Guest Post - Katie

My name is Katie Rivas and I met Laura Fry in January '09 while taking a class she did for my weaving guild in Southern California. I liked Laura off the bat and even though the class was round-robin, I spent way more time asking Laura about a million questions I had stored up regarding weaving.

You see, I live in Lancaster, California which is about an hour northeast of L.A. in the high desert. It's a great area to live in but is isolated when it comes to things like weaving (and shopping and finding good gelati - you get the idea).

I learned to weave while living in the Washington DC area, and then moved back home and was like, "Hey - I'm a weaving lone wolf out here!" There aren't any teachers for about an hour radius from me. So I joined the guild and took Laura's class - and by then my list of questions had grown to several pages!

So meeting Laura was GREAT for me! We also talked about her health issues, my mom's health issues, and other stuff.

So when Laura invited me to come to Canada to visit her and weave, I jumped at the chance. I had been emailing her and had told her my long sob story about my love/hate relationship with rayon chenille. Very long story but basically I felt rayon chenille to be the Darth Vader of the yarn world!!

No matter what techniques I tried to get a consistent, even warp on - I could never accomplish this. One side of the warp would always loosen (or both sides), and my back would hurt just trying to get the thing on the loom. It usually took me about 7-9 hours to do one scarf. So when Laura asked me what I wanted to focus on in my 3 days weaving in her studio, I told her - "Learning your technique for getting a good rayon chenille warp on the loom!!" Talk about a no-brainer for me!

I also wanted to learn more about how to do things faster, since I have very limited time in the week to weave. And I wanted to learn about how to do things in an ergonomically correct way, so I'm not tweaking my back out more.

Well - Laura is AWESOME - is all I have to say!!! She taught me how to warp from Back to Front - which I actually had never done. A little hard to get, since am not used to it - but after weaving 5 rayon chenille scarves in a 2 day period (can you believe that?!) - I truly believe B2F is much better with this particular fiber.

Laura's CDWeaver has all of her B2F steps in it if you have that. I can't express what a BREEZE it is warping in this way! We're talking about 1-2 hours to thread the loom and warp on, compared to about 4 hours before. And the warp goes on like a dream - is evenly tensioned and very effortless to weave on.

Laura wanted her rayon chenille stash used up some - twist my arm - so I did 3 different scarf designs. After the last one was done today I was pretty wiped out - am not as tough as Laura - you should feel how strong her forearms are!

Doug and Laura have been WONDERFUL hosts to me the past few days. They are the most generous people with their time, and I got a good look around Prince George - very green with TALL trees. If you're ever here, Connaught Restaurant serves the best salisbury steak dinner I've ever had. Wish I could stay longer, but leave tomorrow for 105 degree heat.

I did purchase a Laura Fry Weaving Studio t-shirt that I've already worn. When someone asked me who I was going to visit in Canada, I said, "You know Yoda from Star Wars? Well, this is the Yoda of the Weaving World" - and she really is :)

Sweethearts Again

I know this photo looks strange - it's because I'm weaving the hearts 'up-side-down' and wanted to show them to you right way up. :) This is a picture of the cloth as it is rolling onto the cloth storage roller and the photo is upside down, too.

The towel has 5 hearts in the centre, then a pair on either side for a border with the rest a 1:3 twill that was threaded on the first four shafts. The hearts were theaded on 5-16 in a point progression. The hems are 1:3 twill the same as the area between the rows of hearts.

The draft is the same as for the t-shirts in my CafePress store: http://cafepress.com/fry or the link on my website will take you there too - http://laurafry.com click on Store, then Merchandise.

I've toyed with the idea of breaking the row of hearts into 'blocks' but with one thing and another, just haven't gotten a round tuit. Blame my cold/allergy (there are hundreds of wildfires in BC and I'm sure that we're getting some of the smoke plume from a big one west of us), or the distractions of living and hostessing a student in the midst of a construction zone. Poor Tien has had to deal with it too - not something she anticipated, I'm quite sure.

The good news is that the bathroom is nearly finished - Doug still has some trim work to do, then the room gets a brand new paint job. The floor will likely have to wait until September - two more students arriving this month and no time to deal with flooring in between. :(

So rather than mess with the treadling I've settled on being content with the way they look for the moment. I may change the tie-up/treadling when I change from the cotton flake to the cottolin. Or I may not. Some days it's enough just to be weaving - thinking is a step too far. :}

I LOVE Weaving!

It was just about this time last year that I opened a CafePress store with the above design as my first offering.

Rather prophetic given that it was Feb. 27 my younger brother suddenly died of undiagnosed Coronary Artery Disease, setting off a chain reaction of events that saw my diagnosis and treatment, and then Doug's..........

But a year later, I am finally beginning to feel like the 'new woman' that I was promised after the angioplasty. :D The current chemical cocktail seems to be more or less working, I have less pain than I did this time last year, and a lot more energy.

While I will always regret the manner in which this current level of quality of life was given to me, I don't regret that I am still here, still playing with thread and that Doug and I can look forward to many more years together.

I just wish Don was still here, too.................

http://cafepress.com/fry