Weaving Diamonds

I think the last time I spoke about my weaving I was deciding whether or not to change the warp, in the end I half changed it. I was soo bored by the deflected double weave, I found it very slow to weave and I think the fact it looks awful on the loom conspired to kill off any enthusiasm I ever held for it. 

I've continued to use the warp from my HNC final project and teamed it with a beige wool in a double weave project that gives you diamonds. I love double weave, it's just so clever and it never fails to make me enthusiastic, every pick pleases me, as a little bit more of the design reveals itself.

The quality of the photo looks a bit dodgy, it's on my phone in artificial light, sorry.

Hill House Helensburgh

I went to the Hill House in Helensburgh yesterday, it's only taken me 20 odd years to get round to it, I have to confess I'm not a huge fan of Mackintosh but I can refine that now, I'm not a huge fan of his stylised roses and that's what puts me off. There's a lot of them at Hill House especially in the music room but the architecture in particular the woodwork is sublime, and I loved the lights he'd designed. There was one room we voted as our favourite, which was built into the curve of the building, it's a child's room and it overlooks the garden to the side with almost floor to ceiling windows, the light was flooding in and it just looked perfect.

In many of the rooms the wall decoration has been recreated because the original scheme has been found beneath a layer of paint, sections of the original have been left exposed and then recreated over the rest of the room, fascinating.

You aren't allowed to take photo's inside so I can't show this.

The house was built for Blackie the book publisher and a friend of mine used to own Blackie's previous house in Cove, which was as different from Hill House as it's possible to get, it's typically victorian, quite dark but majestic, not as large as Hill House but size able still the same, I often wondered if Mackintosh had perhaps popped round with plans, it makes you think.

The weather was gorgeous, it was about 19C which saying that we are a week away from October is miraculous. 

The photo's of the exterior are mine and I've borrowed a couple from the internet to show the inside, apologies to the image owners.

Sock

I have been knitting, it's something I've never done but with family home over the summer I've been learning as I can't bear to do nothing, I have a sock !!!!!!!!!, thanks to some good internet tuition. Knitting in the round was fine and I didn't mind the fine needles but the toe grafting was a bit tricky, I'm not sure I got it 100% right but they're just for me so if it all unravels it's fine. Only another one to knit now. I'm on a roll I've also started a jumper in chunky yarn, it's working up quickly but I hate knitting patterns they're written in a foreign language and it's not the abbreviations that are the problem, a few linking words would make the meaning so much clearer.

No weaving so far, I'm mentally convincing myself to take the deflected double weave warp off the loom, it's slow to weave and I'm sooooooo bored with it. But it's taken ages to warp up and there's loads left on the loom so it means ditching loads of effort which doesn't feel very professional but equally life's too short. I'll mull it over the weekend.