Now Back to Our Regular Scheduled Programming

Still working on pieces for the winery market. Not working fast, as I'm trying to take it easy on my right hand, which got overused on the process of tying ikat tape on skeins (see this post) and subsequently got whacked by the skein winder running in high gear. The right thumb is still not a happy camper. A friend who's a nurse says I may have chipped the bone near the joint, but "don't bother going to the doctor - he won't do anything except maybe put a brace on it, and you can do that yourself."

I've discovered that when I work on weaving-related tasks other than actual weaving, they're always harder on the hands than shuttle-handling. Why is that?

Anyway, the current wine-themed piece is based on an image of an old, stained barrel. Here's the image, after manipulating in Photoshop and then indexing to 12 colors (4 tan, 4 grey, 4 rust):



And the lower part of weaving:



Now it's time to go enjoy the champagne, steak and asparagus dinner accompanied by an aged Cabernet, and a dessert of flourless chocolate cake. The cake has four ingredients: chocolate, eggs, butter, sugar. We added some unsalted macadamia nuts, so it's a whopping five ingredients. What's not to love? Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!