R.T. Remembered

Marcy Petrini

August, 2021

Our post-vaccination time was to be over on March 8 and the weekend before we were finalizing our ‘re-entering” strategy with excitement. But when on Saturday, March 6, 2021, I went to the mailbox, my excitement turned into sadness: there, by the mailbox, laid the dead little body of our cat R.T., killed by a car. Terry argues that I can’t know what happened, but what I do know is that people drive around our semi-circle as if they are escaping from home.

R.T. was so named because he was the runt of a litter by a feral cat who herself had been a runt. He was beloved and loved everybody, friendly and inquisitive. Here he is supervising Terry’s photoshoot in 2017.

As I did for the other stages of my covid life, I found comfort in weaving. I wove scarves in memory of R.T. for the four people who R.T. loved. My sister Ellie and brother-in-law Jess will pick their favorite scarves first, but not all of the scarves were ready when Ellie and Jess were finally able to visit in April. We sat a date for September. The scarves are ready, but the pandemic is back with the delta strain in Mississippi, so no visit from Ellie and Jess.

The scarves are woven in black, white and grey, R.T.’s coloring. Since I wanted fuzzy scarves both for comfort and because R.T. was fuzzy, they were all woven with textured yarns in plain weave on my rigid heddle.

I wanted to see the interaction of textured yarns with and without variegation and with untextured yarns. I used Birds of a Feather by Interlacements hand-dyed by Tracey Schuh, rayon with a recommended sett of 8-10 epi. I purchased from Yarn Barn the color grey wolf which is variegated and charcoal which is a solid dark grey. For variety I also used Knit and Crochet Confection, 100% polyamide, 155 yards/176 oz. which the company calls dark gray for color but in fact it has a light grey fuzzy core with bits of white fiber caught in the plying.  And finally, Lion Brand Basic Stitch, premium acrylic, 3.5 oz/219 yards, color charcoal. Acrylics have certainly changed since the 70s when I started weaving now that microfibers are in use.

All warps were sett at 8 epi; fringes were braided rather than twisted, as we do for chenille. Here are the combinations I wove:

And here are the scarves:

Hug your pets and Happy Weaving!

I thought about little R.T. while weaving and wondered what it would have been like to have him as an old wonderful cat. It was not to be. Life goes on.

Hug your pets and Happy Weaving!

Happy Weaving!

Marcy