Gran Canaria Trip and Weaving Progress

Hi there !
We have been on our travels again with a week in Gran Canaria to get warmed up after our cold winter here in Scotland. Newcastle airport is about an hour and a half from us at home and then a four hour flight to the island, so an easy journey. The temperature when we landed was about 20deg C so much warmer than home. Our hotel was about forty minutes from the airport and this is a view from our balcony..........

Gran Canaria is a good place for walking by the sea, they have very good promenade paths between the towns on the south coast. We walked ten miles each day in quite nice weather. The first day we dodged some rain showers, days two, three and four were nice and sunny and then days five and six were cloudy with rain threatening. It was nice to be out of the winter vest and polo neck and to not have to worry about warm coats etc.

The food in the hotel was very good and served in a buffet style. My ten mile walks meant I didn't need to worry too much about what I ate. I have been working hard to lose my Christmas pounds and had lost six pounds before we left home. I was able to choose lots of protein based meals so didn't undo the good work already done. I had freshly cooked fish or steak for dinner most evenings, just tried to give the dessert section a miss !! The dining room was decorated in my favourite colour, turquoise which looked lovely................

On one of our trips out we came across a team of rowers preparing to row across the Atlantic from Gran Canaria to Barbados. There would be a crew of fourteen on this tiny boat and they were hoping to cross the Atlantic in a record thirty days ! Rather them than me !

On the last day the walking reduced to five miles and then this ....................

I was in good company and this probably sums up a good week in the warmth.................

All too soon we were back home again with very wet and windy weather ! Winds up to seventy miles an hour and some structural damage to houses in Dumfries and a lorry blown over not far from us. Anyway, washing done and summer clothes put away again and time to do some weaving.

Before we went away I had threaded up the loom to weave a runner to cover a shelf where Tony has his computer. I tied up the treadles and got ready to do my sample piece. Before I started though, I checked out my favourite blog for linen tips  Susan at Thrums.  I followed her tips and wrapped the pirns in damp dish cloths, put them in a zip lock bag and into the 'fridge to keep the linen damp.

So I wove a good sample to work out the best way to treadle the pattern and felt quite pleased with the way it looked. However, when I looked at it in the daylight the next morning I found this..........

The colours are not good ! Meant to be terracotta and green ! However, it does show a clump of threads. I checked the threading but no errors, treadling tie up ok also but then I discovered I had ten threads in one dent instead of five !

This was about 4" in from the right hand edge and the only cure was to cut off the sample and re-sley the problem area then re-tie 1,000 ends back on !! Now this will make Susan  laugh !!  In a chat the previous evening Susan had asked me about dent marks in the sample and had I thought of taking it off to wash it and check they would disappear. My answer was, no I hadn't thought of doing that, the thought of 1,000 threads to retie seemed too much. I knew this was the wrong answer !! I'm sure she did something overnight to move those ends around and make it that I had to take the sample off ! Anyway, I did wash the sample and the dent marks did disappear I'm glad to say !!

So, having fixed the problem I got started on the runner. I do like a hemstitched finish so decided to follow Susan's ladder hemstitching tutorial . Here I am on the bottom row after weaving the hem allowance. I am going into the third row of weft on each group.

I promise this is the same project just different light when I took the picture. My loom is right beside a window and  the light varies a lot ! The next picture shows my three strands of cord to act as the spacer for the 'ladder'.

And then, here I am on the top of the 'ladder'

I made the hem allowance all terracotta and the first half inch of the main part also terracotta, mainly to allow me to do the two rows of hemstitching with the same thread. I didn't fancy hemstitching with the linen weft.

I have woven about eighteen inches now and this is what it looks like...................

Hopefully I will have a productive week and next time be able to show you a finished runner or at least some pictures of me finishing of the hem. Many thanks Susan for an excellent tutorial, it worked very well !!

My thanks to all my visitors and as always I look forward to your comments, ideas or suggestions.

Bye for now