New in Stock!

I've added a new section to my Etsy shop this week, featuring handwoven items. I'm discovering that a Rigid Heddle loom means that I will rapidly end up with more scarves than I can wear or gift, so I might as well try to sell a few.

I expect that I will mainly feature scarves made from my handspun yarns, although one of the two I listed today is from a commercial yarn. I may also branch out into other handwoven items, not just scarves...we'll see where it goes!

More pictures are on the site, but these are the 2 scarves currently available:

A few tastes of Honduras

So my camera did turn up, and I've managed to get the photos uploaded. Unfortunately, I didn't get that many great shots (most were taken from the window of the bus!), but I can share a few.

We took a LONG drive in which we crossed almost the entire country, so I got a few snapshots of the varying terrain we passed:




Our home base was the city of Comayagua, which has a lovely central square with a cathedral:


On Good Friday, there is a procession from the Cathedral. Groups of people prepare "carpets" on the streets for this the night before. The carpets are usually made out of dyed sawdust, and portray a variety of images--typically Biblical, but not always. We were at the orphanage when the actual procession occurred, but we did take an early morning walk to see the carpets as they were being finished. I have a ton of pictures of these, the colours and detail work were amazing. It's hard to pick just a few to show off!

This one was made by the family that owned our hotel, a church group from Minnesota, and the children from the orphanage:


Check out the detail in this one:


We took a group of children to the Mayan ruins at Copan. We only had about an hour or so to see the ruins, but it was a very impressive site. Seemed much better preserved than what I saw at Tulum in Mexico:


Check out the intricacy of the carvings in the stonework:


Everytime this cart passed us in the village, I tried to get a photo, but he moved so fast I usually didn't even get my camera out in time. This day he was driving through the yard of the school, which slowed him down enough to get this:


However, one day he actually stopped and let one of the other volunteers take a photo of me SITTING on the cart! She's still at the orphanage, but I'm hoping she emails me the photo when she gets home in a few weeks.

Most of the rest of my photos are of kids at the orphanage or of my students working on projects, which I won't be sharing here. I wish I had taken more photos, and I wish I had been able to really get out and see more while we were there. Perhaps a return visit is in order!

I'm back...

So I arrived back from Honduras at about 4 am on Saturday, and the movers showed up at our house around 8:00. I managed to survive the packing and loading with only minor issues--I did somehow let them pack up my one-cup coffee maker--normally kept on my desk at school and only brought home so I could have coffee during the move, so the next 6 weeks without that could be interesting. I also apparently wasn't looking when they packed up the bathroom, and have had to go buy a new toothbrush, hairbrush, and a few other small necessities. But all in all, that's not so bad, right?

Sunday we cleaned, and Monday we signed the papers and turned in the keys. (oh, and collected a nice cheque, so it's hard to complain about that!)

Fortunately school is closed today (Baha'i holy day), so I have a little bit of time to unwind and catch up on life before going to work tomorrow. I have bags and boxes and suitcases to unpack, mail to catch up on, and probably quite a few phone calls and emails to return. And I would love some time to process my trip, but am not sure how that's going to go. If I'm really lucky I'll take an hour and sit down at my spinning wheel and see if I remember how it works after 3 weeks away from it!

Photos from Honduras...I didn't take a lot of good ones, but there were some. However, I'm not sure where my camera is now. It might be in my car, or Stephen's car, or a box, or...we'll see. Most of the best photos were taken by others, though, so I'm hoping they share them soon. I'll post again when I have something to share!

Now it's time to get to work, I think...