A perfect finish
First of all, I'm indebted to a lady on Mastodon called Marie-Louise (who I think is a francophone Canadian), who pointed out that I had the tension knob the wrong way round on Adelaide. It probably wouldn't have made a huge amount of difference in use, because the tension peg itself was where it was supposed to be; I just had the bolt, the washer, and the knob on back to front. The bolt goes through the other way, and the washer and knob go on the back of the loom out of sight... which is fine by me, because honestly that knob is not pretty. It doesn't exactly enhance Adelaide from a visual point of view. So I have put that right, and now you can see the tension peg itself from that angle, with the end of the bolt atop it.
The instructions suggest that, to keep your loom from getting scratched or dirty and to protect the wood from climate variations, you should coat it with something. I'm a careful crafter, so I'm not too worried about scratches or dirt, but climate? That's a factor. The humidity is high a lot of the time, and I do not live in a strictly temperature-controlled environment. I can never get the place cool enough in the summer (and that's on the ground floor; what it's like on the two floors above me I hate to think, though at least they can leave their windows open overnight), and I'm not inclined to overheat it in the winter. I have a thermometer by my chair which is reading 13 degrees right now, and first thing in the morning it's often enough reading 12 at this time of year. (No, honestly, I'm fine with it like that. I wear layers and I have a blanket, and I enjoy that. If my hands are too cold, then I'll do something about it, but if they're not I'm perfectly all right.) And the only warping I want on any of my looms is the threads, thank you; so coating seems like a good idea.
Naturally they recommend Ashford Finishing Wax, so I went and looked for that online, and discovered that a) it is very expensive for what it is, and b) it's beeswax, therefore not vegan. So I ended up on this site that specialises in antique furniture restoration, of all things, where they had a vegan wood wax that looked as if it was going to do the job just as well for a lot less. Plus, they had water-based wood stains... and I do like a bit of light oak, so a small tin of that ended up in the basket along with the wax. I hadn't originally been planning to stain either loom, but I think it's not a bad idea, as it immediately makes them more identifiable should they for any reason go missing.
And then, the following morning, Alice showed up; and there is a reason why all you're seeing at the moment is bits in a box. Alice's instructions recommend doing the finishing before you do the assembly, rather than after, as in Adelaide's case. I didn't realise when I ordered the looms quite how much staining and waxing there was going to be in my short-term future, but... hey. I've spaffed my entire Christmas present from my mother on looms and weaving accessories, and it was a generous present, so it's worth expending a bit of time and effort to ensure that everything lasts as it should.
A word about Alice is in order here. Alice, as previously mentioned, is a 40 cm Ashford Sample-It rigid heddle loom, but she didn't show up on her own. She arrived as part of the Ashford Complete Weaving Kit, so she has her own bag to enable me to schlep her about, two reeds in different sizes (and I ordered three more, so I could weave with pretty much any weight of thread/yarn), a book, and... rather annoyingly, a jar of Ashford Finishing Wax. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that. The kit originally also contained 100 g of wool yarn, but when I told the excellent Mr Herring I was a vegan, he said that wasn't a problem, he could substitute... and he did. Royally. He put in an entire 500 g of acrylic yarn in the same weight, in several different colours. But I didn't realise the wax was in there, and obviously it didn't occur to Mr Herring either. Ah well, someone will no doubt have a use for it.
Apart from that - the green jacket is finally finished and I shall be wearing it tomorrow (oh frabjous day!); I am still working on a red jumper for Baby [Obscure Old Testament Name], having finished the one for the other baby who was supposed to show up on the 30th but isn't here yet; there is the netting course; I have another Southbank which has been parked in mid-construction for some weeks now, due to a combination of too much knitting and Christmas; I appear to have just acquired a sewing student (a teenager from church who wants to learn to make her own clothes); the beading dish in the kitchen is near enough dry that I think I'm going to be able to turn it upside down soon to give the base a fighting chance of drying without the whole thing sagging; I need to repair my green spectacle chain; I could really do with a massive catch-up session on the Italian, which has also ended up somewhat parked; I've managed to source some vegan winter-weight sock yarn (about which there will be a full post at some point, but probably not soon); and... here are the crossword solutions, should you require them!
Across
1 MIAMI 6 OVERT 9 CABBAGE 10 GLEBE 13 DISCLOSE 14 CIRCLE 15 REP 17 FATIGUE
18 HOSPITAL 20 FIX 21 ABSENCE 25 DISC 26 NAIL 27 KINDEST 29 TOY 30 IGNORANT
31 INCUBUS 33 ASS 35 TENNIS 37 CEMETERY 40 TENSE 41 UPSCALE 42 SUPER 43 AFOOT
Down
1 MAGIC 2 ICE 3 OBI 4 SARI 5 DESCRIBE 6 ORMOLU 7 EMBER 8 TROOP 11 BACKPACK
12 SECTION 13 DEFLATE 16 EDITION 19 OMINOUS 22 SATISFY 23 NEONATE 24 ENTRANCE
28 DOUBTFUL 32 NUMBER 33 ABYSS 34 SCARP 36 SLEET 38 ROSE 39 LAW 40 TEA
