Stage 'Fright'

 

next warp ready to go - two shades of blue, plus rose

The coming week and week following are going to be personally stressful for me - in addition to the general malaise of the current events unfolding (pandemic, politics, the politics of the pandemic) I am also going to do my first (? only?) Zoom presentation for a guild.  Plus other things.

I'm not proficient at either Power Point or Zoom, and so I'm nervous about how - if - I will be able to manage to give something akin to an interesting presentation.  

On the other hand, I'm not the only person dealing with Zoom and Power Point, and I hear the stories of others and realize that it isn't just me struggling with wanting to be 'professional' in a situation that makes doing that, challenging.

I'm used to a little stage fright.  I admit the first few times I did stand up presentations to groups of people I was also nervous with stage 'fright'.  But as a child I had done things like sing in a choir, played in music festivals (accordion!), danced for audiences, done speech festivals.  So I wasn't entirely new to the concept of getting up in front of a sea of faces and just...doing it.  Nerves and all.

Nike had it just exactly right with their marketing slogan of Just Do It.

In many ways, stage 'fright' is just your body getting itself ready to perform.  A little adrenaline provides some energy, you learn how to focus or you stop putting yourself in that situation.  It's something that organizations like Toastmasters understands - give participants a 'safe' place to get up and try, then get feedback on how to do it better.

I considered joining Toastmasters when I was younger, but never seemed to have the time.  Instead I strode out in front of a lectern (when there was one), and just told my story, watching crowd reactions, learning on the fly.

The difference now is that I need to deal with technology which can fail for unknown reasons.  It's not me I'm worried about.  Much.  I think I've got this public speaking thing more or less worked out.  It's the added stress of using the internet and not knowing if the experience will be good for me, of course, but also for the viewers.

I accepted the date in part because I wanted to know more about what the seminar speakers were going to have to deal with so I could provide them with assistance where necessary.  As it happens, I can't do much because so much depends on the internet and if it works.  Or not.

So I am going to focus on doing what I can in the studio.  The next warp is ready to weave and I will begin after lunch.  In the queue after this one is another with the dark blue but with turquoise/emerald as the stripe, then a pale blue/grey, then maybe that autumn colourway I've been toying with and may or may not actually toss onto the loom.

By that time there will be very little left of the 2/16 cotton.  And so I may decide that this never ending cycle of tea towels is over and done with.  My stash of that type of yarn will be pretty well used up.  I may in the future buy enough white to do white warps and weave off the rest of the colours on the white.  Plus I have been given some linen yarn from a friend downsizing HER stash, and some linen on white cotton might look very nice.  I know it will make a great quality of cloth.

Given it is taking about 14-16 days to complete (weaving) each warp, that's about two months to seeing the end of the tea towels.  For now.  My completion date is now mid-January.  And after that?  Probably work on some more scarves and try to use up some of those rayon yarns.  I'm not sure I want to do more shawls, but possibly.  

Always something to look forward to.

Potential

I've talked about my resources before, my 'libraries' of drafts that I can browse through, evaluate for their potential for being the 'next' warp in the queue.

The one open is the latest, the draft I'm using being the one partially covered by the blue arrow.  The booklet is called The Fanciest Twills by Irene Wood, based on the drafts developed by Fred Pennington, as I understand it.  All (or most, there are a very few at the back that are on more than 16 shafts) are done on a 16 shaft point progression.  Most are symmetrical, although not all, such as the one I'm currently using.  which has a symmetry, but not up and down as well as side to side.  As such it creates stripes in the cloth.

Other books have been in my library for a very long time, like the Oelsner, which has drafts for 4, 6, 8, 10 and on up.  There is a section for twill based weaves, but also sections for other weave structures.  Well worth the price if it is something you are interested in.  Should be readily available second hand, although it might be a Dover publication, so not terribly expensive new, either.

The other book is a much newer book, purchased on a trip to Sweden.  As it happens Kerstin Fro:berg knows one of the authors, and introduced me to her when we ran into each other somewhere.  It is a book similar insofar as it is drafts, various numbers of shafts involved.  It has a number of weave structures that are not very common in North American, and because I had actually met one of the authors, bought it. 

I use these books as jumping off places.  I browse through them looking for ideas, for inspiration.  Usually I know what I want to make (what function the cloth is to perform) but I may not have a clear idea as to design or weave structure, beyond a category (twill, lace, etc.)

So I idly thumb through with my idea simmering on the back burner, looking for something that appeals to me that would be suitable for the function, and perhaps the colours I have on hand.

Right now my primary mission is to use up what I have, not buy more, so there is that creative constraint as well.

I'm pleased enough with how the red and black is weaving up that I will go ahead with the other three warps I've pulled, plus look to see if I can re-combine the yarns to make one or two more warps in this same design.

And after that?  Well, I will just have to wait and see.  There are scarves to be made and 2/16 bamboo from Brassard to use, a variety of fine rayons in lots of different colours and textures to use up.  And all that silk.  The silk may take a while longer to simmer before I feel up to tackling it.

Currently reading Benefit of Hindsight by  Susan Hill

Next Step

One of the reasons for doing the craft fairs to finish out this year was to say goodbye, not just to fellow artisans, but my customers.  To that end I posted the following message in my booth:

FAREWELL!

This is my last time participating in this show.  I would like to say thank you for the encouragement and support over the 40 some years I have been doing craft fairs.

While I will still be weaving, I will be returning to what drew me to the creation of cloth in the first place - all the various ways thread can be manipulated to make a textile.

Over the years I have met many lovely people, visited places I would never have done if I hadn't decided to become a weaver in the 20th - and onward into the 21st century.

It has been challenging, stimulating, educational and very satisfying on so many levels.

Thank you to those people who purchased my textiles and have let me know that they were used and enjoyed.  I hope they have given you as much enjoyment in the using of them that I had in the making of them.  

Thank you!

The sign sparked interest, and many reactions.  Folk commented that they would miss seeing my textiles on display (and me, too!)  Other artisans asked if I was ok, others how I felt about retiring.  Many, in my age bracket, either shared this was their last year, too, or shook my hand and congratulated me.

Today I emptied the boxes of what is left of my inventory.  Too much, as it happens, but less than a full shelving unit.  The next step is to go through the stacks of items, pull out inventory for the consignment shop.  I'm hoping to deliver that tomorrow as I need to be next door to the shop for an interview for a podcast.  (Will post link here if anyone is interested.)

I had hoped to weave the rest of the shawl I began yesterday on the Megado, but I slept in this morning, took too long to get mobile, then had appointments and a much longer wait at the lab to get blood drawn.  And was reminded not to exercise afterwards.  So, no weaving today then.  And likely none tomorrow unless I actually get up with the alarm and don't slouch through the morning.

However, I will also be offering my things for sale via this blog.  The top two shelves are scarves.  Prices range from $100 for rayon chenille, to $110 for rayon, to $125.00 for some rayon, to $145 for silk/rayon.  There are also more scarves in the two boxes on the next shelf down, which also has small table runners the same quality as the place mats, which are to the far right of the next shelf.  Table runners are $27 while place mats are $13.50.  The runners are more than double the length of the mats.  Next to the mats are the smaller of the wider table runners.  Price on those is $60 each at about $58-60" length

The next shelf down has tea/kitchen utility towels.  Some have 20% linen, most have 50% linen.    The 20% linen are $32, the 50% linen are $38.  The longer of the wide table runners are on the same shelf.  Those are around 90" in length and are $90 each.  

Orders for $100 or more will receive free shipping.  Payment can be by Paypal.  If someone wishes to do credit card, I can try the 'remote' feature of Square and see if I can make that work.  Canadians can do e-transfers.  Or if you are really old fashioned, I can accept a cheque, either Canadian or US.  But I won't ship until I receive the cheque.

If anyone is interested, email me laura at laurafry dot com, tell me what you are looking for, I'll see if I have anything of that nature, take photos and email you back.  If you need to know dimensions, I can send those as well.

One step.  Two steps.  Another step.  And another.  Progress!  

Comfort Zone

One of the benefits of working only from my stash is that I have to be bolder in my colour choices.

Rayon chenille has been a wonderful yarn to force myself out of my comfort zone of colours that I prefer to work with.  When I'm doing a scarf series using it, I tend to weave plain weave (for reasons) and make the coloured stripes in the warp the design element.

I will routinely begin with the proportions of the Fibonacci sequence, tweak them, make a stripe that can be interpreted in a variety of different colours in those stripes.

For this one, the value for '1' was 2 ends.  The proportions were then 5:3:1:3, repeat.  This created a fairly static stripe sequence but a lot of people like to have a symmetrical stripe.  (I have done asymmetrical stripes, too.)  One of the ways I added more interest to this cloth was to change which colour went where in the sequence.

Beginning with 5:3:1:3 where 5 was colour A, 3 was colour B and 1 was colour C, this scarf alternated so that the first stripe was as above, then the second was A:C:B:C.  The other selvedge ended with colour A so that both selvedges are the same.  The weft is nearly the same as colour A but not quite - I'd pretty much used up colour A in the warp so something that was very close in hue and value was used.

This combination was not my first but closer to my last - as I was beginning to run low on sufficient quantities of solids to make a two scarf warp.  While the scarves have not yet been wet finished, I'm pleased enough with them that I think they will look even better once they go through the magic in the water.  For now it's the dry finishing that needs to be done.

And Still Not Perfect

If you look really closely, over there on the right you might be able to see that four of the ends are not in the lease sticks.

I was distracted today and nearly at the end of rough sleying, I took two pairs out of order.  This meant they were 'crossed' and when it came time to transfer the cross behind the reed...oops.

This is not terminal.  Not even close.  First I sighed - because still not perfect.  Then I simply made sure that both lease sticks were slid in under the threads that were crossed.  When I got to them in the threading, they were entered into the heddles in as close to the proper order as I could manage.  It really won't matter if they are not in perfect order - they just have to be close.  Rayon chenille has enough elasticity in it that having a couple of threads out of place by a couple of threads really won't make any difference to the weaving.

This is the last of my pre-wound warps.  By the time I finished threading, sleying, tying on and getting the header woven, it was after 4 pm.  I have other things I need to do today so I decided the weaving will just have to wait until tomorrow afternoon.  I may - or may not - get both scarves woven.   I have things to do tomorrow so it will depend on whether or not my energy lasts.   Once they are, it will be back to the Megado to see if I can make friends with her.  (She seems to be a 'her' to me.)

We have had typical autumn/October weather - grey, dreary and mostly wet.  It was blustery today and leaves were dropping - well, like rain.  I'm trying not to let the dreariness affect me too much, but I'm kind of at the end of my rope.  I may increase the amount of vitamin D I take, I might set up the SAD light.

For now I have done the minimum I wanted/needed to do and if I can make friends with the Megado with the next test warp, who knows?  I might even get a shawl warp into the loom.  Not that they will be ready in time for any of the sales, but it will make ME feel better to get that done.

Of course with a huge stash of rayon chenille, I found myself thinking up more ways I could use it.  So we'll see.

Dribs and Drabs

With inventory to make and stash to use up, I designed a new scarf to use some of my rayon chenille stash.

So far it's been a qualified success.  These three shelves show the dribs and drabs of some of the solids that are left.  What I'm not showing you is the other shelves that are laden with yet more.  There is one shelf that is entirely variegated, one shelf that is solids but in a lighter weight.  The variegated is either 1450 or 1300 yards per pound; the lighter weight solids are 2000 yards per pound.  Not a combination I tend to use together in a warp in case of tension issues.  Or, if I do, I use them differently than the current design.

So I have been trying to use the 1450 and 1300 yarn for warps, then cross them with the 2000 ypp solids. 

Unfortunately I don't have enough colours in the 2000 ypp rayon chenille, so I have also been using up the 1450 as weft, too.  Which is why these colours are nearly depleted.

Yesterday I got the blue warp dressed and today managed to get one scarf woven with a darker blue weft.  This run of scarves is being woven longer at 80" in the loom, in part because people were asking for longer lengths.  My standard length in previous years was 72" in the loom, but that wound up about 66" in length after wet finishing. 

Unfortunately I don't have enough of the darker blue to weave a second scarf, but I found a partial tube of the lighter blue.  It doesn't have enough for 80" in the loom, so it will be shorter.  It will be as long as it is when the tube runs out. 

Not everyone is tall and wants a longer scarf as a friend just pointed out.

Currently reading Unto Us a Son is Given by Donna Leon - the latest Guido Brunetti mystery

Adjustment

So, I'm back working on those scarf warps I wound last year and thought about a comment someone made, somewhere, about whether or not you could manipulate yarns into their 'proper' place.

Yes you can. 

Depending on the yarn, you can actually displace most (not all) yarns by up to about an inch.  What does it depend on exactly?

Well, first the yarn itself.  It has to have at least a little bit of elasticity.  It depends on the loom.  The longer the distance from the heddles to the back beam, the more you can displace the yarn from its path.

So for these scarf warps, I have been winding two ends, one fairly smooth, one very textured.  I thread them randomly, except for the selvedge.  Why?  Because I have found that a highly textured yarn at the selvedge can sometimes make a bit of a 'messy' selvedge, plus sometimes such highly textured yarns are weaker than smoother ones.  In this case, the textured yarn has less elasticity than the smooth one, but it can still be manipulated so that instead of being in one of the outside two heddles, I can move the two smoother yarns to the outside and shift the textured ones inside the selvedge.

This particular series is being woven in plain weave, but even if it was twill, I would still shift the selvedge threads in this way.

I tend to wind my warps with two ends at a time, in part to halve the winding time, in part to do something like this textile which will have the yarns threaded randomly for a less structured look to the cloth.

As always, sample first to make sure the yarns you are working with will tolerate what you intend to do with them.  As it happens these are yarns I used to use for 9 years weaving for the fashion designer and I am very familiar with them and how they behave.

For the book I included one colour and weave scarf woven in four end pinwheels.  I wound the two colours then when threading I manipulated the colours into their 4 x 4 end sequence to create the pinwheels. 

Again, I had worked with this yarn previously and knew it would tolerate this much deflection, in my Leclerc Fanny. 

Sample, sample, sample!

New Normal

It feels like my 'normal' for the past 10 years is trying to weave down my stash.  So what's new about that?

Well, my energy levels, for one thing.  One of the adverse effects of the cancer drug is to feel tired.  Even on the lowest possible dose I feel tired all day long and this summer has seen me struggling to overcome that feeling and carry on anyway.

The good news is that the fatigue brain fog is gone, and now that I'm well into the new scarf design, the colour combination possibilities just keep coming.  I currently have six warps wound waiting to go into the loom and ideas for at least another dozen.  I just happen to be out of time right now to do much because I leave tomorrow for a two week trip.

While I am very happy to get out of here and hopefully away from the smoke, it is with a pang as I leave these unwoven warps to await my return.  (Yes, I have packed one wound warp and yarn to wind another - because where I am going there are looms and one of them has my name on it.)

:)

One of the ways I am finding to cope with the Tired is to try let go of my expectations based on my old 'normal'.  My body is not well and in order to stick around I have to take this drug with all its adverse effects.  As usual, if there are 10 adverse effects, I will have 7 of them - to a greater or lesser degree. 

I have also been dealing with the stress and emotional reaction to writing a book, smoke allergy and conference planning.  The fact that I am getting anything done in the studio at all needs to be seen as great progress, not as a failure on my part because I'm not able to weave 3+ hours every day anymore.

So I post here a photo of two of the cones that have been emptied - one yesterday, one this morning.

Every journey begins with a single step.  Every cone emptied is a step in the right direction.  Because it is all progress.  And accepting that this is my new 'normal' - for now at least - means I don't beat myself up because I cannot do what I could, even five years ago, even three years ago.

Currently reading A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes.  I don't have time to finish it so I may have to request it from the library again once I'm done all this traveling!

Choose One Thing

This summer has been challenging for a long list of reasons.  We have been dealing with daily smoke, better or worse, for going on two weeks.  I rather suspect that the smoke is getting to everyone.  Nerves are getting frayed.  Children and people with lung issues (or allergy to smoke) are being urged to stay indoors.  So our altogether too short summer has been shortened even further because people can't do the usual summer activities - gardening, boating, fishing, just enjoying the sun while it's here.

The smoke has created some pretty amazing effects in terms of the sky, from blood red suns to spectacular sun rises and sets.  But it is also eerie and unsettling.  Not to mention knowing our neighbours are being hit hard.  Evacuation orders are in effect and last I heard our town had 3000+ evacuees, some of whom have lost their homes, livelihoods, animals.

Since I was already struggling with adverse drug effects and the toll of a very busy spring, I have not bounced back to even my 'usual' level of energy.  Far from it.

On the other hand, if I allow myself to succumb to my feelings of 'don wanna', I just wind up feeling worse.  It seems the more I try to take it 'easy', the more tired and dispirited I feel.

So I try to choose one thing to do per day.  If I just wind myself up and get to the studio, I not only feel better physically, I feel better emotionally.  Because from now until the end of the year it is one rolling deadline after another.

And then, of course, registration for the conference is scheduled to begin sometime in January.

The bulk of my contribution to the conference is pretty much done - for now - or will be in a few days.  There will be more to do in the spring, but my efforts were largely geared towards the shape of the conference, approaching instructors, working out their details and so on, deciding on the events that will happen.

To that end, I think the committee has done a great job.  Some of the committee members are out of town on holiday and hopefully by the time they get back the smoke will have abated.  I know my upcoming trip will allow me to breathe deeply and get away from it all for a couple of weeks.

Today I chose to weave a tea towel in the morning.  After lunch I wound bobbins for the next batch (it was time to change colours) and then I wound some more scarf warps.  It has helped, playing with colour.  Since I am not allowing myself to buy more yarn, I am forced to work with what I have.  Some colour combinations are easy, some are a little more daring.  I'm being forced to push the boundaries of my comfort zone in terms of colours.

But that is A Good Thing.  And so is using up stash!

Warps in Waiting

Earlier today I wove a couple of tea towels, but as much as I would like to get that warp finished, I am also getting concerned about my other craft fair inventory.  I'm very low on scarves, and since I have boxes and boxes of various kinds of rayon in my stash, I switched to winding warps.

Now, when I say I have boxes and boxes, that doesn't mean I have a lot of choices for colour.  In fact I have depth of stock in a limited range of colours.  Since I'm wanting to have as large a range of options for customers to choose from, I'm winding warps just long enough for two scarves, changing the colour options in each warp.

For some of the warps I will use two different wefts in order to increase the options even further.

People come to a craft fair to get unique items, not see dozens of the same thing in the display, so even though I'm making the same quality of cloth, it's a good thing to have a wide range of colour combinations for them to choose from.

Since stash reduction is a priority, I'm forcing myself to work with what I have on hand.  This also forces me to be a lot bolder in the combinations I put together.  And that is also A Good Thing.

Will I like any of these scarves, personally?  Not necessarily.  They just have to be appealing and look good generally.  But as it happens, most of what I have left are 'my' colours.  So I'm taking the opportunity to play with how they go together. 

But time is running out, quickly.  I leave on the 27th for TN/NC, back on the 8th, then leave again for a week after (our) Thanksgiving, coming home to the first craft fair of the season.

The goal is to have as many of these scarves ready as I can possibly get ready. 

Fingers crossed!  Because I also have about 8 hours of conference planning to do and shifts at the fall fair this weekend.  And we have been in the smoke plume from the wildfires throughout the province for a week.  It's getting more and more difficult to keep going.  

Mining the Stash

Nine boxes.  I was thinking there were six. 

Well, I am going to try to use some of this up.  But first I need to see what is actually in those boxes.

This is yarn from the fashion designer I used to weave for.  She retired when she hit 65 and offered me her yarn to buy at a huge discount.  Since I was familiar with the yarns she used, I foolishly said yes.

Of course I was recovering from by-pass surgery, beginning to feel 'normal' again, no problem, I can buy some of your stash!  And then I sent Doug back for more...

Now, what to do with it?  Now that I'm three years older, dealing with adverse effects from the medication that is keeping me this side of the grass/snow.  Tired All The Damn Time.

Since I'm low on scarf inventory, I've been proto-typing scarves.  They won't be *fabulous* but they will be classic.  And being rayon (mostly) they will have great drape, and not the silk price.  Although I did manage to use up some (most?) of my silk stash earlier this year. 

Since I have taken a booth at the ANWG conference, mostly to sell books, I will also offer textiles.  Who knows, maybe some of these soon-to-be scarves will grace the booth, not just tea towels?

Anyway, it's lunch time.  After lunch I will start to paw through these boxes and see what there is in them.

Currently reading Craeft by Alexander Langlands

Two By Two

When it is feasible, I wind warps holding two threads. Winding two ends at a time means winding goes twice as quickly as winding one at a time.  I prefer a 2 x 2 cross, especially when the yarns are textured, as in this warp.  Textured yarns may tend to grab onto their neighbours and this can sometimes cause problems during beaming.

This warp is two different yarns, both rayon, both 'wobbly', both textured, one more than the other.

When winding a warp with a 2 x 2 cross, the ends must be kept together.  If the loop is separated, this will prevent the cross from being transferred.

With this warp at 16 epi, wound two at a time, I am using a four dent reed putting four ends per dent.  If the warp was wider (this is a 'short' reed, plenty long enough for the 12" wide warp) and I had to use the longer 8 dent reed I would still put four ends per dent, but would then leave an empty one in order to achieve the spacing needed for the cloth.

During threading I will be random in how they go into the heddles.  I find this gives a more interesting look to the cloth as the threads do not alternate, but sometimes the ends might be side by side, or alternate. 

The only thing I do with this yarn is make sure the end in the outside heddle at the selvedge is the less textured of the two yarns because that one is stronger than the more textured one.

This warp is another prototype warp.  I will wind up with two scarves that I will weave with two different wefts.  After wet finishing I will choose which weft I will put into production.  While I'm pretty sure I know which one will be the 'best' weft, I won't know for sure until I get the scarves woven and wet finished.

Sometimes you do need to do a 'full size' sample.

Plus I need to weave down my stash, so I'm trying really hard to only work from my stash!

Showing Up

I'm over half way through this bin of rayon chenille scarves, but still hours of work to do yet. 

Today Doug is working on installing a new light in the laundry room and, for safety's sake, the computer that runs my loom needed to be shut down.  Ergo, I could not weave.

While it was enormously tempting to take the afternoon 'off', things don't get done, so instead of weaving I'm back to fringe twisting.  My goal is to finish the fringe twisting and, if possible, get all of the scarves wet finished before I leave.

In a recent conversation with another fibre person, she commented about people running 15 things off the side of their desk.  Well, I do that, but I also use my dining room table...which is why there is a clear plastic cover over the hand woven table cloth that graces my table but largely remains invisible due to heaps of stuff all over it.  

Being self employed means showing up, even when you don't much feel like it.  I'd much rather be thinking about our upcoming holiday - the first in several years.  Frequently my trips are for 'business' and sometimes I can sneak in a few days here or there that might qualify as a 'holiday' - insofar as I'm not actually making any money during those days.  So, a holiday.  Of sorts.

All too often I work at least a little bit, every day.  Including 'holidays'.  Yes I have been known to weave on Christmas Day.  Thanksgiving.  There is always some aspect of being self employed that can be tucked into a day - ledger entries, project planning, writing (like this blog - although that is more unpaid labour), research, writing.

Now I will be adding conference planning.  More unpaid labour.  But that is part of returning to the weaving community some of the benefit I have had, being part of that community.

But if I don't show up and do it - well, nothing happens.

Dreams are well and good.  They are a pathway.  A goal.  But the only way to get there is to walk the walk.  Show up.  Do the work.

Labour Intensive

I got home late afternoon on Tuesday (leaving Richmond at 5 am).  Yesterday was filled with appointments - including a change in the date of my dental surgery.  It will take place on Monday, not a week from now.  So things have to be changed around in order to leave me some time for recovery.

To that end I decided I needed to at least dress the small loom.  Of the two looms, this one is a little more 'gentle' on my body and the one that I will likely feel like weaving on soonest.

Having four warps already wound, waiting in the wings, so to speak, I simply chose the one on the top of the heap and started beaming it this morning.  

The next two days are similarly filled with appointments so working on it will be catch as catch can.

I rarely put less than 11 meters of warp onto this loom, although I will if I'm sampling.  11 meters of warp yields 10 towels.  Usually.

Dressing the loom is the biggest investment in time so I want to make as many items as I can on a warp.  Unless, as mentioned, I'm sampling.

Yes, after 40+ years of weaving I do still sample.  I have not worked with every single yarn, so when I get one that is new-to-me, I need to find out the hidden potential locked in the yarn.

Does it have sufficient twist to hold together as warp?  If not, do I want to go to the work of sizing it?  What sort of epi/ppi do I want to use with it?  What happens when the density changes?  The weave structure?  Most of all, what happens during wet finishing?  Because it isn't finished until it's wet finished.

I have some 'test' scarves I wove from hand spun singles that need to be wet finished.  I had hoped to do that while Mary was here, but somehow we ran out of time.  Mary is a master spinner (Olds College master spinner program graduate) and we have been working on this research project for nearly two years.  It has been a learning curve for both of us as we explored the effects of twists per inch on the singles, the twist direction, how the yarn behaved in the loom and during wet finishing.  The three scarves continue the exploration but until they are wet finished....well that is the last step and I'm hoping to do that today or tomorrow in between appointments.

Never too old to learn!

Learning Curve

All this yarn is part II or maybe III.  It is a research project with two other fibre people where we have each brought our skills, our knowledge, our expertise, to make something that is greater than the sum of it's parts, insofar as we are all benefiting from the interaction of our various areas of interest and expertise.

I know I bang on and on about how everything changes when you change one thing.  In order to make meaningful discoveries, it works best (for me) to make incremental changes, observe how the yarn reacts, then tweak what I am doing.

While I may have been weaving for over 40 years, I long ago learned that I wasn't going to learn everything there is to know about the construction of cloth because there are so many variables.  One person would be hard pressed to try every fibre in every format, every loom, every weave structure, every finishing technique, every density in all of the above.

But it was that very un-knowing-ness - the vast scope and range - of cloth construction that excited me.  It continues to excite me. 

Yes, some of the 'experiments' have been 'failures' insofar as they didn't produce the results I was looking for.  In fact, this current round of 'samples' is barely the tip of the iceberg, scratching the surface.  Whether or not the three of us will continue to explore this area of making cloth or not, only time will tell.

But in the meantime, I ride the roller coaster of learning and try to enjoy the ride up and down and around the curves...

Revving Up

One of the things I did last year (maybe the year before!) was wind a bunch of rayon chenille scarf warps.  I managed to weave off a few of them, but there were seven warps, sitting in their boxes waiting, patiently.

In an effort to reduce rubble, I decided to weave them off.  So far, so good.  I think once the one currently in the loom is woven, there are just two left to do.

Unfortunately, I have lots more rayon chenille.  About 50 or so pounds of it.  The shelving unit is full, plus the two boxes on the floor, plus the boxes that are not in this photo.

However, there are still 60 yards of warp left on the AVL and I'd really like to get them finished.  The panels need to be done for the conference in Victoria the end of June, and I'm heading into a very busy teaching schedule in May/June, with homework from the Olds students beginning to arrive very soon.

So, as soon as I finish off the pre-wound chenille warps, I will fire up the AVL and see if it is in a snit having been ignored for so many months.

Currently reading Rather be the Devil by Ian Rankin

Pushing Limits

One of the things I like about working in series is that as I work through colour options, I find myself becoming more bold in the colours I put together.

While this warp was wound a long time ago, it is an example of what happens when I start to run out of colours in my stash, or I find myself wondering 'what would happen if'.

I'm still not sure about this particular colour combination.  I don't personally like lime green, but I have a cone of it and it needs to get used up.  I'm not sure about the addition of the burgundy with the lime green, greyed green and dark green.

I am completely out of my comfort zone with this warp.  But it's wound, so I'm weaving it.  We will see how it looks once woven.

The Drape!

One of the things that people find appealing is a textile that feels good 'in the hand'.  A textile that bends and flows.  That drapes lovingly around the body.  

I have been working with various forms of rayon for quite a few years, now.  Rayon was developed to mimic silk, without the price of silk.  It drapes well, feels substantial (at a good density for the yarn) and takes dye to a brilliant depth of shade.  It can also have a luxurious sheen.  

It was an enormous relief when we were finally able to get some of the new scarf design wet finished.  There are still some left, which may not get done in time for this year, but there are enough for the upcoming show season.  And who knows?  There may be time next week to get the rest done before show two and three...

Pushing Boundaries

The workshop with Bonnie Inouye finished yesterday and in order to cement some of the techniques we learned I have been working on a series of drafts that may very well find its way into my production schedule for next year.  

There are many things about weaving that make my little heart go pit a pat, and this workshop kind of rang a chorus of bells...fine threads, smooth fabric, complex looking cloth, all variations that can be woven on one threading.  Just changing the colour (hue or value) can drastically change the look of the design.  

I also have a huge stash of fine threads that need using up, so I can reduce stash and not even buy more yarns (or at least, not much) to weave with.  Truth be told, I may have to buy some yarn for warps, but weft?   I've got so much, and you get such a lot of play value when using 2/20 or finer threads!

The trip has been great.  I actually know people in the Nashville guild so it was great to see them again, plus make new friends.  I hope I can make it back again.  

On the home front, the basement windows are being replaced this week, so the studio can be put back together when I get home.  I've still got 60 yards on the AVL that needs to be woven before I can even think about this new direction.  

Done!

For certain values of done-ness...

Three buckets of scarves woven, and a fourth with the fringe twisting elf.  

Several deadlines are going critical, so I may go 'dark' for a while.  

After years of juggling more stuff than I can keep track of effectively, I have come to the realization that if I just hunker down and complete one thing, then move on to the next I feel less scattered, less panicked.  So I am going to try to - shall we say - uni-task - for a while and see how that goes.  If I need to weave as a palate cleanser, I have a 100 yard warp to put into the AVL...