Step Back to Proceed

 

I haven't begun reading Michelle's book in earnest yet because I have two others that seemed to me to need to be read now.  Both are 'history', as in recent history, and it seemed a good idea I refresh my memory about some of the things that happened in the 1980's and forward.  People who don't know history, and all that.

However, I am looking forward to digging deep into Michelle's book - soon!

Especially as I continue to dig into the nature of my materials - yarn.  I have had the pleasure to have the opportunity to talk to Michelle on a couple of occasions, and the wealth of knowledge is in depth. I'm really glad she was able to write it down in order to share it with others.

In a society that seems smitten by fantasy, it is such a breath of fresh air to know that someone has this knowledge, and has been willing to share it with others.

With that example before me, I went back to the loom yesterday and resleyed the sample warp and re-wove my samples.  As expected, the web turned out much 'better' than what I had done the day before and in spite of the extra time and energy to re-do what I'd done, I feel better about taking the time to do it again.

I started weaving in 1975.  There weren't a whole lot of weaving books available that dug deep into the knowledge.  Since then there have been more added.  My textbooks were Mary Black's New Key to Weaving, Davison's green book, and Shirley Held's book Weaving.  Those books worked well for me as a beginning weaver, but I welcomed new books as they arrived - Allen Fannin's Handloom Weaving Technology, for one.  Other books looked at certain techniques and explained how they worked.

Over time I built up a rather extensive library.  I have winnowed that down over the years, and right now much of my 'library' consists of publications that I have produced.  Not all of them are still available, but of course some of them are.

When Stories From the Matrix was put together, my editor chose to comb through magazines and include a list of many of the articles I wrote over the years.  

I hadn't really kept track of what I had written, just, you know, felt I could contribute something, so wrote it, and had a magazine choose to publish it (or not).  

Ultimately what I hoped, by writing articles and books, was to share some of the knowledge I have.  Plus, of course, this blog.  My major books are still available either on blurb or my ko-fi store.  There are two books in ko-fi - my 'memoir' and the book Weave a V I published on weaving a V shaped shawl using double weave written by Kerstin Fröberg.

Today I will continue weaving the article samples.  I don't have to leave the house this week, so I'm not going to.  Unless something crops up.  But I'm quite fascinated what is happening in these samples.  And, quite frankly, I may choose to re-do the one I'm working on today, if it doesn't meet my expectations.