Thinking, Thinking

 

I return to this graphic (our plans vs reality) a lot as a reminder that I need to have the plan but also need to be flexible enough to make my way through whatever obstacles I encounter along the way.

So I continue to pick away at what I'm working on while allowing my back burner to simmer, cooking, hopefully bringing any issues I need to anticipate to the surface so I can make plans for them and not be thrown off my path when they try to knock me off my carefully constructed plan.

A friend and I have discussed 'executive functioning skills' a few times and I really wonder if that is what weaving is all about.  Figuring out what you want - in life, in weaving (knitting, whatever) and then making a plan but preparing for distractions and even (god forfend) the occasional disaster.  I need to read up on 'executive functioning skills' and find out more about them.

The warp currently on the loom is a prime example.

The weaving draft was simple enough and I'd worked with it several times already so it was familiar.  But when I got to the 'end' of my ends, I had two left over.  That had never happened with the previous warps, so I *knew* I'd made a mistake somewhere.  

Instead of going back and checking thread by thread, I continued and started to sley the warp.  And very quickly discovered the problem.  Very near the beginning I had somehow managed to leave two heddles empty.  Oh they were there - just...no end in them.

The fix was easy enough.  I grabbed two spools off the spool rack and simply threaded them in where they were supposed to be, then continued sleying.

But it means I am dealing with a couple of spools hanging off the warping valet (bar mounted to ceiling at the back of the loom).  The bar is high enough that I can easily let down enough length to weave a towel, so my routine now includes, weave a towel, adjust the hanging spools, take a break, weave a towel, let down the spools.

It also means I have two 'extra' threads at the left selvedge.  I could have tossed them off the back beam, but then I would have had to deal with those loose ends and frankly no one will ever notice.  

Today I will finish the last of the tow linen - and it looks like I will have just exactly enough to weave two more towels.   Whatever is left over will get stripped and tossed.  

The rest of the warp will get woven off with a hemp yarn that I suddenly remembered yesterday while I was weaving, thinking about the yarn I had intended to use - cottolin.  But I wasn't liking that option much and was casting my mind around for something else.  I could have used 2/8 cotton, that would have been fine.  But this warp is a good one to use up some of that hemp, so that's what I'll use.

Yesterday as part of my 'end of the day' I wound off one cone of the hemp onto bobbins and got it into a humidor.  When I finish emptying the bobbins with the tow linen, I'll wind more of the hemp and get it steeping too.  Hemp is so similar to linen that I tend to treat it exactly the same and getting the moisture content  higher in the fibre will make it more co-operative and it will weave off easily.  Since I don't like 'fighting' with my equipment or yarns, it's easy enough to do.

Plastic tub with a small amount of water in it, another smaller tub floating on the water, bobbins are wound and stacked inside the small tub and the lid covers it.  The yarn can ten absorb moisture out of the higher humidity air inside the humidor.  High density yarn such as linen and hemp have the bobbins wound just about level with the bobbin flanges.  Any fuller than that the bobbin begins to weigh enough that the selvedges can become stressed and either pull in too much or even break.  Depends on the yarn, but it's just easier to fill them less full than chance breaking selvedges...