaving is not merely the act of weaving a piece of cloth; it is an attempt to identify our true selves." ~ Misao Jo

Steve and I took a road trip to the beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains a couple of weeks ago.  With the rain dripping from the redwoods, we arrived at our destination--SAORI Santa Cruz, the weaving studio of Jill Nicolene Sanders.  Jill is Nickolena http://www.ravelry.com/people/nickolena on Ravelry.  She teaches SAORI weaving in her studio and in local yarn stores, and I was there for a lesson. 

Jill's studio is colorful and lively, with French doors that look out onto her deck and the woods beyond.

The woodstove in the corner warmed us as we wove, as did the cup of tea.  Here, Jill helps me to finish up my mobius cowl--

And the weaving was such fun!  The SAORI loom was warped when I arrived.  I wove a short cowl, then Jill showed me how to remove the woven cloth from the cloth beam, turn it to make a mobius, then use the beginning fringes as weft to weave the end of the cowl.  I took it home to twist the fringe and wash it. 

As a Rav friend of mine says, I am now "down the rabbit hole", in Wonderland, and am in love with weaving.  My few pieces of weaving done on my Schacht Flip rigid heddle loom were fun to do, but this is really a blast!  It won't be long till I'm more than a little-bit-of-a-weaver, because I just ordered a SAORI loom from Jill.  I'll pick it up next month, and get a warping lesson at the same time. 

Jill has many years of weaving experience, is so sweet and friendly and helpful, and loves SAORI weaving.  SAORI weaving is a Japanese style of weaving developed by Misao Jo that is free-style, with no hard-and-fast rules.  The "SA" of SAORI comes from the zen vocabulary and means "each one has their own individual dignity"; “ORI” is Japanese for weaving.

More about SAORI and about my weaving, when my loom arrives...........