But I don't want a new washing machine for Christmas!

It was the Thursday evening before Christmas, when I decided I had to felt the Christmas stocking, or it wouldn't dry in time. I had specific instructions not to make it shrink too much - the bigger the stocking, the more presents it can hold.

So I started the washing machine with a pair of jeans and a dollop of detergent, and let it fill with water. Then in the the stocking, the wash cycle was started, and I waited about five minutes prior to checking on the progress. Now, the usual sight upon opening the lid is the agitator slowing down. This time, it was already stopped. I assumed operator error and tried again. No luck. It finally dawned on me that the washer was broken. The agitator was trying to move, it made all of the appropriate noises, but nothing was getting washed. So, for some unknown period of time, our clothes had been getting soaked and rinsed, but not really washed. This explained some socks with detergent spots on them, and a white turtleneck with more stains when it came out than when it went in. So, bright and early Saturday morning we went off to Lowes, to see what was on sale and in stock. Found a suitable replacement, and had it up and running by Saturday night. I did one load of regular laundry, then felted the stocking. It came out just fine, and dried by Monday night.




My big Christmas present was a triangle loom, that should work really well with handspun, since I'm not sure what to do with all that DH is spinning. I'll post pictures once I try something.



On the regular loom, I finally rethreaded all of the sections that broke, just in time to move the loom so we could put up the tree. The tree is down, and the loom is back in it's usual spot, and next I have to untangle the mess, shown below, and try to wind the warp again. Hopefully there won't be any broken threads this time, cause I haven't figured out Plan B (or is it C) yet.