I got 17 towels (16 'good', one with a threading error) off the warp I just cut off the loom yesterday. There was still some warp left on the beam, but I would have been playing 'yarn chicken' if I'd tried to weave one more towel on this warp. So I didn't.
I don't like playing yarn chicken. I hate that I've wasted my time making something that can't be 'finished' because I ran out of yarn for the warp. When I weigh the cost of my time (nominally $15/hr because that is the minimum pay in my province) against the cost of the yarn, it seems prudent to preserve my time and 'waste' a bit of yarn.
Especially now when my energy levels are so low. I have to make every minute I spend at the loom 'count'.
I haven't stripped the leftover warp from the loom yet so I'm not sure how much is actually going into the recycle bin.
Some people get quite 'cross' with this attitude. For them the issue is financial - they have to dig deep for every yarn purchase, plus they aren't selling (or trying to) what they make. So, they'd rather spend the currency of their time than 'waste' purchased yarn.
Definitely one of those 'you do you' moments. Because every person has to weigh where they spend their time, and their money. And each person has to make the decisions fit their own life - their own financial status, and their own interest level.
I put enough warp onto the loom to nominally make around 20 towels. On this towel I wove a sample before I started weaving and that sample might have eaten into the warp just enough that I might not have gotten another towel off of it. As it happens, these towels are a bit larger than my 'standard' and I've been getting 18 towels rather than 20.
But I'm tired these days, too. All my health care providers have cautioned me that the brain needs every bit of energy it can steal from the rest of the body in order to heal and to be prepared to have afternoon naps. Plus I'm still dealing with chromic pain from my SI joint/back injuries and peripheral neuropathy which disrupts my sleep.
So I don't have much patience, or energy to spare. And since everything goes so slowly, I get tired of what I'm doing. Plus I'm planning for the next article in the queue and I want to test drive what I plan to do on this warp in case I need to make adjustments for the 'actual' warp for the magazine project. (If they accept it - it's never a done deal until they actually accept what you've done - and sometimes that all falls apart at the actual compilation stage of the issue under construction. I never get upset about having an article turned down and I never assume that once I've mailed it away it is going to appear in the magazine.)
Right now the thought of writing is carrying me forward. If nothing else, I can (hopefully) write. But it doesn't have to be for a magazine. I can write for publication here, if nowhere else. Writing does seem to be getting easier, but speaking is still difficult and I won't know until August 28, 2026 just how much I will recover my speech.
By then I will be 76 years old and I have to ask myself if I really need to keep doing what I had been doing? Even if I enjoyed it. And I am well aware of the deficiencies of my speech - which makes the thought of doing Zoom presentations very stressful.
(I gave up travelling to teach a couple years ago. There were too many issues given that I'm immune compromised and the continuing existence of covid in the population - no, covid is not 'over' - please consider wearing a mask at large indoor events, or choose venues with air filtering?)
So, long story short, I was tired of seeing that warp on the loom; I wasn't sure I had enough yarn to complete one more towel; I was feeling growing pressure to do an actual sample with density and the yarns I wanted to use for the project. So when I finished towel 17, out came the scissors and off came the web.
Today I strip the loom of the old warp, set up the bobbin rack and begin beaming the next warp. Given I'm running on about five hours sleep, I may well have a nap this afternoon, too.
Hydrate. Rest. Keep going.
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