No good St. Pat's day should be without a ride on the bar bicycle. This was in St. Petersburg, FL. I have never in my life seen one of these things. You ride on it while sitting at the bar and you peddle...thus powering your own bar experience. Or some such thing. At least you're working off all the calories from the booze.
Here the city of Tampa is dyeing the river green during the Irish festival. I really hope that the dye is non-toxic to sea life :\ That's the University of Tampa in the background.
Irish dancers at the Tampa festival. Took me back to the days when my daughter used to be in step dancing competitions. And what a nerve wrecking hot mess that was.
Here we are with our BFF's in
Ybor City (that's pronounced Ebor). It is the very place where the famous Cuban - Tampa cigars were manufactured by hand back in the day. And maybe still today. I don't know. The males in the group didn't want to watch the little history movie at the welcome center. And
I'm supposed to be the one with ADHD.
While in Ybor City, we came across a vintage clothing store, La France, that was just off the chain. I took a picture of this old coat. Not the most spectacular thing in the store, but I did love the weave. It reminded me of my mother's spring coats when I was a kid.
Now, this was the most spectacular thing in the store. The most beautiful dress I have ever seen...ever.
And speaking of textiles....we took a trip to the Ringling museum in Sarasota. The Ringling museum is a collection of museums and Mr. Ringling's magnificent house. I must say, Ringling was one wealthy son-of-a-gun. Or as my husband said, "...a lot of midgets built this house". Here is a shot of the dinning room table cloth; incredibly beautiful lace!
Ringling collected quite a few tapestries from the 16th century. This one is just some little piece they threw up in the foyer.
This tapestry was in the art museum. It has deteriorated to some degree and you can see the warp showing. 20 epi ... I counted.
We also went to the Dali museum, but you weren't allowed to take pictures there. It was pretty incredible. I really like the Tampa area. Hope we can go back again soon. And now back to weaving. I'm working on a bird's eye pattern for a pillow at present. Pics to follow.
While eating eggs the other morning, I decided it was time to break out the rigid heddle loom. This is some warp and weft sample choices to see how they might work together. The warp is assorted cotton yarns. The weft is this incredibly soft acrylic yarn (Bernat Softee Baby). Scarves should be soft on the neck...end of story. I'm also throwing a gold sparkle crochet cotton into the weft mix. All of the yarns are from my stash. There's no real rhyme or reason to placement of warp colors. I just sort of shut my brain off (not real hard for me to do) and let go.
Sunny side up scarf!
This is a sample piece that I'm weaving on the big loom. The pattern is from Marguerite Porter Davison's book... the triple draught bird's eye. This is very dainty weaving for me. I'm used to doing big hunking rugs. But I'm having fun with it. 
