Weaving a Life

Warping Valet

2012-02-02T08:06:00.000-08:00

Weaveblah asked about the warping valet - since my ceilings are fairly low, I got Doug to install a bar that hangs from the ceiling. The warp goes under the breast beam and over the valet. The Leclerc looms all have removeable breast beams, so Doug secured it with a bracket in order to allow the warp to run underneath it.

Kati Meek has a book called Dance With Your Loom which details what she calls a warping trapeze which is essentially the same thing although it is attached to the loom instead of the ceiling. She calls that a high bar trapeze (I think - the book is on loan right now).

I started using this tool quite a few years ago after seeing one in Sweden and the name of the tool was translated for me as 'warping valet'.

For more info on how I use this, click on the 'warping valet' tag to the right hand side - scroll down....way down!

Taking a Break

2012-02-01T17:41:00.000-08:00

Seems that in spite of my efforts to stay focused I still made two errors in the threading of the huck lace sample warp. Neither was terminal - one required a repair heddle, the other was just two ends crossed between their heddles. But as I began weaving I realized that with my concentration so poor, I'd better not try weaving the 6" repeat until I had settled down a little.

So instead I rummaged through the huge bag with the recent yarn order and pulled out the new varigated yarns (2/8 cotton) and started designing some towel warps. It felt good to 'play' with colours, and besides, I'm using up stash, so it's all good, right?

I expect I'll wind 7 meter long warps just to test the yarns and colour combinations, and may even send one or two of these to John C. Campbell Folk School to weave while I'm there.

Whatever I'm going to do, I'd better decide soon so I can get the box into the mail.

Weaving Interrupted

2012-02-01T10:56:00.000-08:00

With the phone call last Friday giving mom her surgical date (Feb. 16 - to be confirmed the week prior), we were set into a bit of a frenzy of activity. We want to get her house listed with a real estate agent before she leaves, so the last of the clearing out has to be done before the house is listed, plus arrangements for care made. It appears that - all being well - the day she arrives home from Vancouver is the day I will be leaving for the long planned trip to NC/FL. I guess I'll wave at the bus as we pass on the highway.

(The workshops at Durham and John C. Campbell Folk School are full but Sarasota and Asheville still have openings.)

I did finish the first of the two warps of huck lace, cut up the loom state samples, wet finished the rest, calculated how long the second warp needed to be and wound that warp. With the distraction level much higher than I'd like I was very grateful to have my system of keeping track of a more complex threading to fall back on because I kept losing my concentration and having to go back to check the repeats. One more phone call to make today (the rest will be made once surgery is confirmed for the 16th) an appointment at the bank, and then I can finish threading and hopefully start weaving this afternoon.

But progress has continued on the Big Project. Last night at guild I prepared another of the yarn samples to be stapled to the card with the woven swatches. Hard to believe that 150 tassels of yarn would take nearly two hours, but that's what it took. Of course I was using the thrums from the warp so that probably took longer, but I felt somewhat virtuous by upcycling what would otherwise be 'waste'. :)

I also pressed a huge pile of placemats (36) and towels (19) and have made a good dent in the hemming. Tonight is a 'good' night for tv so I'll probably settle down after dinner and have a tv/hemming fest and see if I can finish the mats, at least.

Currently reading Blind to the Bones by Stephen Booth

Math and Me

2012-01-27T14:21:00.000-08:00

Math has never been my long suit - not even simple arithmetic. Every once in a while I make a truly magnificent oopsie. Weaving dishes up another serving of humbility pie!

Knowing that I'm not good at crunching numbers, I actually worked through the equation of how many ends I needed for this warp for the Big Project several times. Seems like I simply repeated my mistake, several times, because I was short 16 ends. I double checked my threading, using my system of grouping ends in their constituent repeats and confirmed that my threading was, indeed, correct. I was really and truly short 16 ends.

Stopped and thought about it for a while. This warp is, after all, for samples, right? Could I live with the fact that one selvedge would be radically different from the other?

Much mulling produced the answer - no.

So I wound another warp chain of 16 ends, threaded it through the appropriate heddles, ran it around the back beam and up and over the warping valet. Messed about with various weights until I got the right amount to provide sufficient tension and started weaving.

It's not a pretty sight, to be sure, but it's working - well enough.

For curious minds, it took about 2 pounds of weight for the little chain. And the really nice thing about the warping valet? By running it over that, the yarn package is nice and close and the 'drop' is much longer than if I just weighted it off the back beam - no constantly running to the back of the loom checking to see if the weight needs to be dropped.

I've got over a yard woven so far (the warp is 9 meters long).

Currently reading Raisins and Almonds by Kerry Greenwood

Threading

2012-01-26T14:01:00.000-08:00

threading for huck lace with plain weave 'borders'

first section of 24 ends (plain weave) threaded - each group of 4 ends is tied in a slip knot, then the 6 knots are tied in a big slip knot seen at the right hand side - on the left is the first repeat of point twill

next repeat of point twill established with the 6 heddles set out ready to be threaded - each orange section is knotted together as it is completed and then...

....one entire repeat is bound off when completed

Thought I might share how I thread a more 'complicated' threading although this one isn't particularly - it actually breaks down nicely into manageable chunks.

If you look at the draft, I've used an orange marker to show the major divisions of the threading - the first mark (top right) shows the plain weave border. The next orange marks show the major sections of point twill separated by ends of plain weave. The green marks show the smaller chunks that get threaded and tied first. At the end of the chart, I will repeat from the beginning which will make huck lace boxes surrounded by plain weave 'borders'. So the first repeat has been done.

I don't actually mark my drafts like this any more because I can do it visually, but I did this when I first started. I also used various other methods to keep track, and still go back to those depending on how complex the threading becomes. Usually I print out the draft in its entirety and as each section is completed I'll mark it off with a pencil or coloured marker as I go.

Some people really love to colour their heddles. I don't find that works terribly well for me because then I have to 'translate' the numbers of the shafts into which colour the shaft is. It's a lot easier for me to just follow the numbers in the draft. For this four shaft loom I don't number the shafts but I do have the shafts on the AVL numbered so that I can make sure I'm pulling the heddles from the correct shaft. I've probably got a photo of that in my blog somewhere but I think you get the idea.

For extremely complex threadings, some people find that if they 'treadle' the threading, they reduce the mistakes. Some people treadle one shaft (heddle) at a time, others do it in groups, e.g. an advancing twill with a 5 end advance might be threaded (treadled) with each group of 5 ends (1.2.3.4.5 then 2.3.4.5.6 and so on).

Changing My Mind

2012-01-25T19:51:00.000-08:00

I wasn't terribly happy about combining the plum with the greens and a quick rummage through the stash revealed a lighter greyed plum that will look much better, as far as I'm concerned. So this combo is next in the queue for the small loom - as soon as I thread/sley/tie on/weave the lace sample awaiting me on the Leclerc Fanny.

Just now finished cutting the towel warp off the AVL - and only just in time as it looks like my yarn order arrived today. However I was parked much too far away to pack the parcel to the van so I opted to leave it until tomorrow when I can maybe get closer to the door. Unless someone has sent me a present. :^) The card doesn't say what the parcel is, just that I've got one to pick up.

But it's also time for me to pack up the class materials for John C. Campbell Folk School and get them into the mail so I expect that some of Thursday will be spent deciding what I want to weave/demo while I'm there, wind whatever warps are necessary and get it ready to go into the mail soon - just to make sure it arrives in time. I'd rather it got there much too early than a day late!

I also realized that I only have one more weekend before my company arrives so I am going to have to clear enough of the rubble away that they will not feel as though they've entered an episode of "Hoarders"....

Currently reading Death Before Wicket by Kerry Greenwood (a little too much information about cricket, but I'm ignoring that....)

Food For Thought

2012-01-24T09:54:00.000-08:00

Simon Winchester seems to have a talent for finding interesting 'characters' and telling their stories in an informative and engaging way. I've read several of his books and will look for more of his titles. I'm fortunate in that my local library has quite a few of his books.

In this one we meet Joseph Needham, scientist, researcher, writer and ultimately, historian. His fascination with China turned into the opus Science and Civilization in China - a task so monumental that it continues long after his death.

In the Appendix of Winchester's book he has a list of some inventions developed by Chinese minds and their approximate dates - some of which far pre-dated similar developments in Europe. Unfortunately it is only a partial list and doesn't have weaving inventions but does include these:

Silk, earliest spinning of: 2850 BC

Silk reeling machine: AD 1090

Silk warp doubling and throwing frame: 10th century AD

Spindle Wheel: 5th century BC

Spindle wheel, multiple spindles: 11th century AD

Spindle wheel, treadle-operated: 1st century AD

Spooling frame: AD 1313

Trip hammers, water-powered (as in a fulling mill): AD 20

In other news, I've received confirmation of the workshop at the Sutherland Weaving Studio in Asheville, NC (A Good Yarn) and Sarasota is still looking for more participants for their two workshops (The Efficient Weaver 1.5 days and A Good Yarn 1 day).

The trip is shaping up nicely and I'm looking forward to visiting with a friend on the way home in Seattle area and attending the March meeting of the Seattle Weavers Guild. I'll be gone a month, which Doug isn't terribly happy about, but I'm looking forward to very much. If nothing else, spring should be arriving by the time I get home and the days, which are lengthening nicely, should be much longer. Although we have had a few brilliantly sunny days in Janurary, there have been all too few of them. Today we are back to overcast, blustery wind and blowing snow. And temperatures that are far too mild!

A good day to stay home and maybe finish that towel warp?

Refining Technique and Weaving Boot Camp?

2012-01-23T12:37:00.000-08:00

Weavers learning my 'method' of beaming sometimes get very nervous about the part where the loops of the warp need to be transfered from the 3rd stick to the apron or cord at the back beam. I realized that it would be a very simple matter to utilize the 'angel wings' as a 3rd hand.

3rd stick with warp loops - stick is tipped upright so that it is easier to see the loops

apron rod being interleaved with the loops of the warp and the apron

apron rod fully inserted into the warp loops

3rd stick removed - warp is now completely installed onto the apron rod

a couple of minutes (at most) and the pigtails in the loops are smoothed out and the warp is ready to be beamed

warp travels under the breast beam, over the valet and each chain is weighted with a jug of water - elapsed time from inserting rough sleyed warp in the beater to the warp completely beamed and ready to thread - about 20 minutes - the warp is 9 meters long, 544 ends at 24 epi (about 22 1/4 ")

Purrington's angel wings are not required for this - any method of supporting the stick would make the job of transfering the loops much less stressful. I just happen to have the angel wings installed on this loom.

Pam Howard and I have been discussing my returning to the John C. Campbell Folk School next year in January. She has suggested another week long course but a different topic than The Efficient Weaver, which we will have given twice after my trip there in March of this year.

Thinking about what I could offer I wondered about a Weaving "boot" camp where people could come and rather than have a set curriculum, they would let me know ahead of time what they wanted specifically to learn and I would act as a weaving coach. Lectures would be given to reflect the needs of the students. For instance, perhaps people wanted to know how to read and design with profile drafts. Or there was interest in fibre characteristics and how to choose yarns wisely for the intended purpose. Or there was interest in wet finishing, generally, or for shrinkage differential (more commonly known as fabrics that go 'bump'). Or people wanted to know more about how colour acts in woven structure.

The week long class would allow people to hone in on where they wanted to improve and give them an opportunity to focus in a concentrated manner on working towards mastery.

What do you think?

Confidence

2012-01-22T17:05:00.000-08:00

warp for Big Project #4 ready to be rough sleyed

Confidence: Firm trust; assured expectation; self-reliance; boldness, impudence; telling of private matters (as a secret) etc...

Have been thinking today about why I started blogging. The answer is a rather long list beginning with the thought that, in August 2008, I was over my health issues and finally on the road to recovery. How wrong I turned out to be.

At any rate, I started blogging partly as a celebration of life, partly because I wanted to share my weaving experience with others without running afoul of those whose experience differed from mine, partly as a boost to my confidence which positive feedback provides. Blogging also allowed me the freedom to post photos, drafts and diagrams along with my text which chat groups (be they on yahoo or elsewhere) doesn't. It allowed me to ruminate upon other things going on in my life than just weaving - e.g. sharing what I am currently reading.

I knew that some people valued my experience from feedback received while I was travelling to teach so I had confidence that those people would welcome my pithy comments. Blogging also allows me to share things in this semi-private forum that I no longer share in public forums (like how long it takes me to do some of the processes involved in weaving).

Ultimately my blog became therapy as I did the cancer detour and badly needed the support of more than just my family, who were stressed out enough as it was without my turning to them when I felt weak, helpless as they felt already.

But just because a person is confident in some areas of their life doesn't make them confident in all areas.

Most recently I 'published' a booklet on my experiences dealing with the marketplace selling my textiles. It was with a certain degree of trepidation I pushed the 'send' button and I have been kind of waiting with bated breath for feedback. One person said that it was 'thorough', which pleased me because I tried to at least mention everything I could think of about being in the business of selling hand woven textiles. But the email I got this morning from Karen Donde of Sutherland Weaving Studio really warmed my heart:

"Ok, opened the file and couldn't stop reading. Goose bumps. I sure hope we get some time to talk in person in March.

Thanks for sharing all this experience. The download was $8.95; the lessons learned...priceless.

Karen"

There are still spots available in the one day workshop A Good Yarn being held at Sutherland Weaving Studio March 17. I'm looking forward to meeting Karen, her weaving partner Barbara and weavers in the Asheville NC area for the first time. :)

When Things Go Wrong

2012-01-21T12:22:00.000-08:00

Got about half of the warp woven this morning and everything is fine. It's not 'perfect' - but then what in life is?

I have always been the kind of person who when things go wrong looks for a solution. This has been particularly valuable in terms of weaving because, quite frankly, things are all too frequently going 'wrong'. When they do, there is no point in gnashing one's teeth and weeping (although a little venting is sometimes required). A few explicatives may be used, but then it's onwards to find a fix that will allow one to carry on.

This is a lesson that is important in life, too. This past week has held its share of 'bad' things but life happens and you just have to get on with it.

Perfection is a journey with lots of lumps and bumps along the way. All we can do is keep on trying. Even though these place mats are a little 'off' in terms of what I intended the end user won't know that. They will just judge the mats on their merits and like them - or not.

Dangerous Distractions

2012-01-20T16:00:00.000-08:00

We all know (or should) that driving while distracted is dangerous.

Turns out trying to dress the loom while distracted is also dangerous.

I found myself this afternoon fighting procrastination plus a high level of distraction while dressing the loom with the next place mat warp.

With 2/3's of the warp beamed, I had a moment of extreme distraction and suddenly my lease sticks were no longer holding the cross.

Now this isn't terminal for me because I rough sley the reed - it's just very annoying!

Deciding that I was near enough the end it should not matter (famous last words, those that include 'should') I carried on beaming the rest of the warp and then picked up the cross again from the reed.

Now I have a 4 by 4 cross rather than a 2 x 2 cross, but since I was going to be threading this warp with the colours randomly in the heddles, this should (there's that word again) not make much of a difference.

So what is distracting me? A list too long to mention - some of it good, some of it not so much, some of it just puzzling, needing to be straightened out at some point, some of it planning for my trip away in March. Still no word on mom's surgical date and at this rate it may all happen while I'm out of town so I need to make some arrangements regarding care for her - home nurse, personal hygiene, meals and light housekeeping and so on. And rely heavily on my dear sweet husband to pick up the slack for me if necessary.

Minimum/Maximum

2012-01-19T23:14:00.000-08:00

showing the 'right' side of the cloth

showing the 'wrong' side of the cloth

The colours in these photos are not 'true' - the first one was taken at the back/bottom of the loom as the cloth rolls up on the storage roller. It is dark down there so the colours appear darker and bluer.

The photo showing the 'wrong' side of the cloth are up at the business end of the loom and appear washed out from the flash and more yellow.

But the photos do show the difference in how the cloth looks, one side to the other - more warp showing on one face, more weft showing on the other.

This is because the weave structure is 1:3/3:1 twill blocks with only one block showing warp while the other 3 blocks show weft as it is being woven. I got into the habit of doing this when treadling was done by leg power - the fewer shafts to raise, the easier it was to weave.

So, whenever I can, I design my treadlings to raise the fewest number of shafts even when it means I'm weaving the cloth 'up side down'.

I find I get better sheds, and if it's easier for my leg, it's probably easier for the loom, too. It's the old "minimum input, maximum output' adage.

Currently reading The Man who loved China by Simon Winchester - I've read a number of Winchester's books (thanks for the recommendation Kerstin) and generally enjoy whatever he's tackled.

Beginning

2012-01-18T09:09:00.000-08:00

I know I blogged about this before - even found the photos I took - but can't find the actual post so here it is again....

When beginning a new warp I use some scrap yarn and throw 3 picks without beating. It doesn't really matter what sort of yarn although something with a little 'tooth' (not slippery) works best.

Then I gently squeeze the beater forward until all three picks are nicely lined up.

With pick number four (the shuttle is on the left hand side of the loom) I take the scrap weft around the rod and pass it to the right hand side.

With pick number 5 (the shuttle is now on the right hand side of the loom) I take the scrap weft around the rod on the right hand side and pass it back to the left hand side.

And then I pass the shuttle back to the right making a total of 6 picks to prepare the warp for weaving.

To Market, To Market

2012-01-17T14:30:00.000-08:00

Today I racked up some success....and some failure.

I did figure out how to create a .pdf file and finished the final edits of the pamphlet (not sure what else to call it - at 14,000 plus words and 45 pages, it's not a 'book') on the things I've learned about being in the business of making hand woven textiles to sell.

But I could not figure out how to list this publication on Art Fire and make it be 'free shipping'. Since I don't want to be charging shipping for something that will be an emailed pdf file, I have finally given up and will just sell it via my website or by email request and send people a Paypal invoice.

So - if you are interested in my pithy comments email me. The price is $8.95 and you need to be able to receive an email attachment and open the pdf file.

Currently reading Break Down by Sara Paretsky

Making Progress

2012-01-16T20:25:00.000-08:00

Place mat warp with two of the colours from the towel warp - the greyed blue and greyed green

I'm enjoying the blue green warp on the AVL so much and, since I have yarn left over on the tubes after beaming that warp sectionally, I decided to do some blue/green place mats, too.

This week is fraught with appointments so I don't know how productive I'll be in the studio, but I did manage to weave two towels this afternoon, then threaded/sleyed/tied on and started weaving the mats after dinner. In the photo you can see the medium brown yarn I used to begin weaving, to spread the warp out and erase the V's at the beginning of the warp. I've described previously how I did this, using just 6 picks of weaving to begin. Then a couple of picks of the cotton in plain weave, two picks of twill to create the cut line and then the first hem.

Tien Chiu sent me the ribbon measuring 'tape' which I have cut to various standard lengths, in this case 20", and which I pin to the cloth to measure how much I have woven. (I think she said she got it at a Joanne's store.) I measure under tension, but it doesn't really matter, just so long as you are consistent. If you always measure without tension, then always do that.

Remember, if you can't be perfect, be consistent!

T-shirts available at: http://www.cafepress.com/fry

Currently reading Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood

Test 2

2012-01-15T15:18:00.000-08:00

This time a small file

test.jpg

2012-01-15T14:24:00.001-08:00

Got a new phone last month and kept forgetting to test the camera. With a rather long road trip coming up thought I ought to do that.

On Relaxing

2012-01-13T15:05:00.000-08:00

The Yarn Harlot did a post today on 'relaxing'. Her point is that so many people believe that 'relaxing' is sitting doing nothing while she believes (as do I) that 'relaxing' is when you are doing something you love.

One of the things that drew me to weaving was the fact that it was amazingly physical, especially weaving on a production basis. I've mentioned before how well intentioned people, knowing nothing about weaving except their romantic notion of what a weaver does, would urge me to attend an aerobics class. Upon which I would giggle somewhat hysterically and explain that I already did about 5 hours of aerobic activity a day. To raised eyebrows and unvoiced (usually) skepticism.

I've also mentioned elsewhere that my retirement plan is to keep on weaving. Why would I 'retire' from something that I love to do? How many people, after all, can't wait for 'retirement' in order to pursue their love - weaving?

Weaving is also a form of working meditation for me. When I don't weave for an extended period of time I get rather un-relaxed. When I travel I usually pack a stack of hand hemming at the very least. When I drive somewhere I usually bring a bag of knitting to occupy my hands in the evenings as well. You never know when the hemming might get finished and there I'd be - nothing to do with my hands!

One friend calls my knitting, fringe twisting, hemming, 'creative fidgiting'. I have to agree with that. Another friend calls weaving my 'happy place', and I have to agree with that, too.

I've just spent a half hour getting the loom re-adjusted for the next towel and woven one (pictured above). While I am now taking a rest break, it's not what I would call 'relaxing'. I've just had a half hour of that. :)

Method/Madness

2012-01-12T12:17:00.000-08:00

I know this looks rather a jumble but there is method to my madness.

Although I still have not had the A Good Yarn one day workshops confirmed at Sarasota and Asheville, doing the prep work is going to be time consuming so I figured I'd better get started on it. I'm winding a whole lot of skeins and my neck isn't best pleased if I do too much of that all at one go. On the other hand, I can't use my work table for anything else until I get the winding done, so I do feel somewhat under the gun to get it finished and cleared away.

Normally I bring the box of cones, balls and tubes with me but with so many topics, such great distances to travel and airlines being the way they are with limiting luggage and weight, I decided to wind off small skeins - two of each fibre for the two workshops. This will give the participants some options as they go through and attempt to identify the yarns during the hands on part of the workshop. They can then cut up one of the skeins and everyone can have a sample of the yarns for their notebooks.

With so much photocopying to be done I'm thinking of just taking all the master copies to Staples and getting them to run the copies rather than me stand over my photocopy machine breathing in the toner fumes. :)

And if the classes don't 'go', the skeins/handouts will be ready for the next time I do this topic.

The place mat warp is nearly done - 3 more mats to weave, I think - the next mat warp is wound and I need to get back to the AVL as I want to have some of the towels I wove cut off so they can be wet finished on Saturday and pressed on Sunday. Not to mention the editing that still needs to be done. For that, though, I need to be in the right mood and lately my distractibility has been a little too high. Editing requires that I be able to focus and concentrate.

And of course, with company coming next month, I really, seriously, need to get my house tidied so that they will have a bed to sleep in and a place to sit in the living room!

It's Okay, But....

2012-01-11T16:20:00.000-08:00

greyed plum warp with natural weft

next plum warp will try some green...

Started weaving the plum warp today and it's okay but a little bland. I had been thinking of adding some grey to the plum but decided that I'd go with a darker greyed green instead.

That should add some depth and visual interest to the warp.

This week I'm trying to sort through priorities - I've got skeins to wind for the one day workshops A Good Yarn, handouts to edit, pamphlet on being in business to edit, notes to write up for sample #3 for the Big Project and decide on #4 (probably 10/2 merc. cotton in a huck lace), year end stuff to tackle. And all I really feel like doing is sitting reading, or weaving. :)

The week is half over and I need to start crossing things off my to-do list. Soon. Very, very soon.

Currently reading From This Moment On by Shania Twain

Going on Faith

2012-01-10T08:29:00.000-08:00

I'm quite enjoying this warp. The colours are soft and remind me that spring is coming - although not any time soon, in spite of yesterdays weather!

This warp is getting a bunch of bits of yarn from my stash used up on it. This weft is 22/2 cottolin - of which I had one a a bit spools. I'm not entirely sure I like it on the loom although it looks more appealing in the photo so perhaps I just need to wait until it is wet finished.

In the meantime I'm going to use up this oatmeal cottolin and have faith that once they are done I'll like them more than I do on the loom.

And then I'll switch to the cotton flake and change the treadling again.

Back to 'Routine' - sort of

2012-01-09T14:36:00.000-08:00

My warping 'station' - additional overhead lights for this somewhat dim studio space.

Notice that I tie the cross on the four 'arms' of the X not at the waist. Choke tie is about 1 yard away from the cross. On this 9 meter long warp there are: 1 choke tie (near cross), 1 counting tie (near the bottom end - opposite end from the cross - which could be used for a raddle if I used one of those) and two other ties to keep the warp chain tidy.

After winding I remove the last peg at the bottom of the board and simply drop the warp into a small box. The cross is hanging over the edge of the box in preparation for rough sleying. Notice also the reed laid across the bottom of the warping board. The yarns come straight up off the spools (or cones), threaded through the reed. This means the threads are always coming straight off the yarn package so there is no extra drag or tipping over of cones during the winding.

Today I finished packaging up the yarns and drafts for Durham and will head to the post office shortly to mail the box. They should have it in two weeks so will have time to wind their warps and dress their looms. My hostess has offered her loom for an 'extra' warp and I've offered to dress it on the Friday with one of the more 'fragile' warps as I will have an extra day (the guild program is Friday evening). I didn't want to chance flying in on the Friday in case of travel delays. Been there, done that too often. While I've never actually missed an event due to travel delays, it's been awfully close a few times and it's just way too stressful - for me and for the event organizers!

We finally achieved some sunshine today. If it weren't for the wind howling it would almost be shorts and short sleeve weather. March weather in January - which means we'll likely get January weather in March. Well, I won't be here - hopefully I'll be enjoying spring in NC/FL in March. :)

Currently reading Blood on the Tongue by Stephen Booth

Durham, NC, Here I Come....

2012-01-07T17:27:00.000-08:00

Today I started working on the drafts and yarns for the Magic in the Water (part II) workshop for Durham, NC.

My workshops change with each group as I try to tailor the contents for each one - a southern group doesn't want a whole of wool, for instance! So for this workshop I changed several of the drafts that called for wool to something else. There will be a little wool for some of the shrinkage differential effects, but those warps only have a bit of wool in them so should be interesting to the participants, and possibly even something they might try for those effects.

Although the group has a whole lot more eight shaft looms than what are usually available, not all of the drafts require 8 which should make weaving a little faster. For those weave structures that are really slow to weave, I set up duplicate looms. In this workshop there are four warps that are duplicated.

My goal is to have everything for this workshop ready to mail out next week. Since I am doing 4 different groups with 5 different topics, I will be mailing as much as possible ahead of time, which will make for a rather large box going to Durham. :)

I usually bring cones of yarn for the A Good Yarn presentations, but I think I am going to have to wind mini skeins as I am doing this topic as a guild program for Durham, and two one day presentations for Sarasota FL and Asheville NC. With so many flights the danger of the airline losing my luggage increases with every flight I take and I don't want all my eggs in one basket, so to speak. :} So, once the drafts/yarn packages are done I'll drag out my skein winder and start winding skeins.

The handouts for A Good Yarn need deep editing so that will have to be done next and then I'll get back to the pamphlet on being in business.

I want to get all of these things done in the next couple of weeks because I am going to have company from a travelling weaver in February, and then March will be here and I won't be. ;) And sometime soon we are hoping mom will be getting her surgery. I'm keeping fingers crossed that my cousin's wife will still be willing to travel with her.

Currently reading Sidetracked by Viven Lougheed

Knowledge and Soapboxes

2012-01-05T14:31:00.000-08:00

A gamp of various wefts for the rest of the warp. Colours are not true - the greyish one is actually a soft greyed lavender which looks very pretty on the warp but not so great in the photo....

There has been a lively discussion on one of the chat groups about recipe weavers vs weavers who draw upon their own creativity and the relative merits of each approach.

I started wondering how many weavers throughout history really were designers rather than weavers who learned how to weave one particular quality of cloth and wove that as their profession pretty much every day. They probably knew every hint and trick about how to weave that quality of cloth and were experts at producing perfect cloth within that quality. But how many of the thousands of weavers who were journeyman really knew very much about the ins and outs of cloth construction on a broad basis?

Modern weavers are amazingly lucky in that we do it because we love it. Whether we do it from 'recipes' designed by others or start from scratch, choosing our own colours, yarns, set, weave structure etc., is really neither here nor there so long as we are enjoying what we are doing. Even as someone who does this as my profession, I'm primarily doing it because I love it, not because it's the only way I have of putting food on my table or keeping a roof over my head.

I could go do something else much more lucrative in terms of income than weave!

What does concern me, however, is that general knowledge about cloth construction might get 'lost'. Who, then, will design the recipes for the others?

Judith MacKenzie has a great quote (which I have probably used before but bears repeating) "When you don't know what you don't know, you don't know that you don't know it." (Emphasis mine)

I joined the internet community in 1994 and almost immediately came to realize the lack of knowledge about wet finishing. (Well, I knew that from attending conferences, but the internet allowed me to speak about the necessity for wet finishing and sharing how to do it in a public forum.)

In the years since I have spotted other areas where there is a distinct lack of knowledge, especially on the internet. Much of the knowledge is contained in books, but as someone pointed out to me, the new generation doesn't go to books as a first line of knowledge source, they go to the internet.

And so I have found myself straddling several soapboxes - wet finishing, of course. Issues of efficiency. Fibre characteristics.

The only way I can see of encouraging new weavers to realize that they don't know something is to constantly (gently!) harp on about what they don't know. Eventually those who want to know more will learn where to find out more and hopefully pass on that knowledge to others.

So I continue to climb up onto my soapboxes and natter on about the aspects of cloth construction that I feel are under represented in the weaving community.

Currently reading Death in the Dark by Kerry Greenwood

Finding My Voice

2012-01-03T15:36:00.000-08:00

the two 'faces' of the cloth - the white side will wind up as the 'back' side but it's easier to weave as there are fewer shafts to lift this way...

Before I started weaving I did many textile crafts, learned at my mother's knee - almost literally. In spite of knowing that she designed many things herself, I worked from patterns. Oh sure, I'd change the colour, adjust the size a bit, but essentially I followed the work of someone else.

Until I met weaving - or should I say, my weaving instructor who would not allow us to simply follow someone else's design.

At first the design decisions were daunting and even a bit frustrating (just tell me what to do, don't make me figure it out, dammit!) but suddenly I began to see that everything was in my control. I could choose what colours and where they were placed. I could choose what set which would affect the drape of the cloth. I could choose what weave structure. I could even control how that weave structure was laid out in terms of the threading sequence and I could absolutely control the treadling sequence to get the design to happen where I wanted it to.

The more I learned, the more I knew - with a certainty - that there was so much more to learn. How exciting!

Once I learned how weave structures worked in theory I could apply that knowledge to creating my own cloth. Weave structures have been around for thousands of years - there's not much to change in how threads interlace. There are only so many ways to make a set of threads go over and under another set of threads, after all. But when you add in colour, texture, density, well the options are limitless.

The greatest gift weaving has given me is that of finding my own creative voice.

Currently reading Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series - a recommendation from Dana Stabenow

Grateful/Hopeful

2012-01-01T13:34:00.000-08:00

grateful for when warps turn out the way I want them to....

With the dawn of a new day and year I find myself looking forward to 2012 with a great deal of gratitude and optimism. Not to mention a huge dollop of relief that 2011 is over!

I am grateful that the lymphoma was discovered so early and that the oncologist didn't let any grass grow under his feet dealing with it.

I am grateful for the friendship expressed in good wishes from so many people, many of whom I've only met via the internet.

I am grateful the journey wasn't more difficult than it was and that remission came 'early' so I didn't need to have the last 2 chemo cycles.

I am grateful the oncologist successfully made the case for me to receive the maintenence protocol which will extend remission for several extra years.

I am grateful that the underlying cause of my continuing fatigue appears to have been indentified and that I will start treatment for that soon. Not to mention the discovery that my immune system is seriously compromised from additional nutritional deficiencies (which no doubt led to the lymphoma developing in the first place).

I am grateful that I can still weave and write and teach and will have the opportunity to do more of that this coming year.

I am hopeful that this year will finally bring good health and fewer 'challenges'.

I am hopeful that mom will get a surgical date soon and that she will pull through it to have better health, too.

I am hopeful that I will meet some of you in person as I travel this year.

2012 - the year of gratitude and optimism.........

Analytical

2011-12-31T13:11:00.000-08:00

Since the Big Project is about choosing yarns appropriate for the final purpose of the cloth I decided that fabric samples alone were not going to be enough, that I would also have to include samples of the yarn used as well.

The question then became how to efficiently handle making lots of little bundles of yarn. The obvious choice is to staple the bundles to the pages. Yes, I could drill holes and lark's head them through the holes. Anyone want to volunteer to spend the hundreds of hours that would take? Anyone want to pay someone to do that? Didn't think so. :D So, I will staple the bundles and those who want to lark's head instead are welcome to make that change. I know of several people who pulled the staples from the samples in Magic and sewed them to the pages instead. Makes perfect sense, especially if you live in a humid climate, but if I'd done that the book would have been over $1000, not the price I actually charged! I ruled out glue because glue eventually dries out and then the samples fall off the pages.

Since the sectional beam was used to dress the loom I left the spools used on the rack. Using one of my 6" wooden rulers as a guide I am tieing a knot in the end, then a knot every 6" or so. I'm doing this in groups of 5 knots. More than that and the length of 'string' becomes cumbersome to handle. Once I've got all 30 groups done I'll cut them apart. Then when I staple the samples to the page I'll also have all the little bundles ready to staple as well.

A 6" sample of the yarn might be a bit generous but yarn is cheap (relatively speaking) and I wanted people to get a good sample they could examine and even deconstruct if they wanted in order to better understand the properties of the yarn being used.

The baby blanket samples are in the washing machine and the first batch are just now ready to go into the dryer. Tomorrow I'll press those along with the place mats and tea towels I've managed to hem. It feels good to see some real progress being made.

Merry Christmas To Me

2011-12-30T16:15:00.000-08:00

When Doug asked me what I wanted for Christmas I told him there really wasn't anything I needed - or wanted - other than a new winter coat.

We take winter rather seriously around here (in spite of the too mild temps we've been having the past few years) and a good winter coat is a necessity when temps can dip to -20 or even -30. Even though we haven't been having those kinds of temps, winter just lasts so very long here you wind up wearing a winter coat for months. And my current coat was deficient in several areas.

Since a coat is something that I need to try on and make sure it fit I set off for the mall this afternoon and spent a frustrating couple of hours trekking from store to store.

It was nearly impossible to find any kind of selection of coats in my size and I decided that either the shops have determined that 'large' people don't need coats or all the 'large' women had scooped them up before Christmas and left the dregs for me to fumble through.

I finally found one coat that would do - except that it didn't have storm cuffs (and I'm tired of having cold arms) and it was rather more money than I was willing to spend, even on sale. However it did actually fit (arms were long enough, shoulders broad enough) so I made a mental note and thought I'd try the other mall and see if there was anything at The Bay.

Back out into the sleety snow and another half hour of trying on whatever coats I could find in my size. (Seems they had the same problem with sizes.)

After trying on nearly every coat in my size I was ready to give up and head back to the other mall but I made one last sweep through the department and found a coat that I actually liked. It was a silver grey with a very light silver around the collar fading to a darker steel grey at the bottom. It was a bit longer than I'd prefer but what the heck, figured I may as well check the size.

Oh my! My size. So I doffed my coat one more time, put on the coat and yes, it had storm cuffs, the sleeves were long enough, it had enough slack that I could wear a sweater with it and it was on deep discount.

Hallelujah!

I even got a further discount when I got to the till. :)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Re-Tooling

2011-12-30T11:52:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I posted this photo with the comment that I wasn't happy with the spacing of the colcolastic yarn and that I was going to resley the warp.

So last night I started re-sleying. To remove the header I just cut the weft and pulled it out rather than unweave it.

When nothing much is changing, just squeezing the yarns together in the same reed, I don't pull all the threads out. Instead I just move each bout of threads over one at a time. I find this makes it much easier and keeps the threads under tension and controlled until their turn comes. I loosen the knot of the next group and then just stick the hook into the next empty space grabbing the threads from the next dent to be moved. It only takes a few minutes and it's done.

I expect I'll weave this sample warp off today - IF I'm happy with the new spacing - and go through the workshop warps to see how many need to be updated. I've got a supply of 10/2 mercerized cotton now so that will probably be added as it is a yarn commonly used by US weavers.

As regards the colcolastic yarn, it is more fragile than I expected which is a bit disappointing, but now I know that I will take more care handling it as warp. I will suggest back to front beaming and lashing on rather than tieing knots as I did originally. These things are good to know so that people understand how to handle the yarn.

Big Project Reveal

2011-12-29T18:01:00.000-08:00

top of the big bag of yarn that arrived yesterday - yum!

stapler stand

cutting up sample #2

I hesitated to do the Big Project Reveal so soon but have made sufficient progress that I feel as though it is well on the way.

The first two samples have turned out the way I wanted them to, #3 is on its way to reaching material form (pun intended!) and #4 is actually further along in the design process so may get bumped up the queue.

So what is the topic? This project grew out of the Workshop in a Box turned lecture/seminar/workshop called A Good Yarn. What I am doing is taking a variety of fairly commonly available cotton yarns and designing projects for which I think they are particularly suited. The text pages will talk about the specific characteristics of cotton fibre/yarn with the aim of helping people who want to know these sorts of things choose appropriate yarns for their cloth. Fibre geeks I suppose I could call us. :^)

I brought the stand for the electric stapler home the other day and cleared out a corner for it to live in. Not entirely clear - the table still needs to be cleaned off and the buckets of bobbin lace - although they may wind up living under the stand! (Doug has just returned with the stapler and set it up immediately so that is good to go.) As soon as I cut the finished #1 samples apart I can start stapling.

The format for this publication will be very similar to Magic in the Water. The samples will be stapled to card stock but this time I'll also include samples of the yarn used. Drafts are primarily for 4 shafts, although I may include a couple of 8 shaft drafts.

The pages will be printed via a laser printer (I think - I still have to explore actual options). There will be no binder, partly to keep the cost of publication down, but also to reduce the shipping cost. Most people can get their hands on a 3 ring binder, after all. And as someone from Europe pointed out, their standard paper size and ring configuration is different than in N. America. The sample pages are already drilled for the N. American standard so they will come with that format.

I am making 150 copies (give or take) so if you want to be first in line, let me know. (email laura at laurafry dot com) I'm taking names of people who are interested and will contact them first. Price is still ball parked at between $50 and $60, depending on cost of printing. For this you will receive 10 projects illustrated with before and after samples of the cloth, draft and wet finishing info. (Well, I could hardly leave that out, right???)

With fewer and fewer guilds including samples in their newsletters and the cost of producing a publication with actual samples in, I'm hoping there will be enough interest to carry on with several more topics (potentially: silk, linen, the rayons)

Please let your friends know. 150 copies is all there will be - first come, first served!

Currently reading Inheritance by Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm

Selvedges

2011-12-27T16:54:00.000-08:00

3 thread 'float' on selvedge 2/8 Tencel warp/weft 24 epi

3 and 5 thread 'floats' on selvedge 2/20 cotton warp with 2/16 cotton weft 32 epi/ppi. The 3/1-1/3 twill causes small 'scallops' at the edges.

3 and 5 thread floats on selvedge 2/20 cotton warp with mystery weft 36 epi/ppi

None of these textiles were woven with a floating selvedge or temple. In my experience - depending on yarn size - a 3 or even 5 thread float at the selvedge is not a problem.
Rather than worry about a textile having a plain weave selvedge I would far rather see weavers focusing on being consistent. Learning how to hold and throw their shuttles well. Learning how to advance and re-tension their warps. Learning how to beam their warps so that they go on under consistent tension. Learning how to wet finish their cloth. Learning fibre characteristics so that they can make appropriate choices for their textiles. Learning at least enough theory to make changes to the project notes found in publications - or recognize when there is a mistake in the printed format.

But none of that is necessary if the weaver is enjoying what they are doing and are happy with their results. If they aren't, then perhaps they need to dig a little deeper and learn more....

Speaking of which, there are now 7 students enrolled in the John C. Campbell Folk School class in March. I'll take up to 12. It also looks like the workshop in Durham is a go with a few more empty spots. Not sure about Sarasota or Asheville.

Currently reading The Midsummer Crown by Kate Sedley

12 Days of Christmas

2011-12-25T01:00:00.000-08:00

a weaver's Christmas wreath?

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me:

12 sheep a baa-ing

11 shearers shearing

10 carders carding

9 spinners spinning

8 dyers dyeing

7 winders winding

6 weavers weaving

5 golden fleece....

4 empty looms

3 shuttles

2 bobbins full

And a warping board with a new warp!

To all my fibre friends - I wish you the very best for the holiday and the coming year - may your looms never be empty, your stash always full and your mistakes all fixable.

Cheers!
Laura

One Winner, One....Not

2011-12-24T16:42:00.000-08:00

herringbone diamonds

needs tweaking

I'm really quite pleased with the baby blanket/big project fabric. When I want to do a large diamond, I use a herringbone threading/treadling sequence rather than an extended point twill. What happens when you reverse the twill direction on an 'ordinary' point twill is that the outside warp ends fall out of the woven cloth. If the distance is only 3 picks it's not a big deal, but when you want to do a large goose eye of an inch or more, it's a problem.

So, rather than do an extended point twill I use a draft such as:

This is just one repeat - if you keep repeating the threading/treadling, you get large diamonds as in the baby blankets.

(A little preview of what will be included in the Big Project - a little present for the holiday!)

As for the sample for the workshop, I'm not happy with the spacing of the colcolastic so tomorrow I'll cut the header out and resley.

Prepping and Proto-typing

2011-12-23T21:49:00.000-08:00

box full of pirns ready for weaving tomorrow

proto-type warp for Durham NC workshop

Today was slow but steady progress - the loom got threaded, sleyed and tied on, ready to weave. By the time I got pirns wound it was too late to start so that will happen tomorrow.

I scored a box of colcolastic yarn this week. I've been looking for a supply for a while so it was great to receive the box so I can add it into my workshop. The really nice thing about the colcolastic is that it is lycra with cotton and it comes in colours unlike the wool/lycra I've been using. It's also strong enough to be used for warp without too much trouble, While I did use the wool/lycra as warp myself, it was a singles yarn so I didn't like to put it into the warp for workshops.

bamboo 12 and wool/lycra in the warp

So, while the pirn winder chugged out pretty much perfect pirns, I wound a warp to test drive for the workshop in March. It's ready to be rough sleyed and put into the loom. Again - tomorrow.

Currently reading Three Day City by Margaret Maron

Keeping Notes

2011-12-21T12:56:00.000-08:00

from this...

to this....

It occured to me today that I have not begun to record the information for the Big Project samples. Duh! While I always think I'll remember, I never do, especially after a few warps have passed over the beam.

So I spent some time thinking about what sort of notes I need to record and how I'll go about doing that. Some people devise spreadsheets or have elaborate notekeeping apps they use. I'm a lot more basic than that. I'll set up a new folder in Fiberworks to keep the drafts and then use Word for the notes.

Right now I'm just working on whatever sample is ready to weave given my inventory of yarns and other considerations. For example, I need a couple of baby blankets for gifts and since a baby blanket project was on the list for the Big Project, plus I wanted to use up some of the yarn I had on hand, this is the result.

The photo also shows an example of warm/cool colours and how warm colours advance, cool colours recede. Even though the ratio of warm (pink/orange) is the same as the cool (grey/blue) the pink/orange stripes look wider than the grey/blue. Not only that, while the yarns are in fact flat on the beam, can you see the slight slant? That the pink/orange part of the stripe looks higher than the grey/blue?

Since this warp is so wide I don't need such a long one but since I need 'extra' baby blankets I'm beaming 20 yards. It won't get done before Christmas, but will be done before the new year.

Monday I'll be at the press tackling that mound of wet finishing that is crying out to be dealt with and then I'll have a mountain of hemming to do.

Currently reading Mystery in the Minster by Susanna Gregory

Thought Squirrels

2011-12-19T17:36:00.000-08:00

Normally when I sit down to blog I know pretty much exactly what I'm going to say. Not today. Today my thoughts have been flitting through my brain like squirrels, here, there, everywhere.

Today started out quite normally - for what passes for normal around here lately. But then a flurry of things happened and I totally lost my focus.

The good news is that I got in to the doctor's office early afternoon. He agreed with my diagnosis and I came home with 'magic bullets' which will hopefully finally once and for all, kill the bug that's been bugging me, off. It seems to me that the 'cold' I had in November wasn't an ordinary cold and it never really left - just changed locations from my lungs to my sinus'.

Plus I got the lab results showing that I do actually have some nutritional 'gaps' - quite a few, in fact, 3 of which have 'fatigue' listed as their primary symptom. I'll have to wait for the new year to hear the treatment plan but I'm feeling as though I am on the right track and that I really will start the new year much healthier than I've been for a rather long time.

We settled our Christmas Day activity - dinner out at 4 pm and I'll help mom with her Christmas letter and cards tomorrow. Since she's not heard anything about surgery we are assuming that it won't happen now until the new year.

And I think (I hope!) I've got a good enough photo of the roses on her wall. I'll go tomorrow and make arrangements for an enlargement. It might not be as large as the original, but I don't think mom will mind too much.

Once all that was done I stared at my pile of paperwork and decided that it could wait another day or two. With the holidays upon us I don't think people are too worried about hearing back from me. I only have one thing that's critical and I'll see about working on it after dinner. Who knows, once one thing is done I might just steam roller through the rest.

Or maybe I'll weave some more. The first 4 mats are done which means that this 9 yard warp is about 1/3 woven. Tomorrow I'll number crunch for the next Big Project warp and maybe get that beamed, too. Or maybe Wednesday as it may take a couple of hours to deal with mom's cards. I'll see how the day goes.

Currently reading Season of Darkness by Maureen Jennings - the first volume in a trilogy set in England during the 1940's. The tv show Murdoch Mysteries is based on her original mystery series set in Toronto in the late 1800's.

Recycle, Reuse

2011-12-17T16:04:00.000-08:00

As a child of the 50's, I knew my parents were all too aware of the necessity to make do, reuse, recycle so when the 70's and 80's came along I heartily endorsed the lifestyle of composting, reducing waste, using things up.

I weave - a lot. Therefore I have a lot of thrums. For many years I gave them to school art classes until the teachers begged me to stop. They had more than enough! For a while I threw them away, consoling myself with the thought that at least they were natural and would eventually return to whence they came.

And then I found out that the local Salvation Army had a textile recycling program. I stopped in at the thrift shop and asked if they wanted my thrums. The answer was a resounding yes!

So I set a bin under one of the tables in my studio and began collecting my thrums to give to the SA.

Last summer a friend asked if she could have some to give to her mom because her mom took old yarn and spun it into novelty yarns. I was happy to do so.

And then she gave me some skeins of the yarns.

Some of the skeins of handspun novelty yarns

It took me a while to decide what to do with the yarn. It was fairly thick so it seemed best to treat it like I would rag strips and make some thick mats. Yesterday I beamed a 2/8 cotton warp for placemats and thought I would begin by using up the box full of handspun yarn.

The yarn is far too thick to use a regular shuttle and bobbin. Here I'm loading a couple of stick shuttles with it. I don't know if you can see it in the picture but the shuttles are shaped like a thin wedge. The best way to load these shuttles, I've found, is to figure 8 the yarn around the spine or thick edge of the wedge. The shuttle and yarn then forms a thick wedge that will fit into the shed without too much difficulty. I just tie a slip knot and put it over one end of the shuttle and then start winding the figure 8. The majority of the yarn sits on top of the shuttle so that it is mostly wood on the back or bottom side.

And here is the first mat with the second shuttle just begun.

Finished!

2011-12-16T12:55:00.000-08:00

I won't say that the scarf is done as it still needs to be hemmed, but here it is after wet finishing.

Although southern guilds aren't keen to have wool in the Magic workshop - they have very little call or use for wool - a little bit used to create shrinkage differential or 'collapse' effects might be tempting. :)

With only one scarf (and a towel) in the washing machine, fulling didn't really begin to happen by the end of the 4 minute wash cycle with hot water (and our water is very hot as we keep the water heater turned up quite high just for my wet finishing), the regular cycle agitation and spin.

When I took the scarf out of the machine I wetted it out thoroughly and tossed both it and the towel into the dryer for about 30 minutes, checked on it a couple of times and took it out still damp after it had reached the degree of 'collapse' I thought would work well in a generous sized scarf. The length is a bit longer than antiticpated (remember too long can be made 'right') but some people like very long scarves. Since this is primarily a teaching sample, not a prototype for production, I'll hem it as it is and call it 'done'.

Currently reading A Good Hanging - a collection of short stories by Ian Rankin. Not sure how I missed this title as I thought I'd read everything he'd written but it will do until his next title becomes available.

Pay Attention

2011-12-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

The end of the scarf with one more sample, this one woven in twill. Notice the little 'waves' in the fell. This is due to the difference in characteristics of the two yarns - the wool has a much higher elasticity than the Tencel. Since the whole point is to have a cloth that 'collapses' this difference is not a problem and in fact after wet finishing, the white wool will be shorter than the Tencel causing the bubbling in the purple stripes.

If there is one bit of advice I would love to give to every new weaver it is this: Pay Attention!

New weavers often get frustrated with their results - the cloth coming off their looms isn't 'perfect' and they don't know why. Rather than sit down and analyze what they are doing and change it, they get fed up.

As an 'old time' weaver who started weaving long before the internet, my first inclination is always to head for my books for assistance when I run into a problem. I was incredibly fortunate in that I had an actual teacher who was able to show me things, but not everyone was that lucky. Frankly I can't imagine learning how to weave from a book, or even a video for that matter. But I digress.

Once I got the basics from my real live teacher I spent many months studying what I was doing and the results I was getting. I did not expect to learn everything about weaving in a weekend. Somehow I knew that learning to weave was like getting to the heart of an onion - it was going to take the peeling back of many many layers until I became proficient.

Ultimately the adage that sums it up best for me is the one that says: If you keep doing what you've been doing you'll keep getting what you've been getting.

Unfortunately if you've been doing a physical activity for a long time, change isn't done at a snap of the fingers - there is muscle memory to be erased and a new position or motion to be repeated until it becomes the new 'default' mode.

But in order to decide if you need to change something, you need to pay attention. Are you physically uncomfortable? Maybe you need to sit at a different height or a different distance from the edge of the bench. Maybe you need a different seat altogether - an adjustable office chair, a large ball, a tall barstool might fit your body and loom better.

Threading killing your back? Maybe you need to remove the breast beam (if dressing the loom back to front). Maybe you need to raise the shafts. (I found a shoe box raised the shafts on a Baby Wolf to the point where I wasn't killing my neck to thread the loom.)

Threading takes forever? Maybe you need to use a different method of threading. Yes, there is more than one way to thread the loom and more than one way to hold the hook.

Not happy with the way your cloth is turning out? Maybe you are not making the best choices in your yarn selection in terms of fibres or colours. Maybe you need to learn how to wet finish differently to get different results.

Before you can improve, though, you need to pay attention.

And don't forget my You Tube channel.

After Sample

2011-12-15T14:22:00.000-08:00

.....and here's the 'after' sample. :)

Again, the bottom bit is woven with the wool as weft. The results are interesting but not 'collapse'. The top bit is with the Tencel as weft and voila! Collapse!

After serging the ends I tossed the sample into the hottest water my hands could stand, then balled it up and rolled it vigorously as though I were making a large meatball (if that makes sense - it's the only analogy I could come up with).

As it cooled, I hotted it up again, several times. This is the result of around 3 minutes of 'rolling'.

The Tencel shed some fugitive dye but it doesn't look like the wool picked any of it up - although it's hard to tell, especially in the part where the Tencel is the weft.

I decided to hem the scarf as any fringe is going to look really odd with the wool fulling and the Tencel not.

I also calculated how much dimensional loss (approximately) and worked out that I should weave somewhere between 90 and 100" for a scarf. I'll probably do 108 to allow for hems. Besides, too long is easy to fix (especially when the 'finish' will be hems on the ends) while too short simply can't be fixed at all.

Sampling

2011-12-14T20:52:00.000-08:00

Although I've worked with 'collapse' weaves and shrinkage differential quite a bit, ultimately every time you change yarns you have to sample. If you don't you risk losing the entire project.

So even though I know from previous sampling that the white yarn (Henry's Attic Pony Worsted) fulls very well I've not actually combined it with Tencel before so while I suspect I'm going to get some sort of effect from fulling the wool, there are no guarantees I'll get the effect I'm actually going after.

I started with a combination set of 15 for the wool and 20 for the Tencel and my first sample is plain weave.

While plain weave will have to be fulled much more energetically than a twill structure, I wanted the best visual blending of the colours of the two different yarns. The reason I'm using white is because I don't have any dyed and I've no time to do any.

While I suspect I'm going to get the most fulling with the wool weft, sometimes you can be surprised so I wove about 6" with wool weft and about 8" with Tencel. Tomorrow I'll beat the sample up good and see what happens. If it works I've got enough warp on the loom to weave a scarf. If it doesn't I'll be changing the parameters and weaving more samples. None of it will go to waste as the samples will become teaching examples. ;)

Currently reading Falling Backwards by Jann Arden

Little by Little

2011-12-13T17:20:00.000-08:00

I have spent rather more time the last two days fighting with issues of electronic technology than I'd like and find the battles to be rather wearing. Well, that's my excuse for frittering away a couple of hours this afternoon playing games on Facebook rather than doing something productive.

However I did finally flog myself to the studio and got a sample warp for the Durham NC workshop wound and rough sleyed. By the time I finished that it was nearing 5 pm and I was too tired to beam it. But that's the thing about weaving - it is very patient and will wait until you get a round tuit.

The workshop for Durham is Magic in the Water part II which focuses more on shrinkage differential effects. They don't want a lot of wool but I will include a couple just so they can gain experience with fulling. I had to contact my supplier to make sure she was still carrying the wool yarn. As soon as I got confirmation I was able to continue with this particular combination.

We are now nearly half way through December and I will have to have the warps for Durham ready very soon after the holiday so it's time to review the workshop and get everything ready. I also need to review the one day workshop A Good Yarn. I realized in Quebec that the handouts rather desperately needed editing.

And I got some good news today. I had been labouring under the impression that my maintenance treatments would take place every 3 months (what part of Oct. 14 to Dec. 14 equaled 3 months I don't know) but that means the 3rd treatment is not in the middle of the March 'tour' after all, but during February.

I also realized that I get back to Seattle the Sunday before the Seattle guild meeting on the Thursday of that week. I had planned to stay a couple of days with my friend so I may just ask if she minds if I stay a couple extra days to attend the meeting and leave the following day. Since I'm gone more than 3 weeks (one day over!) I have to buy extra travel medical insurance anyway so I might as well buy an extra week and stay for a visit?

Tempting!

Currently reading Gently by the Shore by Alan Hunter - somehow I managed to come home from the library today with even more books than I returned to them - I'll look forward to at least 3 hours of reading at the clinic tomorrow.

And So It Begins...

2011-12-11T15:42:00.000-08:00

Finally got the first sample warp off the loom today and set it up for cutting into samples. I'm not entirely sure how much warp was left when I began weaving them, but if my math is correct (always a moot point!) there should have been exactly enough to do the samples (before and after finishing) for the first sample.

However many samples I wind up with will be my 'print run'. How's that for flexibility? So, before I set up the loom for the next sample I need to cut up the loom state samples and see how many there will be. No point doing extra samples if they aren't needed - that's just plain wasteful. On the other hand, a few extra are nice just in case of oopsies.

Since this warp didn't start out to be samples it's going to be a bit of a challenge to cut up. If I'd been clearer headed I'd have added 3 coloured yarns to the warp to act as cut lines but I didn't think of it. In order to help me cut the vertical lines, then, I put a piece of masking tape down on the table and marked off on it where the cut lines should be. The horizontal cut lines aren't as obvious as I'd like, either, but if I'm careful I ought to be able to mark the cut lines and then cut without too much difficulty.

Needless to say 3M is going to be benefitting from this project as I'll need miles of tape again. Sure wish I'd bought shares when I first started weaving!

The red 'thing' on the right is my Chicakee cutter (electric rotary cutter). I have to get Doug to clean all the blades - it looks like he never found that round tuit after my last bout of sample cutting several years ago. Hopefully he can do that tonight after his staff party. They never go very late - the store opens again tomorrow at 7 am, although thankfully he doesn't start until noon.

The next task will be to clear out space in the studio for the electric stapler. I have a corner I think I can fit it into if I shift a bunch of boxes currently living there.

While I'm doing those things I also need to redesign a couple of the warps for the workshop Magic in the Water part II, for Durham, NC which focuses on shrinkage differential effects. Those will go onto the Fanny.

Next week is going to be a bit - um - scattered, I suppose - as I go in for #2 of the maintenance treatments so I'll spend time at the lab on Tuesday and several hours at the clinic on Wednesday. It's also getting close to Christmas so there are some social events I plan on attending. Not likely to be much weaving going on, at least until I can one or other of the looms dressed.

With 10 samples scheduled for the Big Project and one already woven, things are looking like they are well in hand. :) I received the yarn for the next two warps last week. I'll be ordering the rest of the yarn next week as my supplier usually closes shop for a couple of weeks in January.

Currently reading - 3 of the George Gently series by Alan Hunter

The Roses

2011-12-09T20:06:00.000-08:00

When my mother was a young teenager she wanted very much to study art. But this was during the Great Depression (as it was called) and her parents could not afford to pay for lessons. So she got herself a job in order to pay the 5 cents a week she needed for art classes.

But life, as they say, intervened and she never managed to pursue art the way she would have liked.

Her creativity has taken many forms - cooking, baking, knitting, sewing, stitchery, rug hooking, flower arranging and eventually she took up quilting which she still does. But she never lost that appreciation for, and drive to do herself, drawing and painting.

After my father died she re-did the master bedroom, buying white French Provincial furniture and painting the walls. On the wall at the foot of the bed she painted these large bright cheerful roses directly onto the wall.

When it came time to re-paint the bedroom a number of years later she talked to Doug and he installed a frame around the painting so she could continue to enjoy the roses she had painted. She can no longer do any painting or drawing due to arthritis and shaky hands.

Now mom has moved out of the house and she misses her roses. Doug is hoping that he can cut the wall board out of the wall (the room is finished with a product called donacona - I'm not sure how that is spelled, but it was a common finish before sheet rock became the standard for walls). He says it is still available and he should be able to just fill the hole in the wall and repaint.

But just in case it all goes horribly awry, he took a photo of the roses today and I'll find out how much it will cost to make a photographic poster.

We are still waiting to hear when she will have her surgery - it's been dragging on longer than they estimated so we are hoping that it will happen soon. She is getting a bit antsy that the surgery will happen at Christmas but I told her that if that is the case her Christmas present this year will be a new heart valve. :)

Reading The Pirate King by Laurie R. King (finished this morning and started Shatner Rules by William Shatner)

Honing Skills

2011-12-06T12:45:00.000-08:00

catching the shuttle - thumb is used as a 'brake' to prevent the bobbin from feeding off too much yarn

preparing to throw the shuttle - index finger has moved to the point of the shuttle to propel it through the shed

Today I got an email from someone who found my You Tube channel and watched the video clip on throwing the shuttle:

Selvedges have really been my bug a boo. Yesterday I was getting so frustrated that I was ready to scream.

I got online and googled and ended up at your video. All I can say is thank you! I went back to the loom and practiced keeping my hands off the edges and just throwing the shuttle and keeping it above the beater bar and away from my body. What a difference!

It really warms my heart to get messages like this. I truly hate to see people struggling with the techniques of the craft. Most often they don't even know there might be a 'better' way than what they are doing. When you are self-taught, you do the best you can, not knowing any different.

Recently I saw someone demonstrating weaving. She was obviously a very talented weaver from the work on display but....she was sitting way too low. I wanted so badly to go over to her and explain that she needed to have her bench higher so that she didn't have to hunch her shoulders in order to throw the shuttle.

But - and this is a big but - I have done this before and been rebuffed. Some people have actually gotten angry about my trying to help them. :(

And so I think long and hard now about trying to offer my help to others. Much better to just post videos to the internet and blog. That way people who want to know more can hopefully find what they need and I'm not offending someone who doesn't realize that what they are doing is going to be harmful to them down the road and risk offending them by offering to help.

The benefits to working more efficiently are that you get more done with less effort, you do less harm to your body (which will come back to haunt you as you get older - ask me how I know!) and ultimately the quality of your textiles will be enhanced as you work more consistently.

I am really happy to be doing more workshops about issues of efficiency. When I first started beating my drum about working more efficiently/ergonomically there was a certain level of hositility from some people. Ultimately it is up to each person to decide if they are happy with their results and whether or not they feel the need to change.

The next opportunity for people to take a really indepth workshop is at John C. Campbel Folk School in NC in March next year. The class is starting to fill - and it's a great environment - a real creative retreat. I'll also be doing a shorter version for the Sarasota guild in Florida, just prior to JCC. Then in 2013 I've been contracted (again) to do a short version for NEWS.

And of course, people can come here to my studio for a 3-5 day weaving camp experience. Maybe during the Cold Snap Music Festival in February? ;^)

Profit is Not a Four Letter Word

2011-12-05T11:54:00.000-08:00

Writing about being in the business of designing, making and selling hand woven textiles has brought up many memories as I wander down memory lane, and not all of them are pleasant. Let's face it, in order to be a person who sells their own designs in a field as competitive as that of textiles requires a huge amount of ego - and humility.

What has been a recurring theme over the years is that of making a profit. So many people think that 'profit' is a four letter word. For some reason, because we enjoy what we do, we aren't supposed to make any money (i.e. a profit on what we sell). We are supposed to be content to get our materials cost back and a little extra to buy more materials. We somehow don't deserve to make a profit because we are supposed to be satisfied with the enjoyment we have experienced during the making of our cloth.

This attitude was challenged at a meeting I attended of a craft co-op. Why were we not supposed to earn a respectable income, the questioner asked. Do lawyers and doctors not enjoy what they do? And yet everyone knows they have to earn a respectable wage.

But the myth of the starving artist persists, and often it is the artist (or artisan) who promotes this myth by not asking enough for their products. They discount their time. They ignore the overhead expenses involved in being in business. They wave these things away with the comment that they just do it because they enjoy it.

If we don't respect ourselves, why should anyone else respect what we do?

At one craft fair a man came by and leaning on my booth (never a good idea - a booth is not meant to be leaned on!) rather presumptuously told me that he was going to buy 14 placemats and only pay $90. I looked at him and said "I don't think so." (At the time my mats were retailing for $8.50 a piece)

His jaw dropped and he sputtered "But I'm going to buy fourteen mats!"

"Well" I replied, "fourteen mats doesn't equal $90."

"But, but, I'm going to buy FOURTEEN of them!"

"You know" I said "a lady came in yesterday and bought 14 mats and 14 napkins and she didn't get a discount. I don't think it would be fair to her to give you one."

"Well, I can't afford to pay full price for your mats!"

I don't remember what I said in return, probably something along the lines of "I'm sorry" but today my response to this sort of interaction is a smile and "I do understand about restricted budgets."

My ego was offended at the manner in which he approached me and the attitude that I would consider giving a perfect stranger a discount just because he assumed he'd get one. I also knew that my mats would sell elsewhere for full price so why should I give my time away to him?

But another part of me also knows that no show is guaranteed to be successful. The public will vote on the quality of your designs and craftsmanship with their dollars so I try very hard to not have expectations of sell out shows but to be grateful for whatever sales I have.

My ego also appreciates the positive comments that the public proffer, but ultimately there are no calories in compliments so I don't let them go to my head. If I'm at a show where all I hear is "oh you have such nice scarves" but the sales are few I try very hard to not let myself get depressed - if my work is so nice why isn't anyone buying it? - because it is precisely the answer to that question that I need to find. Doing a show where the sales are not good keeps me humble and keeps me looking for newer, better designs.

And I try not to brag when I've had a good sale because the next one could be a bust.

Cold Snap Music Festival

2011-12-03T19:36:00.000-08:00

One of the things I do at the end of the day is sit for a while, watch a little tv and knit. A friend calls my knitting creative fidgeting, and I can't deny it.

Recently I met someone who is involved in the Cold Snap Music Festival and she mentioned that she was looking for donations of warm winter gear for some of the musicians who come to town unprepared for the sometimes rather cold weather that we can get. I offered to send some of my creative fidgeting her way.

But I wasn't really happy with my usual knitting which is okay but not terribly inspired. I rummaged in my storage area and found 3 skeins of hand painted wool boucle' - all various shades of blues/purples - and decided to knit these instead.

The purple-ish one is more blue in real life. I cast on 50 stitches and just knit from one end to the other - again nothing terribly inspired - just let the yarn itself be the focus. One scarf is done and the second is nearing completion. I'm hoping to get all three done before Christmas and drop them off for the festival. Then I'll go back to my usual bundled weaving yarns. I'm sure I can get a few more scarves knitted for donation to the Salvation Army this winter. St. Vincent de Paul got a bagful the end of October.

And I'll have worked on stash busting some more.

Currently reading The Law of Angels by Cassandra Clark

Administrivia

2011-11-29T13:37:00.000-08:00

One of the things weavers new to selling their work don't understand at first is the aspect of marketing/selling and how much time winds up in the details of getting their textiles ready for sale and then actually offering them for sale to the public.

It is legally required in Canada and the US (and I assume other countries) that textiles be labelled with fibre content and care. In Canada, household textiles and fashion accessories can be labelled with a simple hang tag. Garments must have 'permanent' labels (with permanent defined as 10 cleanings or launderings).

It is one reason why I don't make garments - I don't want to have to deal with the issue of permanent labels. To buy commerically made labels generally means an order of at least 100, more usually more than that in order to get a decent price and since I often change the yarns I use, I'd be constantly running into the problem of changing fibre content.

Getting the textiles labelled takes time. The system I now use is that of a paper hang tag with my name, logo, a little marketing promotion on the front with a small hote drilled in the top of the tag. On the back I apply a label with general washing instructions and then hand write in the fibre content as required. Once the labels are ready I use a stem gun with 1 inch stems to attach the labels to the textile. Sometimes I price them at the same time, sometimes I leave the pricing for later.

This is just one of the unseen - and largely unpaid - jobs that newbies to selling don't take into consideration in their pricing formula.

Most new sellers come up with a price that will cover the cost of their materials with maybe a little extra for their time to make the cloth but they don't cover things like overhead (all the expenses that continue regardless of whether or not one is actually making something), and the myriad expenses involved in marketing.

The problem with marketing is that largely it is more expenditure of time rather than money, although money can also be spent - the aforementioned tags/labels, booth fees, travelling to and from shows, website fees when selling on line, banking fees (including Paypal, Art Fire, etsy, eBay fees) and so on and so forth. It is these expenses that get covered in the retail mark up portion of one's price calculation.

If the weaver does not have a retail mark up in their formula, then they will be working for nothing, or else working at a loss as those expenses are not covered except for coming out of the weaver's pocket.

From time to time people ask me to submit articles for guild newsletters on the business of selling. From time to time I give seminars - usually discussing pricing issues. I'm wondering if people would be interested in a small publication geared toward business issues of selling weaving......?

(Yes, that's a handwoven tablecloth on my table - Swedish Snowflake, woven double width in order to get a cloth wide enough to cover my table properly. And yes, it was a once in a lifetime project, never to be repeated!)

A Little Procrastination...

2011-11-27T18:45:00.000-08:00

wet finished Fox Fibre towels - the colour has developed nicely - from left to right - 50% green, 50% brown, and 25% green

...is sometimes a good thing.

Got some pressing done today and as it's a fairly mindless task pressing is, my mind tends to wander. With the Big Project sort of dominating my thought processes I was worrying away at the logistics of getting everything done - text written, diagrams to include, samples to be woven and so on. And of course the assembling of the sample pages and text pages.

For Magic I had my brother's basement rec room. I don't have that option for this project. Nor will I have my mom's basement as we are hoping hard that her house will sell quickly.

One option is to re-organize the annex and set up an assembly station there. Which means that I'm going to have to hang on to the annex for a while longer - first to press the samples (so much easier to do on the big press, even though all of the samples for Magic were done on the small flat bed press), and then to assemble the pages.

As I was thinking about all of those things, including the samples I want to include, it suddenly occurred to me that the current warp on the AVL pefectly fits the parameters of one of the samples I want to do. Even better, there is just about exactly enough warp left to actually weave that sample! And I had been fretting about not having gotten more of this warp woven by now. :}

So tomorrow, instead of carrying on with the towels I had planned - I can always make more towels later, right? - I will redesign the treadling to weave the samples and begin weaving those.

Wow! Progress on the Big Project before December! Maybe I can make the May deadline for the Alberta conference after all????

Currently reading Brute Strength by Susan Conant

Satisfying Progress

2011-11-25T16:33:00.000-08:00

Today I cut off what I've woven so far on the beige towel warp. Considering I've been sick with a cold, progress is...satisfactory. I'm trying very hard to not get on my own case for having done 'only' this much.

I have, after all, done a bunch of administrivia and cleared a lot of the paperwork I'd been procrastinating over off my desk. :)

Today I mailed the contract for HWSDA next May. Only one seminar, but since I don't know for sure if Doug will be able to come with me and I'll have a vendor booth I figured I'd better not apply to do more. The call for instructors for Mid-West 2013 also came through today but as it's the same week as ANWG and I've already applied there, I can't apply to Mid-West, too. Another time perhaps. Of course there's no guarantee I'll get to teach at ANWG, but it would be too embarassing to get accepted at both and have to turn one of them down. :(

One of my jobs in the next little while is to review and update my workshop topics. I already know I have to update Magic in the Water part II so I've pulled some yarns for a new warp for that workshop. I'll weave the sample as soon as I get the towel warp done. I need to order more yarns for that, too, so I'm going to try to get all the yarn orders done at once. I have to watch my budget, too!

I've also been thinking that I ought to move up publication date for the sample packet to co-incide with HWSDA. Unfortunately my energy levels still aren't great so I haven't done much about that - yet. Instead I set out a jigsaw puzzle and I've been vegging fiddling with bits of coloured cardboard. But I am hoping that my energy will start to come back now that I'm pretty much over my cold.

A dozen towels are in the washing machine and I'll go press them on Sunday along with the rest of the place mats I finished hemming and whatever else I can manage to get ready by then. These towels are particularly exciting because they have the Fox Fibre yarn for weft and the colours should develop to a much greater degree than the loom state.

In the meantime it's back to the loom to weave the 2nd towel of the day. We'll see if I manage 3 or not.

Taking Control

2011-11-23T14:38:00.000-08:00

remember these? All gone except for one...

Yesterday I got all the inventory unpacked and put away and was able to see what is low and what needs to be replaced. It was very satisfying to note that only one of these scarves were left. A nice stash busting warp and some good income as a result. Win-win!

With the last of the craft fairs done and my cold just about gone it is time to start thinking about the future. With the decision to go ahead with the next sample set my coming days will have a certain amount of structure as I work on planning the projects, ordering the yarn and beginning to generate the text and samples.

But I am also highly aware of the fact that my next treatment is coming up and I decided to take my life into my own hands to a much greater degree. If I had to stop taking most of my nutritional supplements during chemo because they would interfere with the treatment by protecting the cells (yes, even the cancer cells) then obviously taking the supplements must be A Good Thing.

So I booked an appointment with a naturopath who specializes in helping cancer patients with the goal of doubling my remission if I possibly can. I do not want to go through chemo again any time soon so the obvious thing to do is to make sure that I am living as healthy and protected a life as I possibly can.

I picked up a rather lengthy questionnaire and filled it out - now to make lists of all my allergies and nutritional supplement/Rx meds and next Tuesday I'll go find out if what I'm taking is sufficient or if there are gaps that need to be filled.

Currently reading Death of a Lesser Man by Thomas Rendell Curran

The Dynamics of Craft

2011-11-21T15:56:00.000-08:00

showing the end of the towel including the hem area (at the top)

I think this is my favourite of the wefts I've used up until now. Although the weft is actually natural, it looks very bright against the beiges of the warp and puts me in mind of icing sugar on baked goods. :)

One of the blogs I follow is The Textile Blog. Today John posted a very thoughtful post called The Dynamics of Craft. I found it quite interesting.

It is something that people who want to sell their work ought to read and consider, I think.

What do we offer the marketplace that is different or unique from industrially produced goods? Industry produces everything we might require, and then some. I remember reading somewhere that in it's heyday, the British wool (worsted) industry produced enough cloth for every man in England to buy 3 new suits a year. Talk about market saturation!

So what makes what we make worth someone's while to purchase? My tea towels are no better or worse than much of what is readily available in the shops in most any medium to large town. What makes my towels diffferent is my design sensibilities - how I have chosen the yarns and the colours and put them together and the size I choose to make them. I'm not copying someone else's design, I'm making up my own.

My approach to design falls within my personal preferences. Do I prefer symmetry? Assmymetry? Do I prefer blues rather than greens? Do I prefer cotton and linen rather than some other fibre? I have acquired a stash of yarns (a palette, if you will) - yarns that I like in colours that appeal to me. I tend to work from this stash so my textiles will have a certain similarity - a style, some would call it - that makes my textiles pretty recognizable if you are familiar with what I make.

Just like Yves St. Laurent or Coco Chanel had a distinctive 'style', so do most creative people.

From time to time we challenge ourselves to push the boundaries of what we usually do. That is generally when we have our 'failures' - in the vein of "Well, I won't do that again" type of failure. But learning what doesn't work is just as valuable as learning what does work. Sometimes even more valuable. Because in the end if we don't have a failure or two, are we really pushing the boundaries or are we actually continuing to stay in our 'safe' zone?

Market saturation is one spur to trying new and different things - a new item, new colours, new yarns. But we have to be willing to 'fail' in order to succeed.

Next Big Project

2011-11-20T13:06:00.000-08:00

next Fox Fibre towel

I think the towels on this warp are turning out quite nicely. They will make excellent hostess gifts next year when I travel to teach. They will also eventually be listed on my Art Fire Store as soon as they are wet finished, hemmed and pressed - which will take a while. I'm just about at the half way mark on this warp with quite a bit of weaving left to do - it's a 40 yard warp. :)

In the meantime I am getting over my cold and finally my brain and energy seem to be returning.

One of the things I have had to do is take serious stock of where I am at in my life and what direction I would like to go in terms of weaving/teaching/writing. I'm now 61 years old with no pension plan other than to continue to weave. No lottery wins for me! (Of course one is supposed to actually buy a lottery ticket in order to win!) :}

A number of people have urged me to produce more sample packets so I have been giving this very close consideration and have decided that if I scale back and do a much more modest presentation than Magic in the Water that it is feasible.

Right now plans include 10 projects with before and after samples. This will mean 10 (approximately) 16 yard long warps to weave, cut up and wet finish the actual samples plus the prototype project warps. The samples will come as loose pages (no binder) which will help save on shipping and production costs and the print run will be 150 maximum. Printing will be done by a laser copier, not an off set press which will further reduce the expense of production. Samples would be stapled to card stock as we did for Magic. Yes, all projects will have project notes and be for either 4 or 8 shaft looms.

My deadline to have this ready would be by Convergence next year. Ball park pricing is between $50 and $60 for the package plus shipping. If you are at all interested you can vote on the poll at the top of the page (or email me laura at laurafry dot com if you want to be on my pre-publication contact list and I'll let you know when it is ready for sale).

If this first publication is well received I have plans for 3 additional publications.

Currently reading Leave the Grave Green by Deborah Crombie

Is Weaving Hard?

2011-11-18T15:04:00.000-08:00

click to biggify - 25% green Fox Fibre weft

I never tell my students that weaving is hard. Rather I tell them that the creation of cloth is a complex process and if they take the time to learn the steps in that process and the language of the technology, they too can learn how to weave.

Weaving is a physical activity as well as a mental one. There are also many levels of committment to the craft. Once one learns the steps in dressing the loom they can spend the rest of their weaving life following 'recipes' and never learn how to choose yarns, colours and patterns on their own. There are plenty of projects available in magazines and on the internet to choose from.

Or they can take the time to learn how colour works in weaving and choose effective colour combinations. They can learn the characteristics of the various yarns available in order to create their own unique fabrics. They can learn how weave structures work in order to create designs specifically for their purpose.

All of these aspects of weaving can be learned - but not overnight. Weaving is not a craft that can be mastered without effort, without the time and energy required to absorb all the knowledge that goes into the manufacture of materials from the fibre/yarn up, including appropriate methods of wet finishing.

Learning the physical skills of weaving takes time and effort as well. People often comment to me that I make weaving look easy. They sometimes email me after watching my You Tube Channel and say that after watching what I do they have found they have been able to improve their own weaving skills. When students come to study with me, they generally improve their efficiency in terms of shuttle throwing - and their selvedges - the first day or two. I also show them how I dress the loom. Some of them find my methods help, but not always. It all depends on each person's manual dexterity, their physical abilities, their equipment at home and so on.

There is no secret to what I do. It has taken a lifetime of concentrated study to get to the level of mastery that I have achieved. To quote Jamie and Adam of Mythbusters, I'm what you might call an 'expert'. The difference is that I encourage people to try what I do at home.

Back In The Saddle Again

2011-11-17T16:20:00.000-08:00

another view of the Fox Fibre towels

I've woven enough that the cloth can now be seen at the bottom of the loom. The design is a bit 'static' but nice enough. I'll do four of these and then change treadling and colour to one of the paler shades of green. What that new treadling will be I'm not sure yet.

We got hit with a snow 'storm' and received about 12" of snow. My neighbour, knowing I wasn't feeling at the top of my form, shovelled my driveway for me. I was able to get to town, mail the scarf and pick up the first of this month's quota of bills. Oh joy.

Finally dealt with the stack of paperwork on my desk, most of which related to the teaching I'm scheduled to do next March.

So far my little tour looks like this:

Triangle Weavers (Durham, NC) guild lecture A Good Yarn Friday March 2

Triangle Weavers workshop Magic in the Water part II Sat/Sun/Mon March 3-5

From there I'll head over to Sarasota, FL - just waiting on the contract from them with their choice of topics. That will be Thur/Fri/Sat March 8-10

March 12-16 will be The Efficient Weaver at the John C. Campbell Folk School. I heard today that there are 4 signed up already. I think the maximum is 12 on that one.

March 17 will be a one day workshop at the Sutherland Weaving Studio in Asheville, NC, topic to be decided.

I've applied to teach A Good Yarn at the HWSDA conference in Alberta next year and hope to actually make it to the arts festival in Grand Forks in August. I also have a couple of conference calls for teaching on my desk and I'm trying to decide if I'll apply and what I will offer to teach. So I guess my paperwork isn't actually all caught up, after all. :}

Currently reading The Complains by Ian Rankin (I actually started this before I left for Vancouver and left it behind instead of packing it!)

A Weaver's Weaver

2011-11-16T20:27:00.000-08:00

The greenish shade in this cloth is actually more blue in real life - I just can't figure out how to adjust the colour in my new camera software. :(

From time to time I will weave for another weaver. Sometimes it is in trade for their services. Sometimes they simply don't have the time to do the weaving themselves. Sometimes they don't have the equipment to execute what they need to have done.

In this instance, it was time that was lacking so I offered to weave a sample for Trish of Indigo Moon using a new-to-her yarn of BFL (Blue Faced Leicester) super wash in a fingering weight (knitting term). The yarn has 400 meters per 100 grams or 430 yards per 3.5 ounces (or just under 2000 yards per pound).

The yarn was engineered for knitting, is a four ply with a fairly tight twist so it's plenty strong enough for warp. Since it is a knitting yarn it has a fair amount of stretch, but not so much that it is difficult to weave. I did have to be careful letting off the tension or too much warp would come forward.

With two colours - Celestial Blue and Divine Purple - I used a Fibonacci sequence to design a stripe. I used 15 epi (I have a 15 dent reed but this could also be woven on a rigid heddle loom using two 7.5 dpi heddles). The picks per inch were around 10 in the loom under tension which relaxed to around 12 ppi afterwards. I didn't so much beat as press the weft into place.

The warp was wound at 3 yards in length and I lashed on to save yarn, hemstitching at the beginning and end to make a short fringe. I wove about 80 inches (under tension) which relaxed to 74" off the loom. The warp was just a hair under 9 inches in width with 132 ends; 8 inches off loom.

After wet finishing (hot water, rinse, rinse, rinse to remove some excess blue dye), it was tossed into the dryer for a few minutes until just damp and given a hard press on low heat.

The measurements were now 70" long by 7.75 inches wide.

The weave structure is plain weave and the cloth has a little bit of crispness but a fairly smooth feel. The cloth shows mild tracking which imo looks quite nice, giving the cloth a little visual texture.

The colours are not completely level so the cloth has an abrash appearance - the slight variation in the colour is not truly variegated as such.

I'll mail the scarf to Trish tomorrow so she'll soon have a woven sample for when she does shows, selling her yarns.

Currently reading Dare to Die by Carolyn Hart

Road Trip Adventures

2011-11-15T00:10:00.000-08:00

There is nothing quite like travelling for business when you simply must be somewhere at a particular time - and running into 'adventures'.....

While I love being somewhere other than here to teach or learn or sell, sometimes the getting there is more than I can handle.

Planes are delayed - or don't leave at all - causing all sorts of havoc when I generally need 3 or 4 different planes to get me to where I'm going.

I've arrived late - extremely late - like at 2 am with a 7 am wake up call to teach at 9 am - and this on top of a 2 hour time zone difference. I've arrived without luggage, meaning I had to give the guild program in my travelling clothes and no samples to illustrate the presentation. I've even arrived at a completely different airport from the one I was scheduled to arrive at. Without luggage. Again.

When driving, Doug did one season where, after arriving in Vancouver every single road out of the Lower Mainland was either flooded or washed out and he didn't know until the morning of his departure if he could make it to Calgary. He did - dodging washed out bridges and potholes.

One cruel February every single pass through the Canadian Rockies was closed due to avalanches and it was only on the morning of our departure that Hwy 16 was opened. We nearly expired of hypothermia as the temperature dropped to something like -50F in the mountains and the heater in our poor little van simply could not cope.

I've gotten sick from inadvertent exposure to allergens and had to pull myself together to present a coherent lesson or man my booth at a craft fair with a nasty cough/cold when all I really wanted to do was crawl under a table and pull the tablecloth down over me.

And so it has happened with this trip. While my booth was not right next door to booths with scented products, it was close enough that I began to have problems with my allergies - which eventually turned into a nasty cough and cold. Since I wasn't alone on this trip I asked Doug if he would drive me home and do Calgary by himself. Bless his heart, he agreed.

Instead of heading east to Calgary this morning, we turned north and headed home. Doug drove through rain, sleet, a spatter of snow and blowing backwash from big trucks as well as some good driving and things were going well until...about 20 minutes north of Quesnel where we encountered a long line up of traffic, mostly large trucks.

Doug walked to the big truck behind us to find out if the driver had a cb radio and knew what was going on. Apparently a vehicle had had a run in (literally) with a moose and the road would be closed for a couple of hours. We discussed turning back to Quesnel, although there didn't seem to be much point as there isn't really a viable alternative to Hwy 97 - or at least one we were willing to attempt in the dark - with a tight deadline looming.

Fortunately the road was opened sooner than anticipated and we were home only a couple of hours later than planned.

But he will be leaving tomorrow morning heading for Calgary all by himself. I am feeling very bad for ducking out on him - and once more not being at Art Market in person - but the thought of waiting on potential customers feeling like Typhoid Mary just didn't seem very attractive. I think he'll do better without me hacking and coughing in the booth....

The CBC

2011-11-14T23:28:00.000-08:00

To listen to the interview go to the CBC website scroll down to Saturday Nov. 12 and click on the black 'bar'. Sheryl MacKay interviews two other craftspeople as well as me (my part starts at 8:10 or so).

Remembrance Day

2011-11-11T08:40:00.000-08:00

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada when we stop to remember the people who have died in service to our country.

I have posted the poem In Flanders Fields previously which was the inspiration for the wearing of a poppy in remembrance. As more countries adopt the poppy it might be a good idea if they knew more about the origin of the tradition.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Circle Craft Day 2

2011-11-10T10:13:00.000-08:00

A promising day 1. :)

A little tweaking this am hoping for a good turn out although the weather is supposed to be dry so people may opt to enjoy a rare nice autumnal day.

2 Hours Later

2011-11-08T13:28:00.000-08:00

Nearly ready. Colours are more vibrant in life than in the photo. And the booth will look much better when the nasty overhead lights are turned off.

Currently reading Beyond Belfast by Will Ferguson.

Circle Craft, Vancouver

2011-11-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

Set up is underway.

Dealing with Rejection

2011-11-05T17:29:00.000-07:00

bamboo/tencel scarf on left, silk scarf on right

silk gimp shawl

wool, bamboo, silk etc. shawls

Remembered to pop a new battery into my camera and bring it again today.

Yesterday was not quite the worst ever day of sales I've had, but it was a very close second. Since this is not an inexpensive show, it was highly distressing. Not that I wasn't getting all sorts of compliments on my work. Compliments were to be had in plenty. But sales? Not so much.

So what do you do when your work is 'rejected'? The very first thing you do not do is get depressed. All too easy a response, believe me!

The first thing to remember is the statistic given in the marketing course I took back in the mid-90's. For every sale there are (on average) 26 non-sales.

The next thing to remember is to read between the lines - so to speak - and analyze exactly what people are saying.

Ok, one of the things they were saying was that my prices were too high. Given the multitude of scarves I'd seen at the mall priced at $15 each last week, I could see that response coming a mile away.

So, ignoring the 'too high' comments, what was the next most common response? "I love your scarves. I wear mine all the time."

Hmm. Okay, they already owned one (or more) of my scarves.

What is the message behind this comment? Very likely the message is that the market here has become saturated. Everyone (or nearly everyone) who wants one of my scarves and who can afford to buy one, has already purchased.

The market for placemats got saturated here years ago - I routinely have people come into the booth saying that the placemats they bought from me 10, 15, 20 years ago still look like new. Today I had a lady come in who was wearing a scarf I wove back in the 1980's. Her comment? "I just wash and wear it, it never wears out!"

There are a million reasons for someone to not buy your product. When the market becomes saturated, it is time to move on - time for me to dream up a new product. Or face more 'rejection' the next time I do this show.

Studio Fair

2011-11-04T19:39:00.000-07:00

Day one of Studio Fair.

I remembered to bring my camera with me but immediately got a 'low battery' message so all I got were a couple of shots before it died entirely.

Day one of the fair and the city, in it's wisdom, closed off the major road leading to the Civic Centre and parking. I'm sure that's partly why there were so few people in attendance. I'm hoping that the road will remain partially open - as it was when I came home - so that people can at least get to the hall without too much hassle.

Doug did the opening and closing shifts while I worked the afternoon. The show is still on for another 30 minutes, and I have to say - it's been dismal so far. The worst in the 30+ years I've done this particular show. I sure hope things pick up tomorrow because Sunday is generally for families and 'looking'.

Currently reading Wicked Autumn by G. M. Malliet - a recommendation from author Louise Penny's blog

Smooth Weaving

2011-11-02T16:39:00.000-07:00

This morning I opened my email inbox and found the following message:

"I was weaving a scarf last night and realized something awesome. I just had to tell you that since watching your video a few months ago on throwing the shuttle, my edges have improved tremendously. I don't fiddle with them anymore and both edges look good! Thanks for sharing those videos with all of us!"

You Tube video

Rather made my day. :)

Weaving is a complex process but there are ways and means of making the whole thing go more smoothly. It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish - your tools, your physical skills, etc.

In addition to teaching The Efficient Weaver at John C. Campbell Folk School next March, the guild in Sarasota FL is also interested in You Have to be Warped* as a workshop. I'm looking forward to sharing hints and tips for improved efficiency with more weavers. I'll be updating my website schedule soon. Just waiting for contracts from a couple more groups. I'm also looking at applying to ANWG for their conference in 2013 which will be held in Bellingham, WA but we'll see how that goes. At any rate, I'm accepting more teaching contracts for 2012 and 2013 now. (There is a possibility that I'll get to NEWS next year after having to cancel this year - watch my website on the schedule page for updates.)

Now that I'm (more or less) healthy, it is time to look at my workshop offerings and update them. That is a job that I'll be tackling once I get home from our next road trip. If you have a topic that you'd like to see me offer, let me know. Sometimes others see us more clearly than we see ourselves. :)

*The difference between the two presentations is that at JCC Folk School people have 5 days to practice the process while You Have to be Warped is more of a demonstration with limited hands on for the participants.

Lesson in Humbility

2011-10-31T11:55:00.000-07:00

It doesn't do to get complacent - that's when you stop thinking.

This warp is 36 epi. I have a 9 dent reed, but it's very old and rough on the top and bottom so when I checked my stored reeds I noticed that I also have a brand new metric reed (35) which is also 9 dents. Without thinking too much I popped that reed into the beater and proceeded to sley it. The entire time I was sleying it I did not once stop to ask myself why I hadn't been using this reed, but the old battered one. Or if I did, I didn't take the time to properly answer the question.

Turns out that the reed is too 'short'. When I put the beater top back onto the beater, there was a 1/2 inch gap between the reed and the top.

Now, you may be asking yourself how it is possible for me to put the reed into the beater without putting the top of the beater on. The answer is simple. On the AVL, the bottom of the reed is 'pinched' between two pieces of wood. And, since the beater top is rather large and blocks the view in order to sley, I leave it off while I do that job.

I really dislike having to change reeds and resley because all my nice neat little bouts which I so carefully tie into slip knots are now gone and the danger of making sleying errors is much, much greater when the warp ends are all loose.

However since I was not resleying to change the density, merely changing one reed of the same dents per inch to another of the same dents per inch, I realized that instead of pulling the warp out of the wrong reed entirely, I could transfer each group dent by dent which would mean the risk of sleying errors would be low.

How to do this when the AVL doesn't really have side frames that the reed could lay on? I grabbed a couple of short lease sticks (for the Leclerc Fanny or other smaller loom) and rested them on each side of the loom across the bottom of the shafts and onto the side frame of the loom. And taped them there. The reed rests quite comfortably there and it's only taking me a few minutes to pull each group in it's order and put it into the reed which is clamped in the beater.

If you click on the photo you should be able to see the set up more clearly.

Once the reed is completely re-sleyed I'll carefully pull the reed out and remove the sticks and then I can go ahead and put the loom back together (the sandpaper beam is also out of the loom), tie on and ought to be weaving this afternoon. :)

And I can be pretty sure there are no sleying errors to fix. But just in case, I'll be sure to check each shed. Doesn't do to get complacent!

Currently reading Snuff by (Sir) Terry Pratchett

UNBC Artisans of the North

2011-10-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

Not great photos but here's a peek at my booth this weekend

The craft fair at the university is a fairly low key affair. The booths/tables line the halls and corridors of the university as well as the cafeteria, which is where we are located.

There is no entry fee - come one, come all - and the crowd is generally younger than at Studio Fair which happens next week.

Although it is supposed to start at 10 am the public, in their eagerness, usually starts coming around 9:30. Which is partly why Doug was still hanging the mirror when shoppers began to descend. :}

I am very happy to be in the cafeteria because it has lots of glass walls, therefore natural light. Unfortunately today the snow that has been predicted for several days began to come down around noon and the day is dark and dreary. The snow, once it sticks to the ground, will help to brighten things up. And the snow is surely a good reminder that people need a scarf or shawl to keep the cold at bay?

Thankfully we were all moved in before the snow started - we are just keeping fingers crossed it stops for move out tomorrow evening.

Staging Area

2011-10-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

8 boxes of hand wovens all packed up ready to be loaded into the van

Once again my living room floor is acting as a staging area as we prepare for the first of four consecutive craft fairs. Doug has gone off to unload the rear seats of the van, store them at the annex and pick up a few things stored there that we will need for the shows.

threading proceeds on the beige tea towel warp

Recovery is not a straight line, as a friend observed recently, and the past few weeks have seen plenty of zigging and zagging as my energy waxes and wanes. Getting a flu shot probably had something to do with the decline of energy this week, but at least I'm somewhat protected for nasty bugs as I head into a month's worth of high exposure to crowds of people.

And craftspeople are famous for showing up for shows, sick, mainly because there is no one to phone in sick to so they can stay home in bed. :} I know that's happened to me often enough over the years.

With a muzzy head I didn't do much threading this week but am feeling alert enough today to tackle that job and this morning got almost to the half way mark.

A lot of people colour their heddles as a way to keep track of where they are in their threading. Personally I don't find that method particularly helpful. My drafts are printed out with numbers showing which shafts the threads are to be on, which means that I would have to translate the numbers into colours.

Rather than attempt that mental gymnastic, I number the shafts - the top of the bottom shaft. You might just be able to see the numbers if you click on the photo to enlarge it.

Since I also quite often need to shuffle heddles from one shaft to another, colouring them really isn't all that helpful to me.

My hope is that I can finish setting up the loom over the weekend - the Artisans of the North at the U of Northern BC doesn't have killer hours - and maybe even weave a bit before we leave for Vancouver and Circle Craft. But I'm not too bothered about that - mainly I just want to leave the loom ready to weave on for when we get back from Calgary (Art Market).

Currently reading Flash and Bones by Kathy Reichs

Still 'Finishing'

2011-10-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

Still making like a slug and very slow moving but I am managing to just stay on top of what needs to be done. :}

Today I had lunch with a weaving buddy. So nice to get out and about and catch up with someone I see only occasionally.

Then errands - mail a parcel, pick up a reserved book at the library (and a couple more, just in case), up to the annex to fetch more boxes and drop off something I'd borrowed back to it's owner. And then I pretty much crashed.

However I do have the boxes needed. I just finished cooking dinner and carrying up several armfulls of scarves to check for pricing and start packing. After I eat.

There are still a few more armfuls to be carried up but there is no more room on the table so I'll deal with these first.

It Isn't Finished....

2011-10-24T16:36:00.000-07:00

When you are weaving as a way of earning your income the job isn't finished until the goods are sold.

With the first craft fair of the season coming up it's time to get finished, finished and hope for some sales. I've been remiss in keeping my Art Fire store up to date - but there is no way I can miss out on the craft fairs. For one thing, they have been booked for months and they are an unparelled opportunity to make about 75% of my income in 1/12th of the year.

As you may have guessed, earning one's income from making and selling textiles is a cyclical affair. The income dries up right after Christmas - although the expenses do not.

And then there's the fact that I don't do inexpensive shows - rather I do shows that generally need to be applied to and paid for months in advance of the event. And very high prices for the spaces, too. But these are also the shows that appeal to people with disposible income, generally willing to pay a premium for hand crafted goods. And I rarely hear the phrase "Your prices are too high."

Learning how to budget is crucial in this business.

Anyway, the textiles are not completely done until they have their care/hang tags attached as well as their prices. I subscribe to the policy that everything ought to be priced if you want to sell it. Since my prices are fairly high, if there is no price on it people will either assume that it isn't for sale or they can't afford it.

This has been my logo for a number of years. I was told the last time I ordered cards that the printer was going digital and would no longer be using an offset press and that I would have to re-design my cards. They have had a black logo with a slightly off set silver line around them. Quite elegant looking I think. But apparently this is something he can't do digitally.

I'm also thinking it's time to change the paper I've been using. It isn't cheap paper, but then, my textiles aren't cheap. I think it's really important to have your signage reflect the value of your product. But since I haven't made a change for quite a while and I have to re-design my cards anyway, perhaps it's time to change the paper I've been using.

That's a job for after the craft fair season, however. Fortunately I've enough hang tags to deal with the current inventory. But first they have to get attached.

Currently reading Cradle to Grave by Aline Templeton

In Pursuit of Perfection

2011-10-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

two different waffle towels

As I was nearing the end of this blue warp I started having misgivings. I'd changed the epi from 36 to 30 because the weft I was wanting to use was somewhat thicker than what I'd used on the last 2/20 merc. warps and thought that a more open warp might work better.

Since I had another 2/20 merc cotton warp I wanted to do (got lots of that yarn to use up for weft!) I decided to check the finished results before committing to another 30 epi warp.

Am I ever glad I did. I'm not at all happy with my results in the waffle weave. The woven illusion actually turned out okay - better than anticipated anyway.

I used two different weft yarns on the waffle weave towels in the photo above, and two somewhat different tie-up/treadlings. But the different treadlings are not enough to account for the humongous difference in dimensional loss - it has to be the weft yarn.

The towel on the bottom is woven with 2/16 unmerc. cotton. The towel on the top is woven with the singles 6 cotton that I've used elsewhere for collapse effects. As you can see, the singles 6 has most definitely collapsed (or torqued, would be a more accurate statement). There is a 4 inch difference in the width of the two towels and the singles 6 towel is thicker. The twill stripes in the singles 6 towel has ruffled much more than in the 2/16 towel.

So I'm going to try this again on the beige warp, set at 36 epi and see if that reduces the dimensional loss in the singles 6 weft towels.

Like I keep telling my student, change one thing and everything changes. :}

Fibre Geekery

2011-10-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

This book popped up during a chat on Weavolution and I decided to take a look at it. To buy it is prohibitive but I was able to get it on inter-library loan for a mere $8. Well worth it to satisfy my curiousity.

As the title says, the primary focus is to identify fibres for forensic purposes. As such, the book goes into much greater detail than a handweaver would be able to. Not very many of us have spectroscopes and electron microscopes etc.

I found the chapter on fibre characteristics interesting as it went into far greater detail than most textile science books. There is a great chart showing the classification of fibres.

But probably the greatest value this book has for weavers (and spinners) is the extensive book list that follows each chapter. If you are interested in details of fibres and yarns, here is a great place to start looking for information.

Of course there is always my favourite source book, A Guide to Textiles for Interior Designers by Jackman and Dixon. Judith MacKenzie has a brief overview of different fibres in her book The Intentional Spinner. Or Google 'textile science' and I'm sure you'll come up with lots of hits.

It is my belief that, in order to make good choices for our textiles, at least a rudimentary level of knowledge about fibre characteristics is essential. I'm very pleased that several more guilds are showing an interest in my topic A Good Yarn. It looks like a couple of guilds will select that title for workshops/seminars next March.

Currently reading A Bitter Feast by S. J. Rozan

Revisiting

2011-10-19T13:21:00.000-07:00

on the loom

ready to go

There are certain weave structures I like to weave - as you may have noticed. Wall of Troy is one. This woven illusion is another.

They are both in the twill family. Wall of Troy can be done on four shafts. The woven illusion needs 16.

I've done the illusion in many different textiles, from scarves to tea towels. On one level I like the visual pun - the illusion of a plain weave structure woven on 16 shafts in a twill. It takes a weaver to really appreciate it, though. Non-weavers don't 'get' it - they just see a sort of interesting visual texture, I think.

Quite often I weave the woven illusion in tea towels to use as hostess gifts for when I'm travelling to teach. Since I'm nearly out of them and I have a longish teaching tour scheduled for next March, I figured I'd better make some more, hence the blue ones.

The blue and white towels are 100% cotton. The warp is 2/20 merc. cotton at 30 epi with a 2/15 unmerc cotton as weft.

I used to order my natural 2/8 cotton directly from a spinning mill in Ontario. Occasionally they would make a mistake and I'd get 'odd' yarns like this 2/15 cotton. And the singles 6 that I've been offering for sale here for collapse effects.

The red is also 2/20 merc. cotton at 40 epi with a fine linen for weft. The cloth is much stiffer, partly due to the higher density, partly due to the linen. I'm donating two of the red ones to Weavolution for a fund raiser later in the year.

diversified plain weave

I'm also donating the above scarf to Weavolution as a fund raiser. I know the photo looks a little blurry - that's partly because it's woven from rayon chenille and 2/16 bamboo rayon. Really hard to get good focus on rayon chenille!

Anyway, if you're a member of Weavolution, watch for the announcement of the fund raiser.

Twill Bias

2011-10-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

Tartan baby blanket woven in 2/8 cotton by Monique - I think this was her 3rd project and she knocked it out of the ballpark - no mistakes in the warp or weft order and a pretty near perfect 50/50 beat

One of the things that can happen with a 2:2 twill is that, upon wet finishing, the fabric can skew along the twill diagonal.

I'm not exactly sure what factors can cause it to happen more dramatically than at other times. I'd have to weave a bunch of samples and check for things like twist energy in the yarn, density and so on. All I know is that at times it happens and it can be quite dramatic.

So it was with Monique's tartan baby blanket. I assured her that it could be reduced if not eliminated entirely in the wet finishing.

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The above is bad ASCII art showing an exaggerated bias along the twill diagonal. (The twill line is running from lower left to upper right as in the photo.)

During wet finishing, before the cloth dries completely, what I do is take the cloth at the opposite points and pull the cloth back into a rectangular shape and then give it a hard press until dry. In other words, I'm pulling against the twill diagonal (upper left and lower right hand corners).

One way to avoid this happening is to weave a twill where the diagonal changes direction on a fairly regular basis. It's one reason I like Wall of Troy.

If I want to weave large diamonds, I'll use a herringbone threading and treadling so that there are no issues with the outside threads 'falling out' of the cloth when the diagonal changes direction.

Art vs Craft

2011-10-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

Flying Free

Water Sparkling Falls

Early in my weaving career I wove everything. And I do mean everything. If it could be made from thread, I made it.

In the early 1980's I even had a solo exhibition at the Prince George Art Gallery. At the time I was known mainly for my functional household textiles and the curator (who had taken over the job after my show was booked) was very, um, trepedatious, about what my exhibition would actually be. He probably envisioned stacks of placemats and table runners. :^)

Flying Free was woven with a linen warp and gross grain ribbon and measured about 4 feet wide.

Water Sparkling Falls is huge. I think it was around 18 feet wide and nearly 10 feet high.

I had a long conversation with another artist (painter) who told me that some of my pieces absolutely broke design 'rules' but that they worked anyway. I took that as a compliment. :)

Interestingly my work seemed to appeal most to a younger audience. An English teacher (married to a weaver) brought his Eng Lit classes to the art gallery and then had his students write a 'review' of my show and encouraged them to make comments in the visitor log. Some of the comments were very thoughtful and saw through to the intent behind my making the pieces.

But the exhibition was an enormous effort. In time, in money, in emotional investment. I realized that my primary goal was to earn an income and that wasn't going to happen with textile art.

Or at least, not in this town. Perhaps if I lived in a large metropolitan centre I might have had more of a chance to sell textile art. But here it just wasn't going to happen. And so I turned back to weaving functional textiles. To making them with as much beauty and grace as I could. And ultimately we earned our income solely from the production and sales of functional textiles for 9 years. Until things changed and I needed to choose another path. And then another. And then.....

My life has been a series of paths, some of them wildly divergent from where I had been heading. Sometimes I consciously choose a new path, sometimes life set up roadblocks and I was forced onto a different path by necessity. But one thing I can say - it's been interesting!

Currently reading Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold.

Butterflies

2011-10-14T10:05:00.000-07:00

click to biggify to see the butterflies

here is the profile draft

This is the final woven 'sample' for the master level. It is a scarf woven in a fine silk (2/60) set at 45 epi/ppi. I did a series of scarves and chose the best one to submit. :) The weave structure is huck lace.

In addition to the woven samples the candidate is sent fabric swatches that they are to analyze. The samples are handwoven and the candidate is to determine the threading, tie up and treadling and the yarns used. Sometimes this can be quite a challenge!

So, now that you've been given a tour of the fourth and final level of my tests, do you want a tour of the other test levels? The levels have been changed somewhat since I did them lo, these many years ago.

The test problems can be used as a personal study guide (along with Mary Black's (New) Key to Weaving and can be found on the Guild of Canadian Weavers website here. The file is a pdf which can be downloaded for free.

Satin Problem

2011-10-13T10:14:00.000-07:00

my camera didn't seem to like the royal blue of the yarn and the photo looks very greenish

As part of the fourth and final level for the GCW tests, there is a problem on satin. It took me a couple of warps to get everything correct. Fortunately I had quite a bit of hand dyed silk so was able to set the 'failed' scarves aside for sale and keep trying.

Since my loom has 16 shafts I used two 8 shaft satin blocks.

For the final level there are fewer woven samples in the problems and more written/theory work, although of course the candidate is expected to weave all necessary samples for their monograph/research topic.

When I did the tests the major project was called a monograph - I think the terminology has been changed to research project.

At last count I believe that there have been a total of 29 people who have achieved the Master level, the first two being Mary Black (yes, that Mary Black) and Mary Sandin. The most recent was Helene Ruel who submitted her test levels in French. The first, I think, to have submitted in French. I think I've blogged previously and listed all the master weavers and their monograph topics, several of which have been turned into books that have become classics in the handweaving world.

The tests are not restricted to Canadians. There is one American GCW master weaver and I know that others from outside Canada have done at least some of the test levels.

Marking duties are shared out amongst the current master weavers and from time to time I have had the priviledge of marking a test level. The test administrator mails the test to the marker and it is all done anonymously. The only one who knows the names is the administrator.

Doing the test requirements was most definitely a challenge and very intimidating. One of the reasons I did the tests was to get a broad over view of the craft. I was 'forced' to deal with weave structures that didn't particularly appeal to me and strive for a level of perfection that was, in many ways, much higher than my inclination. I am not a perfectionist!

I was determined to learn as much as possible and working on the tests kept me focused on exploring and learning. And, having done the problems, why not submit them for marking? A couple of times I had to re-do a test problem and I learned even more because of that.

Currently reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Going, Going.....

2011-10-12T13:09:00.000-07:00

...and soon to be gone - hopefully!

Over the past few weeks I've been worrying away at the piles (mountains!) of finishing that need to be done. There is now one huge (or two smaller) stacks of shawls and scarves that are done to the point of needing their hang/care tags and prices.

I also managed to wet finish a dozen and a half knitted scarves for donation to a worthy cause and will deliver them at the end of the month, ready for distribution for the winter.

Winter, which is creeping ever closer. We have not yet had snow but it could come at any time. With the persistent wet weather and the dropping temps, it cannot be far away. Perhaps the chilly weather will remind people that they need a new scarf or shawl when the craft fairs begin in just over two weeks.

Beginning the last weekend in October every weekend for the following 4 weeks will be another sales event. The first two are here, then Vancouver (Circle Craft) and Calgary (Art Market). At some point in there we are expecting for mom to a) move and b) have her surgery. No stress!

A friend has also offered to get some of my textiles to the Seattle Weavers Guild sale Oct. 27-29. I'm very disappointed that I won't be there as it is always so inspirational to see what others have been making but perhaps next year I can make it again.

In spite of the above evidence of things being finished, there are still buckets more to do. I will continue to work on them over the next few weeks and try to get as much as possible done before we leave for Vancouver. Doug has booked the time off to work the craft fairs because we were thinking I would not be recovered enough to do them myself so I may let him take the lion's share of working in the booth and rest up for the out of town shows. My energy is a tiny bit better every day but I don't have much stamina so I don't want to overdo it.

Got all of the warps for placemats woven and started wet finishing those hoping to get some of them ready for sale, too. The first batch is ready for hemming as soon as I've finished hemming the Fox Fibre towels - nearly done! Hemming is a great tv watching job.

And the AVL is now up and weaving - more tea towels. Blue and white this time. I've got a whole lot of the singles 6 cotton to use up so I'll try it as weft for waffle weave towels and see how they look.

Master Level Tapestry

2011-10-11T08:47:00.000-07:00

As part of the master weavers certificate, the candidate must weave a tapestry. It was actually the tapestry that delayed the submission of my fourth and final level for consideration by about two years as I struggled to get it woven. Why? Partly because I don't fancy myself an artist and partly because progress seemed so very slllloooooowwww compared to what I was used to on the big loom(s).

The border was free form (no cartoon) as was the background. For the butterfly I did follow a cartoon. Since I don't draw very well I purposely made the whole design a little - um - rustic?

The yarn was a blend of silk, wool and linen for the background and silk for the butterfly. All the weft yarns were dyed by me. The warp was a linen rug warp.

I used one of the techniques in Peter Collingwood's rug book for finishing off the ends and sewed all the warp ends back into the textile. I also sewed in all the weft tails so that the back side looks about the same as the front. There were some quite long slits in and around the butterfly because I wanted as clean an edge as possible (although if I'd been a more skilled tapestry weaver I could have probably dovetailed or in some other way joined them during weaving.)

But in the end the tapestry had become such a road block that I just kept telling myself that all I needed was a 'pass' and to get it finished!

There are 3 judges for the master level. I don't remember what marks they gave me although I seem to remember that one of the judges was not at all happy with my efforts. But the combined score meant that I got that pass.

Thanksgiving Day

2011-10-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

In Canada we celebrate a day of thanksgiving in October. It's a great way to remind ourselves, whatever our religious beliefs may or may not include, that life is good no matter how challenging it may be.

In the course of the past 4 and some years I have learned many lessons. I've always been the type of person to look for the silver lining in any clouds that may gather over my life but now I have really learned to stay in the present moment. Because ultimately that is all we have.

I doubt that being goal oriented is going to change but somehow those goals have changed into more of a lodestone - a direction to which I am tending, not the imperative that they used to be.

I have also learned to choose my battles much more carefully. When energy has been lacking it became much easier to see what things needed to be fought for and which could be left to slide away uncontested.

Ultimately the thing that I am most grateful for during this particular Thanksgiving Day is that I am remission - much sooner than I expected. That I did not have to go through the entire course of 8 treatments and that I am in much better shape than I had any expection of being by this milestone. Yes, energy is still low, but generally every day is a little bit better. Most noticable improvement? I am sleeping 'properly' for the first time in years and years. What I had attributed to menopause appears to have been due to the lymphoma. I am no longer bone weary with fatigue even though I still don't have much stamina. But I am hopeful that as the chemo clears my system that that will return.

I am also grateful that my mother is finally moving into an apartment. The timing could have been better, but it looks like she will be into the apartment before her surgery and winter. Then all we have to deal with is selling her house - not something easily done in this town during the winter months. But step by step we will deal with it.

And I am enormously grateful for the friends I have. Walt Whitman wrote in "I Sing the Body Electric"

I have perceiv'd that to be with
     those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest
     at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing
     laughing flesh is enough.

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving to all.

Another worsted wool that would not full - surprise! Darlene lined it with a brightly coloured lining and again knitted an edge trim to bind the edges.

Currently reading Heat Rises by "Richard Castle". I don't know who is ghost writing these books, but I love the Castle tv series. Great dialogue, human characters, little references to Firefly if you are paying attention. BTW, if you've never seen Firefly and like a great space cowboy romp, I highly recommend Josh Weedon's series (with a much younger Nathan Fillion).

Coat with Angora

2011-10-09T10:21:00.000-07:00

This cloth was traded for a piece of bobbin lace made by a friend - she tried very hard to get me making lace. At the time I resisted but eventually did take up the craft a number of years later. :)

One layer is 2/8 cotton, the other layer is a wool/angora blend.

The photograph isn't really out of focus - the angora has developed a halo during wet finishing. You can clearly see that the loom state sample looks very open and loose on the back side. After fulling it closed up nicely and a slight rumpled texture developed on the surface of the cloth.

The two layers are connected by way of the two layers exchanging places.

Currently reading The Vault by Ruth Rendell (the latest in the Inspector Wexford series - I find her other books to be too dark/bleak, generally)

And Another One

2011-10-08T09:35:00.000-07:00

click to biggify - the cuffs are turned back to show the other side of the cloth

This coat is another double weave with areas of pique'. The ribs are 'stuffed' with strands of lopi type wool.

The fabric was woven with the ribs horizontal in the loom, then turned or 'railroaded' so that the weft is vertical on the body.

Darlene very cleverly made it so that it is reversible. The blue is hand dyed silk. The white yarn is a fine wool merino.

Darlene machine knit the edge trim with the fine merino in order to perfectly match the cloth.

The finished fabric doesn't look very much different from the loom state. And yes, this fabric was given a hard press in order to flatten it and make it easier to sew.

Unfortunately I haven't worn it much as it is dressier than my lifestyle calls for. :)

Bedford Cord

2011-10-07T10:53:00.000-07:00

Bedford cord is often used in industry for clothing, most often for fabric that will wear well if the ribs are in plain weave.

I wanted something with a some drape and using the very fine silk for warp with the fine wool/cashmere weft and the vertical ribs, the cloth has stability with drape, suitable for this swing coat. It is also quite cosy and warm. I gave the garment to my mother who has worn it for years, even in the winter on quite chilly days and she says it is comfy.

Currently reading Spellbound by Kelley Armstrong

Another Coat

2011-10-06T09:35:00.000-07:00

This coat fabric turned into more of an adventure than I expected.

Up until this fabric, all of the wool I had worked with fulled. Some more than others, but they could all be made to full.

And so when I bought this lovely blue/green worsted yarn, it was with the intent of fulling it to make a warm winter coat.

This particular worsted wool did not full. Period.

I tried everything. I used hot water, the most vigorous of the washing cycles on my machine and ran the fabric through the complete wash/rinse cycle not once but several times.

With the result of.....window screening.

Then I remembered that a friend had said that they threw running shoes into the washer if they really wanted to beat a woolen cloth up and get it to full. I didn't have any running shoes I wanted to sacrifice so I started thinking of something else I could do.

I had a lot of the tubes from yarn purchased from Maurice Brassard that were rough so I tossed the wet fabric into the dryer along with about 18 of these tubes and let her rip. Poor Doug nearly had a fit at the noise!

But the tubes managed to beat the cloth up enough that loose fibres came to the surface of the cloth and it became quite fuzzy. The cloth was then put back into the washing machine with hot water and allowed to agitate again until the surface fuzz fulled together enough to give the cloth stability.

I didn't want a fuzzy coat so once it was dry I got a large sweater shaver and shaved the surface, leaving the nap on the 'inside' to help provide some insulation.

The coat was sewn by Darlene who recommended a lining fabric called kasha. Kasha has a rayon surface with a fuzzy back. This fabric would also help provide insulation against the cold.

Another Garment

2011-10-05T15:16:00.000-07:00

This is another of the garments done for the monograph for GCW. I was exploring how to make fabric for warm clothing - jackets and coats. Darlene sewed most of them.

The above jacket was used as my primary winter jacket for about 7 years. The base fabric was, again, Harris Tweed, with a very softly twisted singles wool as the lighter accent thread. The web was fulled heavily.

Originally I'd intended to brush the cloth but decided after fulling that the accent thread had bloomed sufficiently that brushing wasn't necessary. In the end I think that was a good call because the accent thread did tend to pill and if it had been brushed, would likely have pilled even worse. In the end the reason I got rid of the jacket was because the accent thread had pilled and 'shed' enough that it was looking worn even though the Harris Tweed was still in great shape. :)

Since I rarely wear a commercially made winter coat more than 7 years, I figured I'd gotten good value out of it and it was time to retire it.

Another Bumpy Fabric

2011-10-04T22:56:00.000-07:00

This jacket is another fabric with 'bumps'.

The base fabric is Harris Tweed wool. Harris Tweed is not Harrisville. Two completely different yarns.

Harris Tweed is a singles, tightly twisted yarn which makes a sturdy cloth. To this base I added stripes of 2/20 mercerized cotton. There are two wefts - the Harris Tweed, and a 2/20 mercerized cotton which created separate 'ribbons' on the surface of the Harris Tweed that are a true double weave.

The cotton woven into the Harris Tweed interferred with the fulling and I had to work very hard to get the cloth to full as much as I wanted to make this fabric work for a jacket.

My friend Darlene (who sewed this and many other garments for me) made the jacket reversible. It has a hood and large shawl collar. The model received this jacket as payment for the modelling job.

Fabric that goes Bump

2011-10-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

I started playing around with creating textiles with texture in the mid-1980's. This coat was the result of a technique sometimes called cloque'. It's a stitched double weave with one layer that fulls, one layer that doesn't. In this case the top layer is 2/8 cotton, the inside layer is a wool/cotton blend. The top or face layer is plain weave, the inside/lining layer is a 4:4 twill (as I recall). The stitchers are hidden.

The cloth was designed with an early version of Fiberworks and was woven sometime in the late '80's, early '90's as part of the monograph for the GCW Master Weaver tests.

Since then I've dabbled with differential shrinkage and highly twisted yarns but always within the framework of my goal as a weaver - to make cloth that will perform it's function as well as I can make it.

This particular cloth has some flexibility but not a lot of drape so a jacket design was chosen to meet this quality of cloth. I thought you would be able to see the lining if you clicked on the photo but it doesn't really show. If anyone is interested I can take a photo showing the back side of the cloth.
The jacket is quite cosy with the flannel like feel of the lining and fairly warm due to the pockets of trapped air between the two layers.

I've got the high twist cotton and wool/lycra coned off. And with the news of my mother suddenly getting an apartment as of November 1, it is becoming imperative that I get rid of some of my yarns. The three yarns that will help make bumpy fabric are listed on my Art Fire Store

Yes, I have yarns stored in my mother's basement - and they will need to go.....somewhere else.... :}

This 'n That

2011-10-03T16:48:00.000-07:00

This is the corner where my electric bobbin winder is set up. For the mat weft I'm using 4 strands of cotton - 2 strands of 2/8 natural, one boucle and one thick and thin. Any 'bubbles' that develop from winding the four strands at once hide within the cloth and just look like more boucle loops.

One of the things you can sometimes get away with is using the tag ends of the tubes as a yarn package in the shuttle. The 2/8 cotton is being used as one strand in the plain weave hems. The tubes supplied by Maurice Brassard just fit into the Leclerc shuttles. They can't be too full, but it saves winding bobbins.

One of the things you can do with blogspot is see your viewing statistics. One of the categories they track is referring URL's.

Over the weekend there was a tremendous spike in traffic to this blog so I checked referring sites. There were several very odd sites apparently referring to my blog. I have no idea why these sites would be referring to my blog but it left me with an odd feeling. Who was doing this, and why would they?

There are a number of reasons why I blog, all of them personal. But one of the reasons is that I enjoy sharing my joy of weaving with other like-minded souls. While I can see that I have lots of page views, your comments are the only way I know that people are appreciating my posts.

One of the reasons I enjoy travelling to teach is because at every workshop or guild meeting at least one person will come up to me and comment that they read my blog. That feedback and the support given me during the past 6 months makes the time I spend writing the posts more than worth while.

So don't hesitate to make a comment!

Currently reading A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny

Weft Tails

2011-10-01T12:23:00.000-07:00

ready to throw shuttle with fresh bobbin

On wider warps I anchor the weft tail with my ring/pinky finger(s) so that the tail of the weft doesn't scoot into the shed, which means reaching in and fishing it out again. The shuttle is held by my middle finger and thumb, with the index finger poised to push the shuttle through the shed.

single 2/8 cotton inserted into new shed with mat body weft overlapping

Generally I try to make my joins in the first inch or two nearest the selvedge. The fresh weft tail is laid in as close to the base of the V of the shed as possible so that the angle of the warp threads will help to trap the new tail at the selvedge.

Currently reading part four of The Sharing Knife by Lois McMaster Bujold. I've been told that her other books have textile references, too, so I'll look for more at the library.

Equipment Modifications

2011-09-28T15:55:00.000-07:00

Jean asked for more info on the modification to the AVL tension box. Remember that cutting the top off the reed will weaken it and leave sharp pointy bits that will scratch unwary arms and hands.

The top photo shows the gate partially open. Doug made a wire that pivots on the closed side of the box and fits into a hole in the base of the tension box.

This photo shows the gate closed with the wire in the hole in the base.

This photo shows the tension box from the end. You can see how the tines have shifted and moved at the top but they are still in the correct alignment at the bottom, which is where the yarn travels. The wire is anchored and swivels around a nut/bolt. The gate is closed and you should be able to clearly see it near the base of the reed. Click to biggify.

Finished weaving the warp on the small loom this afternoon. This photo shows the hem area woven in plain weave with a couple of twill picks to make a cut line so that I don't have to stop and grab another shuttle with a contrasting yarn. Click the photo to see more clearly. In this photo I've partially cut the two mats apart.

Round Tuits

2011-09-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

three yarns I have used to make 'collapse' fabrics

table runner showing hem in plain weave, body in broken twill

Slowly, slowly energy is returning and I am beginning to deal with things that have needed to be done for some time but for which I never seemed to have a round tuit.

A number of years ago I got some yarn from a mill. A couple of mills actually. The single 6 cotton was a mistake shipped by one of the mills to me back in, oh, must be the early 1990's. Recognizing the potential for collapse weaves in the highly twisted single, I kept one of the cases and returned the two others sent in error. Fifty pound cases.

I messed around with the singles 6 cotton and got some nice effects, but you do realize how much 50 pounds is, right? Yes, I still have lots left! In a further effort to bust my stash down to some sort of reasonable size, I finally started the cone winder chugging and have been breaking the large mill cones down into more manageable size - about 6 and 3/4 ounces. That's about 1900 yards per cone.

I also got the rest of the last of the wool/lycra coned off so I have around 8 cones (approx. 6 ounce cones) of that left. As near as I can remember that's a NM 28 so lots and lots of yardage on those cones, too. The lycra is 2% of the mix and can be dyed, as I understand it, with the same acid dyes as wool.

Since the lycra is activated by the wet finishing, it is recommended that you weave first, dye later.

Last but not least I have some one pound (nominally) tubes of singles 40 (I think - another mill error) high twist wool. If you have a copy of Magic in the Water, this is the same yarn as used for the scarves in project 19.

I'll be listing the yarns on my Art Fire Store shortly or you can order from me directly.

On the weaving front, stash busting proceeds there, too. I have a bunch of wound warps which were intended to be dyed and woven up as scarves but that never did happen. It took me a while to figure out what to do with them - I can only sell so many white scarves, after all. :) On the weekend I took two of the warps, rough sleyed them side by side and dressed the loom with them. The warp is 22" in the reed and so the placemats will have hems top and botton instead of on the ends, but I don't think that will be a problem.

If they turn out, I'll likely finish the rest of those warps in this manner. I can sell a lot more 'white' placemats and table runners than I can scarves! And they will finally be woven up and another box will be gone off my studio floor.

Last but not least, I'd like to thank Syne for the book recommendation of The Sharing Knife series by Lois McMaster Bujold. For some reason I'd never gotten around to reading Bujold so her work was new to me. Imagine my delight at all the textile references - and accurate ones, too! If you like a story that acknowledges the value of textiles to society, you might enjoy this series. I'm on the 3rd volume now, looking forward to finishing it. There are four books in this series. And I'll likely be looking for more of her books now that I've finally gotten a round tuit for that, too. :^)

Wet Finished

2011-09-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

cones of Fox Fibre yarn and wet finished towels

Friday evening I finished weaving the beige warp with the Fox Fibre weft and ran the 19 towels through the washer/dryer on Saturday. Today I went and pressed them. Over all I'm quite pleased with the results although the colours aren't 'my' colours. Actually the brown ones would look quite nice in my kitchen with the cork floors. ;)

The cloth is slightly more weft emphasis on one side, and slightly more warp emphasis on the other. Personally I like the warp emphasis better so will hem them so that that side is the 'right' side.

My energy is slowly returning and I celebrate each day that it is. Today I beamed a warp onto the Leclerc Fanny for placemats and table runners. I'm trying to use up some warps I'd intended to have painted for scarves but that never happened so two warps are wide enough for placemats woven width-ways. It means hems on the top and bottom of the mat instead of the ends, but I don't think that will matter too much. And it uses up the warps. Stash busting continues.

I also got the warp for a guild member wound and will go up to the guild room Tuesday night and get some help extracting the loom from the 'herd' of looms so I can get that warp dressed for Ruth's friendship coverlet.

And last, but not least, I started beaming another tea towel warp, this time in two shades of blue, mixed thoroughly. The weft for this warp will be a singles 6 cotton with lots of twist energy. I'll probably do a couple of different treadlings, one in advancing twill, one in waffle weave. With the twist energy in the weft, the waffle weave ought to pucker up well.

I've used this yarn for collapse effects and it works quite well if given sufficient room to torque. I have lots of it and have been thinking of coning some off the huge mill cones and offering it for sale. Perhaps it's time I got a round tuit and did just that.

Currently reading The Sharing Knife, part II by Lois McMaster Bujold - this series has lots of references to spinning and weaving for anyone who enjoys that in a story

Sectional Beaming, pros and cons

2011-09-23T21:39:00.000-07:00

Many of the processes and tools involved in weaving are quite specific in their advantages - and disadvantages. One of these processes is that of beaming sectionally.

This is what a sectional beam looks like. In this case the sections are one inch (nominal) in width. Of course the metal staple that divides the sections one from the next takes up some room so the actual width between staples is somewhat less than one inch. About 5/8" if I remember correctly.

Sectional beams commonly come in one or two inch wide sections.

The advantage to sectional beaming is that one can beam a very long, very wide warp without assistance. Sectional beaming is helpful for somewhat fine, somewhat fragile threads. Beaming sectionally is also useful when working with yarns that have twist energy in them. Since the warp is beamed with tension, there is a great deal of control getting the warp onto the beam with minimal tangles.

But there are a number of disadvantages while using sectional beaming, too.

One of the disadvantages is that you need a yarn package for every end in a section. For example, if you have a beam with 2 inch sections and you want to dress the loom with 2/20 mercerized cotton at 36 epi, then you will need 72 yarn packages.

This is a Leclerc spool rack. When I bought it, it would hold 50 yarn packages. Doug added an additional rail which allows me to beam up to 60 ends at a time. Generally this is more than enough for my one inch sectional beam.

The yarns are run through a tension box. This is an AVL tension box which has the great advantage of a swiveling reed at the front which allows me to 'size' the width of the ribbon of yarns going into the section.

Doug modified the box by cutting off the top of the gathering reed and installing a 'gate' that prevents the threads from popping out. Having no top on the gathering reed means that I can very quickly load it.

He also made extra tensioning dowels so that if I am beaming off the top of the yarn package I can apply addtional tension to the threads so that they go onto the beam very tightly. When pulling from the side of a tube or spool, generally the weight of the yarn package is a factor and only two dowels are needed to apply appropriate tension.

Another disadvantage is that if you want a striped warp, it is more efficient to design a stripe that fits into the size of your section. In other words, if your stripe doesn't fit your section, you'll need to remove the yarns and change them in order to get the colours where you want them.

If I want a stripe larger than an inch, I try to make the overall stripe repeat some multiple of 1 inch. Then I fill all of the sections with the first colour combination, remove the yarn from the tension box and spool rack, then load the next combination and fill that colour and so on until all sections are filled.

This can be quite a challenge as for example when I wove a tartan that did not fit within a one inch repeat. Of course each different combination also needs as many yarn packages as required for the size of section that your beam may have.

Fortunately it is possible to beam an ordinary warp onto a sectional beam so there are times when I will do that. I've got a 'slide' show on my website showing how I do this. Click on Education then on Warping Valet. By using the warping valet it's very easy - but you can run the warp over the top beam of the loom, too. It's a little awkward but can be done.

Ultimately the success of beaming sectionaly is to beam the warp under firm tension. No warp packing is required - no sticks, no paper. When the warp is beamed tightly enough the threads cannot cut down into the lower layers.

One hint - if you do not have a tension box with the front swivel you can use Leclerc 'fingers' to guide the threads into the proper section if you have a Leclerc sectional. If you have a loom other than a Leclerc, it is also possible to use tubing to do this job. Depending on what sort of dividers you have on your loom you can use a size of tube that fits your dividers. Apply the tube to one side of the section you want to fill, then bend the tube over to the divider beside it. Then do the same to the other side of the section. Unfortunately I don't have photos of this because I don't need to do it.

Some bad ASCII art:

^ ^
| |_| |

where the ^ represents the tubing going from one divider to the next one beside it and the section to be filled is in the centre.

Currently reading The Sharing Knife (part I) by Lois McMaster Bujold (thanks for the recommendation, Syne!)

No Reservations

2011-09-21T13:14:00.000-07:00

My oncologist turned into Santa Claus. When I got to the clinic it was to the news that today was the first treatment of the maintenance protocol.

Hooray!

There are no adverse effects from the monoclonal anti-bodies. :D

I will get a treatment every 3 months for the next 2 years, but the really rocky part of this journey is over - for now.

Many thanks for all the good wishes and positive thoughts. I have no doubt they helped!

Next challenge - getting mom through her surgery recovery........

Happy Dancing (with some reservations)

2011-09-20T12:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Dancing!

I am doing the Happy Dance - with a little caution, since I do not yet have all the answers I was looking to get today at the clinic.

The oncologist pronouced my response to treatment as 'excellent'. He is following up with the BC Cancer Agency today to find out if they will allow the maintenance protocol as a continuation of my treatment.

The prospect of remission increases from two years to six with the maintenance protocol. He is hoping to have a positive answer by the time I go in to the clinic tomorrow.

Send all positive thoughts to the BCCA! You can bet I'll be thinking hard at them all day today while I do my happy dance.

And enjoy the video clip. We all need a little happy dancing in our lives. :)

Fox Fibre Towels

2011-09-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

green weft begun with small sample showing developed colour

I have totally lost count of how many brown towels I wove but one cone is now empty. :) This afternoon I switched to the green which doesn't look like much on the loom, but once the colour developes should look really nice.

My energy finally came back around Friday and I've been managing to weave without too much difficulty. On Sunday I even managed to weave four towels instead of the two I'd been doing previously, so that felt really good - for a number of reasons.

On Saturday I attended a seminar on chemotherapy and the presenters emphasized that it is really important to get exercise if you can. Their recommendation was to walk but if I'm going to exercise, I'll weave, thank you. :)

Since my mood Sunday was pretty bleak, weaving was exactly the right thing to do. For me weaving is an aerobic activity and the production of endorphins helps elevate mood. Plus seeing 4 yards more roll up on the beam was a great mood elevator all by itself. Exercise also helps reduce blood pressure and mine has been higher than it should be the last few days. Not sure if the jabs have been spiking it or if it is just the stress of the chemotherapy itself. Whatever the reason, I am very anxious to complete the treatments so that my body can find equilibrium.

I am done the jabs for this cycle and tomorrow I hope to get some answers i.e. progress report based on the CT scan I had 10 days ago, whether or not I'll be getting the maintenance protocol (if he's got an answer yet) and if the jabs worked so that I can have #7 on Wed.

I have also gotten some contingency plans in place in case I can't weave on the AVL - placemats on the Fanny and a possible warp for the rigid heddle loom.

If nothing else there are still several buckets of shawls to be fringe twisted or knotted, loads of books thanks to a friend who passed several bags full of paperbacks on to me, jigsaw puzzles and naps.

I sort of feel like a marathon runner - I'm 3/4's the way through and the 'wall' is looming. But like they said at the seminar, the only way out is through. In other words:

Thank you Mr. Churchill.

Currently reading Grey by Jon Armstrong

Book Review: Yarn

2011-09-16T11:22:00.000-07:00

Ever hear of the genre called 'fashionpunk'?

Me neither.

I stumbled upon this book in the public library. Naturally I just had to pick it up!

When I consider a new-to-me author I'll read the first page and if it grabs me, I'll grab the book and hie myself to the check out desk.

The very first sentence of the book reads: I woke early, suffocated by a sweaty and prickling sense of apprehension - exactly the feeling of wool against the skin on a warm day.

The central character is a tailor in the futuristic world of Seattlehama, a city 'woven' around the rim of Mount Ranier, surrounded by acres and acres of what sounds like monoculture crops. On page 59 he muses:

For years, I had been pure grey. I assiduously removed all colors from my work, even at the microscopic level. My yarns were finished in such a way never to refract a tiny rainbow. My weaves and knits were created so that moire' patterns would not create interference colors. To white fabrics I added oxygenated films to instantly ameliorate possible stains. To blacks, I endlessly checked that there were not hidden tints introduced in the twists of the yarns and the mathematical dance of twills.

The world of Tane Cedar is filled with fabrics, woven and knitted, and futuristic technology where cloth is used, not just to clothe people, but to build their world in innovative ways.

This book is not for everyone but if you like science fiction, steam punk, novels by people like William Gibson (Neuromancer), you'll probably find Jon Armstrong's books intriguing. Although Grey was published first, Yarn is a prequel to Grey so I'm reading it first. And wondering when Armstrong's next book will be coming out.

Weaving Zen

2011-09-14T14:18:00.000-07:00

There is nothing quite like weaving when everything is going smoothly. :) Today I found myself in harmony with the loom and decided to tape a video clip. I'd hoped that my left hand would be more visible so that viewers could see how I catch the shuttle between my index and middle finger, then shift my index finger to propel the shuttle back across the web - but there just wasn't enough room between the loom and the wall to get the camera at just the correct distance. Sorry it didn't work out.

Getting a good weaving rhythm is a confluence of a number of factors. First the warp has to beamed firmly and evenly so that you get a good clear shed.

Then the bobbins have to be wound well - again with firm tension so that the built up layers can't cut down into the lower layers of yarn.

Holding the shuttle 'underslung' allows it to be caught and thrown in an ergonomic manner. The shoulders are relaxed and a little bit of a flick of the wrist combined with the push of the index finger can shoot the shuttle across quite a wide web. In this instance it's not too wide - just 24" in the reed. This is a width I find quite comfortable to hand throw. More than 30" wide and I start to feel the strain from having to hold my hands out further from my body. More than 30" in width I generally switch to the fly shuttle.

You might notice that at a certain point in the cycle my hands are not holding onto the beater at all. I don't weave with an overhead beater so I'm not sure that this is possible on one of those but on an underslung beater there is a time when it passes the pivot point that it will naturally fall towards the fell or away from it.

I have a few other video clips on my You Tube channel here where I talk through what I am doing and weave more slowly.

And here is a better view of the cloth:

Here you can see the cut line I weave in on the lower level to aid in separating the towels once they are off the loom. It's the white line. One of the advantages of the Compu-Dobby is that I can generate the entire treadling draft and include a blank pick to let me know that the next two picks are to be woven in a constrasting colour for the cut line.

And here is a close up of the cloth. I threaded the large motif once along each edge of the cloth. Once the cloth has been wet finished and the brown Fox Fibre yarn has developed the darker colour, the design woven into the cloth should show up much more clearly.

That, at least, is the plan!

Rising to the Challenge

2011-09-12T15:52:00.000-07:00

here is the 2/20 merc. cotton warp all beamed and ready to be threaded

brown and green Fox Fibre yarn on cone and small sample soaked in heavy concentration of washing soda and detergent - wow! look at the green!

One of my weaving mentors always said that if we weren't making mistakes we weren't learning. Her words struck a chord with me and I've never fussed too much about the mistakes I've made.

Oh sure I get disappointed and exasperated at myself when I make stupid mistakes - those dumb mistakes that we all make when we just don't think through something or forget a lesson from the past. You know what they say - if you don't learn from history you are doomed to repeat it.

I've done plenty of repeating and I get annoyed with myself when I do.

But I don't ever let the fear of failing keep me from trying something new. The mistakes we make along the path simply let us know when we are straying from success and allow us to make changes that will bring us closer to the desired results.

And sometimes trying is the only way to find out if that direction is truly the way you want to go.

It was fun working on the baby wraps but what I discovered is that they take a lot more 'engineering' in terms of the sewing than I'm really happy about doing. And so I think I will return from that interesting detour and go back to the more 'ordinary' things that I've done in the past - tea towels, scarves, shawls and so on.

I have also had to do a lot of thinking about the coming months. The last two cycles are going to get yet more challenging from everything that I've been told and so it is going to be important to keep stress - good and bad - to a minimum. Mom's surgery is going to be stressful for her and us as we do our best to help her through her recovery. And of course there is the upcoming craft fair season to be dealt with.

Since I earn my income from weaving (doing it and teaching it) these shows are a critical part of my income for the year. While Doug is willing to work the shows, there is still the weaving, wet finishing, tagging and pricing to be done. I've tried to stay on top of that but a quick riffle through the storage area showed me that not everything is priced. I will have to start packing things up early in October so that everything is ready for the show season.

Weavolution, the weaver's social network, is doing something interesting this year. Called Halloweave, a number of group leaders have issued challenges to people to stretch their wings and dare to try something different. I'm not participating in any of the challenges (see above about stress) but I'm trying to be supportive of those people who are willing to participate. You can find out more information on their website here

It doesn't cost anything to join.

Currently reading Home Improvement; undead edition edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner

Sunny Sunday

2011-09-11T16:52:00.000-07:00

Silk scarves after pressing

Managed to get the pressing done today - 8 silk scarves (whoops, really lost count!), 7 silk gimp shawls, 2 larger shawls and a small rectangle that may become a baby 'blankie'.

This afternoon I met with a lace making friend and we both talked lots and made (a very little) lace. We're both having some issues with numbness in our hands - different reasons, same affect - so mostly the afternoon was about catching up since our last visit.

Once I got home I ruminated on the next warp some more, decided that the blue really would not fit nicely into the cloth I was seeing in my mind's eye, then realized there was much less of the pale grey than I thought I had and removed that, too. So the next warp is a mixed blend of the pale and medium sort of beige colours and the sage green. The warp is mostly the palest beige with the sage green as the least amount.

The weft on these tea towels will be the two darkest of the Fox Fibre colours - 100% green and 100% brown. The blended colours of the Fox Fibre yarns darkened much more than anticipated so I'm expecting the 100% colours to get even darker yet, relying on the contrast in values to pop the fancy twill up as the design element.

Since I haven't actually done a sample, I am fully into the 'full sized sample' club on this warp!

But now it's time to go to my friend's across the street for a tutorial on how to give myself the jabs to stimulate white cell growth. Another milestone on this journey. :)

Currently reading Wheel of Fate by Kate Sedley