November Blues

 

before hard press

after hard pressing

I really love the magical transformation that happens when my woven webs get wet finished.  This scarf came off the loom quite stiff and dull looking.  It was only as the hard pressing continued that it began to shine and develop drape.  From feeling a bit coarse, it now feels quite silky and lovely against the skin.

It never ceases to amaze me that the true nature of the cloth develops when it hits the water and in some cases gets compressed.

They were a little bit more damp than I prefer, so I may run them through the press again a couple of times tomorrow when they are fully dry.

The compression does several things - the obvious one is the development of the shine, of course.  But it also increases the stability of the cloth as the warp and weft threads lock together under the compression.  It makes the cloth thinner, which can be an advantage if one is planning on sewing with the cloth, or hemming it.

I only did 6 scarves today.  There are two more to fringe twist and I may do those tomorrow and then do another batch on Monday.  In the meantime I need to trim the fringes and get the care/price tags on these six.  Three scarves sold at the guild sale today and these ones are quite different from the ones at the sale already.  Plus, they won't sell in my basement!  :D

The 3rd dose of the vaccine I had on Friday didn't knock me flat, but it did make me feel very tired.  I'm not sure I'll weave tomorrow, although I would like to get the current scarf complete so I can cut those three off and work on the fringe twisting.  We still have two more weekends of the guild room sale, plus one Saturday at the arts complex in a pop up sale.  It would be nice to have some new designs to present.

It looks like where we are is not going to be horribly affected by the parade of atmospheric rivers making landfall over the next few days.  But times are going to continue to be difficult for many BC people between the pandemic, plus the climate emergencies - flooding, landslides, roads washed out, etc.

We have no where to go so we are sitting at home as much as possible.  I have a hair cut booked for Thursday and will be happy to get shorn, but that's really all that is on my calendar for the coming week.  I'm hoping to finish the current warp and get the next one into the loom.  Hopefully I'm over the 'worst' of the vaccine response and will be able to steam ahead.

Stay safe everyone.  Pay attention to alerts re: driving and stay home if you can.