The Dangers of Distraction

Kerstin has been blogging about the dangers of distraction and not using one's brain here: http://3.ly/kqh

Today I found myself subject to the same sense of distraction while beaming another rayon chenille warp. I find I really do get much better tension if I use the warping valet, so even though they are just a small warp - 9" wide, 5 yards/meters long, I have been using the valet.

Well, I guess I've got too much on my mind today - my bp is still erratic and was up today (show stress perhaps? Lack of sleep?) plus the final flurry of preparations to leave either late tonight or early tomorrow (talked Doug into sleeping in our own bed tonight and hitting the road early - thereby saving the cost of a night in a motel, doing a brand new show where we have no idea if my weaving will sell or not).

Anyway - you can tell from the blithering that I'm a bit of a basket case and while beaming the warp I accidently let the warp slither off the rail of the valet.

Which would not have been terrible except that as it flipped over the rail, the tail of the warp grabbed on to and entangled itself thoroughly in the rest of the warp chain!

It very quickly became apparent that trying to straighten that pile of spaghetti was going to take far too long and be far too frustrating (never said I was a patient person!) so instead of trying to use the valet, I just dangled the warp chain off the breast beam and weighted it with the water jug.

Not a perfect solution, but much better than trying to straighten out 2.5 yards of tangled chain all at once. This way I only had to deal with about 18 inches at a time.

I use the lease sticks to help hold things in place - therefore the only section of the warp that I'm concerned about is the distance from the lease sticks to the reed.

So the warp is now beamed and ready to thread. But first I have to run to town and mail a parcel and pick some stuff up from my mom, then home for lunch. And *then* I can maybe take a few minutes of calm to finish setting up the loom before I try to muck out the kitchen and pack my clothing...........