"Normal"

We have an opportunity during this time, in this place, to change 'normal'.

For white folk not understanding what is happening to 'other' people (i.e. 'not white'), find out who Jane Elliott is (handy link here to start) and think about what she has to say.  It will take some time.  You may find what she is saying uncomfortable.  You may want to leave the room.  Admit that you have the luxury of doing so while POC in North American society cannot change out of their skin in order to be treated fairly, equitably.

There are numerous video clips on You Tube of her meetings and seminars and even her original study Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes.  I urge everyone who is not aware of these to take some time today, on Sunday, 'normally' a day Christians are supposed to spend in prayer and contemplation, to think about what their life is like compared to someone else's.

I have been aware of white privilege for quite a long time.  For a time I did not see how I could personally make a difference.  Until I became fed up with opinions, loudly stated, by some family members and began to push back.  It was not well received, to say the least.

In the past few years I have become much more vocal in speaking up on the internet as well as in my daily life.

There were a number of things posted to the internet this morning that revealed the perception of what is 'normal' and what is not in North American society.  It is time for people to address the things that white people consider 'normal' and what they consider 'normal' for people of colour.

If a political party loudly claims that they are 'Christian' I want to see them behaving according to the teachings of Christ, not what some 'prosperity' preacher is touting.

This is the time to listen.  This is the time to learn.  This is the time to change things for the better for ALL human beings, not just the ones in power, currently.

Thus ends today's sermon...

Weaving Drafts

What new weavers don't always understand is that a weaving draft is just a set of possibilities.  The draft shows how a loom can be set up with a threading progression (in this case point over 16 shafts) and then how the shafts can be combined in a particular sequence to achieve a motif.

That's it.

The draft does not contain any information about what threads to use, how dense they should be used, or the colours.  There is no information about dimensions of a textile because a draft isn't about a particular textile, it's about a weave structure.  How the threads move through the cloth.

A few years ago (quite a few now) I looked at the threading for a pattern/design referred to as Swedish Snowflake in North America.  Then I condensed it so that something similar could be woven on four shafts (and brazenly called it Canadian Snowflake).

The motif isn't as 'strong' or obvious as the 8 shaft version, but it allows people with only four shafts to do something complex.

Yes, I still offer the Canadian Snowflake draft but it comes without any information on yarn to use, epi/ppi, or colours.  Because that isn't the point.  The point was - is - to just provide the set up that can result in the snowflake motif for four shafts.  (email me if you want the draft - I send it as a Word file.)

One of the reasons I like having 16 shafts is for the flexibility one has.  With a point progression over 16 (or 20 or 36 etc) shafts, a multitude of 'fancy' twills can be woven.  There is even a book that has documented a number of drafts for 16 and a few for 20 shafts. 

Called "16 Harness Patterns; the fanciest twills of all" taken from the weaving notebooks of Fred A. Pennington, written and compiled by Irene K Wood, I bought it when it first came out in 1984.

I also have the book by Oelsner, which is a similar compendium of drafts, many on straight or point progressions for various numbers of shafts and treadles.  The scale motif comes from Oelsner's book.

Patricia Hilts work on the weaving manuscripts from the 1700s (I think) is also a favoured resource of mine.

These resources are available for anyone to use.  Weaving drafts cannot be copyright protected, only the specifics of what you do with them - so a particular combination of threads, colours, to make a specific cloth and published. 

A new weaver won't have the experience to know enough about yarns to make choices on their own, necessarily, so they rely on published patterns.  Or they do as others do - weave a LOT of samples, examine them, learn what happens when they do x, y, z. 

In the 21c we have many resources literally at our fingertips.  We can dip into on line resources.  We can take on line classes.  We can participate in weave-a-longs or now Zoom guild meetings.

The other night I had my first Zoom meeting with three weavers who live in TN, one in NC and moi, up here in BC. 

When you think about it, we live in pretty amazing times.  How much has changed since I first picked up a shuttle in 1975, since I chose to become a weaver. 

Weaving can be a life long journey into discovering how the craft works, or an expression of ones creativity or however one may want to practice the craft.

Pretty Peacock

Here is a wee peek at the current warp.  It's not true in colour, being a bit more green, but as good as I can get with my ipad camera and in the shadows beneath the loom.

The draft is built on a 5 end satin structure, so I increased the epi to 36 instead of the 32 I've been using for twill based designs.  This will make the towels a little thicker, but the fewer interlacements will still provide flexibility.  With a higher density they might not be quite as absorbent, but the longer floats will provide more surface to pick up water so it may all equal out.

Regardless, they will make towels.

With so much turmoil and uncertainty in the world right now, it seems pointless to carry on making things.

On the other hand, it is what I can do, in this time, in this place.

Hopefully more people will accept that wearing a mask will protect themselves and their loved ones and will turn them into a fashion statement.  Pretty soon we'll all be wearing them.  And then the spread of colds and flu will also reduce.

One hopes.

I'm nearly done hemming the last batch of towels.  I think they turned out well.  Not my taste for colours, particularly, although they would go into my kitchen with it's rosewood cabinets quite nicely.  But I have plenty of tea towels.  Yes, hand woven ones.  :)

Last night several of us got together for a Zoom chat and we talked about using textiles made by others.  When I grab a Robyn Spady or a Syne Mitchell tea towel, I think of them, send them love.  Tea towels may be 'mundane' in that they are intended for ordinary every day use.  But things made by people we love and respect are a much deeper connection to others.

As for me, I really love this warp, even though I'm weaving it 'upside down'.  I know what is underneath.  I know what will be revealed when the warp comes off the loom.  I know how they will, like a proud peacock, go out into the world, to hopefully bring a smile to others.

Currently reading Dead Land by Sara Paretsky.  And wondering how 2020 is going to affect things like TV shows and books in the future...

Learning

Sometimes people learn better from graphics. 

I don't know the originator of these graphics - they have been shared on the internet such that attribution has fallen away so if anyone knows, let me know in the comments and I will edit this post accordingly.

The first one I saw was the top one, the bottom one I saw late last night (insomnia, how I loathe thee).

Over the years I have worked at overcoming my personal 'reality bubble'.  At first I didn't realize what I was doing, I just read everything I could get my hands on.  But that reading introduced me to the grey of most of human interaction.  I was exposed (if you will) to other cultures, other perspectives on history, stories of people who had different lived experiences to mine.

So we sit, each and every one of us, in a 'comfort zone' where we know the rules and how to navigate through the society we live in - as best we can.

As a white person, growing up in a majority white Euro-centric society, I learned a particular set of societal norms.  Which got stood on their heads when I lived for three months in Sweden.  Another majority white Euro-centric society but one with some rather different societal norms.

Since I have a very 'European' look about me (French-Canadian mother, German identifying father) so long as I kept my mouth shut people around me had no idea I *wasn't* Swedish.  Which meant for some serious stumbles on my part and confusion on theirs.

Having no other option than to move forward as best I could, no matter how frightened I was, I found an inner core of strength I didn't know I possessed. 

That strength was pushed down until I forgot I had it but it was there for me to draw on when needed. 

Having experienced a different society, been exposed to other lived experiences vicariously, being aware that some people had a hard time because of the colour of their skin, I have slowly been working at moving out of my comfort zone.

I won't say I don't see colour.  Of course I do.  But I will say that I have been working at not making colour the defining quality of any person I interact with.

On the above charts, I would say that I have been moving through the 'fear' zone and am now in the 'learning' zone.

There are days when I catch myself reverting to the fear zone.  When I feel the fear I calm myself, ask what I am afraid of, then decide if the fear is for a real threat or if I have been triggered by something - a word usually.  Because that is how emotional trigger words work - they bring up the fear in an effort to control your response to something.

I won't claim to be entirely in the Growth Zone in part because tearing down systemic attitudes is a lifelong task. 

All I can do is keep trying.

If you want to work on your own 'reality bubble' there are resources available.  Anti-racist resources have been  posted on Facebook and Twitter (and likely other places) or just Google it. 

To learn, listening must happen.  Time to listen, now.  Time to learn, now.

Emotional

Emotions are not good or bad.  But emotions can be manipulated.

I've referred to emotional trigger words before, but perhaps it is time to give some examples of what they are and how the words that are used matter.

When I was in high school, English teacher talked about bias and emotional trigger words and how they can be used to shape someone else's thoughts and attitudes towards, well, anything.

One of the examples used was a well known advertising campaign of the day that loudly and proudly announced that "More doctors recommend (insert name of product)!"  The product was a brand of cigarettes and a number of years later it was revealed that the tobacco industry had paid numerous doctors to tout their product.

The teacher however, pointed out that saying 'more doctors' was an emotional tweaking of the attitude of people reading or seeing these ads.  More doctors than who?  What kind of 'doctor'?  Saying 'more' anything without giving the qualifier of who *isn't* recommending the product was essentially meaningless.  More doctors than plumbers?  Who are you going to believe? 

Advertising isn't the only industry that uses such emotional tweaking of course.  Editorial bias can be used in well, editorials.  Fiction.  Non-fiction.  TV shows and movies.  Music.  Sermons.  Any platform at all, including on the internet.

There are groups touting themselves as 'research' groups who constantly and consistently push the right wing agenda under the guise of polls that are heavily skewed.  Of course the left does this as well.  Some groups lost my support when they skewed their message so far out of reality I couldn't support them any more, in spite of some of the good they have done.

One of the groups is PETA.   Their staged situations are quite literally 'fake news'.  The bloody lamb last year was especially irritating.  First of all a lamb is not shorn at newborn age, but only when they turn one year.  And they would never, ever come out of the shearing shed covered in blood or the shearer would be fired instantly and shown to the property boundary post haste.   The fact that the ad used a nubile naked young woman was just plain sexist.

I'm not saying that animals are not abused - of course they are.  And we need to do better.  But the message that PETA was sending was all about triggering emotions and not about anything resembling reality.

The advice given us in class was to pay attention to the emotion being generated when we read or heard a message.  Take note of what that emotion was.  Ask yourself which words were used to trigger that emotion.  Then ask yourself why that word triggered that emotion and if it was an appropriate reaction if you then re-read or edited the comment without the word that triggered the emotion.

Here is an example from an ad I saw recently:

"This bbq cooking surface is made with real copper!"

Real copper?  As opposed to what?  Fake copper?  Why would 'real' copper be identified?  Because anything 'fake' is phony and not to be trusted?  Why not just say "This copper bbq surface provides even cooking and prevents food from falling through the bbq grid."   Focus on the benefits?  But triggering the emotion of 'good' is a subtle form of manipulating what you think so that you are more susceptible to the message. 

I suggest that as we move through the upcoming time of change that people pay attention to the words swirling around them.  Pause and inspect the emotions that those words trigger.  Ask yourself who is working to trigger those emotions and if you really want to be triggered in that way.

Challenges

When I achieved the master weaver certification from the Guild of Canadian Weavers, Doug made me two cups with a copy of the certificate printed on them.  One facing me, one facing away from me.  One was to remind me that I had risen to the challenge and done it.  The other was to remind others.

For the last while I have been coasting in my comfortable rut.  It's a nice rut.  I know how wide it is and how deep.  The bottom is well trodden with few pot holes (yes, some, but usually anticipated.)

It has been quite satisfying, plodding along that well worn path.  From time to time I would branch out, usually because I was 'ghost weaving' for someone else.  Nothing like trying to meet someone else's specs to sharpen ones focus!

It was one of my stated objectives when I 'retired'.  'Retirement' being not weaving for sale as a major focus of my practice.  As such I didn't need to keep my eye on how long something was taking, working only with the most efficient of practices.  I could dip into weave structures that were, by their very nature, slower to weave.  Such as using two shuttles.

So I took on a project that required two shuttles just to see how it would go.  There have been some pot holes.  It has pushed me, in just the way I had said I wanted to be pushed.

It has not been comfortable.  But it has been a growth experience.  On the other hand, I am looking forward to the next warp being another comfortable rut.

We are all going through a challenge right now.  We have arrived at that state of 'interesting times' and many of us are feeling stressed and tired.  We are missing our usual routine (our comfortable rut) and longing to get back to 'normal'.

But 'normal' is a long way aways, and given that 'normal' wasn't all that great for a lot of people, maybe we need to look at new ways.

Finding A Way

Society is in the throes of great upheaval right now.  We are living in 'interesting' times.  Personally I could do without it, but...here we are.

As many of us are still self-isolating (and I will continue to do so for a while) it becomes difficult to know what to do.  Continue as 'usual'?  Well, things aren't as 'usual' right now because of the isolating.

As an individual, my powers to affect change are limited.  But what I *can* do is state, firmly and unequivocally that I am against racism, sexism, etc.

I am for lifting people up, not punching them down.  I am liberal in my political leanings.  I support socialist constructs like education, health care, infrastructure like roads, sewer, water treatment - for all.

Policies that are for the Common Good, that make life better for everyone, not just a few.

I would like to see people of wealth taxed appropriately rather than have the burden of these programs fall on the shoulders of people who are struggling financially.  I would like to see at least a 'living' wage rather than poverty wages such that a business hands new hires the application for food stamps because they KNOW they are not paying their employees enough to survive on, never mind thrive on.  I would like to see people have the health care they need - regardless of the colour of their skin. 

In a democracy, we have the power of our vote.  I would like to urge everyone to make sure they get out and vote, even when you know your vote isn't going to carry much weight.  Vote for people who are not bent on suppressing others by their policies.