Some of us can find fiberarts anywhere

I was off the grid on a catamaran in the British Virgin Islands for the past two weeks, and the sun, islands, water, history and rum (oh, especially the rum) was beyond fantastic. I brought a knitting project, which actually went a little too fast, when it wasn't too hot to be working with wool in the first place.



On semi-deserted Cooper's Island, I found a whole new (but ancient) fiberart lurking in the form of a beaten-up paperback in the salty lazarette of a worn-out wooden boat:



Marlinspike Seamanship, or the art of knotting and weaving rope and canvas into decorative and utilitarian objects specifically to rig, furnish, decorate, or protect parts of a ship.




Some of the pieces are just insane - take this USMC emblem for instance:






This is what people do when you have a boatload of rope, a shortage of spare parts, and a hell of a lot of time on your hands.

Prairie Halter!

I don't usually get excited about commercial patterns, but I am pretty excited Interweave is selling the Prairie Halter by Cathy Carron:



It's simple, nice silhouette, top-down, and doesn't take a ton of yardage. I'm probably going to make a few pajama tops out of this pattern.

Stressing

I'm stressed to the limit right now, thanks to my attempts at living a life outside of fiberart (what the heck was I thinking), but a couple of things have made it a little easier:

- Forrester Akha in Maple and Olivewood. I bought a Kokovoko akha, and while it's probably a little more authentic, the Forrester is so much easier to use, because I'm not an Akha tribeswoman and the teeny weeny notch in the top of the Kokovoko is way too advanced for me. The Forrester has a nice, big cup hook.

- Golding ringspindle. It's a beautiful spindle for sure, but for some reason I was expecting something a little grander. I'm sure I'll get over it.

- I went to the Ravenswood winery this weekend and bought a wine chiller that is the perfect size to hold all my nicer spindles. I'm very happy about that.

Homme-made backstrap loom

This French site has some great pictures of the construction of a backstrap loom with rigid heddles.