Shutters & Shuttles

Baby Wolf. The harmless kind.

First things first. I’m going on leave tonight to someone’s cabin in Murphy, NC so I won’t be able to blog again until tomorrow evening sometime. So this will have to tide you over!

Yesterday the camp acquired a new loom to add to our collection! A former weaver was selling a Schacht 8 harness, 10 treddle 36″ Baby Wolf for a steal! We weren’t sure at first if we’d have room for another floor loom but at the price she was asking, I insisted that we could make room. Mandy and I drove to town to pick it up along with some of her old yarn. The loom was in pristine condition, she really showed it some love! We packed it up and headed back to the Curosty building to introduce him to his new family.

Isn’t it a beaut? I described it as the corvette parked next to ’75 used Buick and Chevy’s (the other looms are MUCH older than that, though!) The same lady has another loom for sale as well, 46″ 8 harness 10 treddle Schacht Jack Loom that is equally as gorgeous! We are trying to figure out if it is something the camp could use, since we are trying to build up the fiber arts activity. We just moved the beading/friendship bracelet making/lanyard portion out and are going to try to focus on just fiber arts in the curosty cabin. We are even talking about going as far as teaching spinning and felting in the years to come! I am hesitant to recommend buying the loom for camp because weaving isn’t a HUGE activity here just yet. We would definitely like it to be in the future, but it’s something that will take several years to fully develop. Some of the kids are super into weaving but, there is SO much that can be done on just 2 or 4 shafts (even super complicated weave structures!) that an 8 shaft loom would not be living up to its full potential. Especially with the size and style yarns we use, something that can weave up that delicately is out of place here at camp. Also, we don’t weave much wider than 12-14 inches and we now have 2- 36″ floor looms and a 48″ floor loom. In my honest opinion, investing in some more table looms would be the best move. It also doesn’t help that no matter how well we take care of the looms, it is inevitable that they are going to be used and abused, so it makes my heart hurt to think about that gorgeous loom being beaten up! It’s ultimately up to the directors if it’s something they want to invest in at this point though. Either way, I can’t wait to play with the new baby wolf!! The kids are SUPER excited to get started on it as well! It’ll be so much fun seeing the things they come up with when the conditions are perfect- they don’t have to fight with the loom to get it to work! Moving on…

Last night, Michelle invited me to tag along to the Senior evening program where they were doing fractured fairytale skits. On the way, (actually it was the opposite direction) we stopped to mountain gaze. The view from on top of the hill is just beautiful. The sun was setting right then too, so it was the magic hour for taking pictures. We gazed for quite a while before finally heading down to the lakeview lodge to watch the skits.

This morning I didn’t have much baking to do since I got so much done yesterday. Blueberry muffins were the lucky winners today and lemon bars for dessert. I got a super cool care package from my dad via my mom today. He sent me a ton of wilderness books so I can be a pro at IDing various critters. They’re the best!

Tonight a few of us counselors are heading to Bailey’s parents cabin in Murphy to chill and de-stress because when we get back 100 new campers will be there! Have a great weekend!