A windfall, and a tribute

These two boxes arrived in the mail a day or two ago, and I spent a half-hour or so last night unpacking and sorting them. There is 10kg of yarn there (foot-long metal ruler for scale). I won them as a job lot on Ebay, for what was a criminally small amount of money considering the contents - there's a great deal of 60/2 and 140/2 silk in there, and the one cone of orange 60/2 silk on top repays almost half of what I paid on its own.

It's clear from the rest of the listings that this was a man who was clearing out a lady's (I'm going to presume his mother's) weaving room, because for whatever reason she was unable to use it any longer. I asked no questions of course, that would be unduly familiar. But the contents of the box....there are some real treasures in there. There's a good kilo or so of natural-coloured 60/2 silk, half a kilo of 140/2 silk, a lot of tail ends of dyed silk left over from projects which will undoubtedly make an interesting rainbow project at some time. A bit of tussah silk, silk noil, 60/2 cotton, mohair, wool boucle...the list goes on. There's quite a bit of monofilament which suggests the lady did shibori, and it may or may not be the dissolving variety. Various other adventurous yarns. I was so inspired just by unpacking all of this, imagining what she would have done with it, and impressed by the sheer variety of projects they suggested and obvious skill she possessed.

So, Mrs Ashley, wherever you are: you were clearly an accomplished weaver of superior talent. I'm inspired by your skill, and truly appreciate the treasure I've inherited from you.