Two Things

 

Weaving is labour intensive.

Parts of the process can be frustrating to learn.

Some people give up because they hate warping.

And I get it.

But here's the thing.  Creating textiles by weaving *is time consuming*.  It takes as much time as it takes (given the weaver's skill level).

I chose to become a weaver as my profession.  Since I had a very strong desire to do that, I studied the processes.  I began with what my teacher taught me (mostly good advice), but then I modified it where I saw places that I could do the task more efficiently.  I took the time to go slower, examining what I was doing - one step at a time - until I had carved the steps involved down to the most efficient I could manage given my physical aptitudes and what my budget would allow.

Because sometimes?  Better equipment is what you need to proceed - more efficiently.

Do I hate warping?  No.  In fact, now that I am physically compromised (back issues) it is only *because* I am as efficient as I am that I can continue to weave.

I have had to make changes, but mostly in how long I can do any one thing at a time.  So instead of weaving for 4 hours (with breaks) a day, I am now just managing 30 minutes.

Thirty minutes isn't very much time, but I can get about 15-18 inches woven in that time depending on what I'm making.  (Currently silk warp with silk weft at 32 epi.)  I'm weaving about 80" per scarf, so instead of weaving a scarf a day, I am just barely managing 1/5th of a scarf.

It's frustrating as hell, but it's better than not weaving at all.

So, weaving *is* time consuming.  But you *can* learn how to do it more efficiently so that it is *less* time consuming.  

And that's also a good Life Lesson.  There are all sorts of times in life when you need to hold two different aspects of something as both being 'true'.

Over and over again I take lessons learned during weaving and gradually see how they apply to life generally.  And learning how to accept that two opposing things can be true - depending on circumstances - has been a big one.

Don't like winding warps?  There are businesses that can do that for you.  Or, you can hire a kid to do it.  Maybe.  But you would have to accept how they do the job - or teach the kid to do it your way.

Or, just a thought - you could learn a different process.  Or choose a different yarn.  One that is stronger, perhaps, than what you have been using.

Or, you could buy a more expensive yarn, better spun for purpose, for your warps.  The warp is such a significant part of weaving - from winding the warp to beaming it, threading, sleying, tieing on, why work with a 'cheap' (or poor quality) yarn?  Given how many hours you may need to spend doing all of that part of the job?

Humans tend to simplify things when in reality Life is Complicated.  I tell my students that weaving is not hard, but it's complex.  And it's labour intensive.  

People tell me that I must be a patient person.  No.  I am many things, but patient is not one of my qualities.  So I worked hard at becoming efficient so that I take less time to do the jobs required to get a warp into the loom.  

And then I slide into a state of a working meditation while I throw the shuttle and only come out of that state if something goes wrong - like a thread breaking.  Or the loom misbehaving.

The more we practice accepting that at times two opposing things can be 'true' depending on circumstances, the sooner we will make peace with how weaving - and living - works.

Calm

 

Morning comes

I wonder

What next bad thing will happen

Will things get worse?

Can they get worse?

Yes 

Yes, they can

I squeeze my eyes shut to 

Blank out the sights

Listen 

Can I hear the fabric of our

Reality ripping apart?

Yes?

Maybe?

No?

If no, I open my eyes

Try to figure how to keep fighting

Try to find the end of the thread

Untangle the skein

Bring order to chaos

Today, here

There is blue sky

Quiet

Calm

The kind of calm that 

Comes before the storm?

Managing Energy

 

If it was 'easy', everyone would be doing it...

Yesterday I got the appointment for the next injection into my lumbar back.  The best they could fit me in was in about 2 weeks.

I'm an 'old hand' at managing my symptoms and energy, but I am, quite frankly, running on empty after months (years) of chronic pain.

That said, I can pretty confidently say that the alternate B12 supplement is actually proving to be helpful - for the peripheral neuropathy.

The problem is that I have another equally awful issue that results in nearly identical symptoms - nerve pain in my right foot.  I fell a number of years ago and made a one point landing on the right SI joint.  It appears that the impact of hitting the ground damaged the SI joint.  In addition to that, I have a problem with the spinal column being pinched because there are a couple of discs that have deteriorated.  Same symptoms.

Which I suppose has been one of the big problems getting my body the help it needs - 3 conditions, sharing the 'same' symptom.  All leading to chronic nerve pain.

Just as I was beginning to feel 'better' due to the reduction in peripheral neuropathy, the steroid injections in my back started to wear off.  It took a couple weeks to realize what was happening, and then to phone the clinic to request another appointment for the injections.  Thankfully I only have to wait a little under two weeks.

But today when I tried to weave I realized that maybe, just maybe, weaving is not the best thing to be doing.  My usual pain mitigations are not working very well.  

OTOH, I finally am feeling somewhat better, and I've been making slow progress on the current warp and I really, really want to finish this warp off - because it has some issues.  Issues because I tried to use up some old yarn and wound up with lots of knots in the warp.  Which means I have to keep stopping and fix another knot.  It's not much fun and I'd like to finish the warp and move on to the next, hopefully with more enjoyment and less irritation.

After thinking I had a tonne of yarn, it's not going quite as far as I was expecting, mainly because I hadn't done the math.  But what *that* means is that I actually have a hope of using up some of this very nice (and expensive) yarn in my lifetime.  I doubt I'll actually use the really fine stuff, I'm having way too much trouble seeing the fine stuff nowadays.

But it looks like I can make a few silk warps and have a small range of silk scarves for the sales in the fall.  And empty a couple more bins, clear some shelf space.

And hope that the jabs work well so I can have a couple of months of pain I can manage and still weave.

In the meantime, the pain roller coaster continues, but with shallower ups and downs.  And I'll take that, with gratitude (while being impatient about having to wait for the next injections - what can I say?  I'm still working on that 'patience' thing...)

This Book

 

I 'discovered' Joanna Johnson because she does short videos and they appear on the 'reels' on Facebook.  I watched one, and began to watch others.  Recently I found out that she has written a book and out of curiosity I ordered a copy.  It arrived this week and I thumbed through it.

It's a 'slim' volume, but the Preface grabbed me right away with this comment:

Just like a tapestry woven with threads of different colours and textures, each of us carries within us a rich and intricate collection of stories, experiences, and perspectives that shape the very essence of our being.

How could I not continue?

Joanna Johnson is, first and foremost, an educator.  She is not 'standard issue'.  And while I had many, many good teachers in my school days, I wish I had had someone like Joanna.

I'm not going to talk about the book too much except to say that is a very personal journey and she shares some of the people, times, and things that is Tapestry Joanna.

I think there are many lessons in this book that others could benefit from, not just children, but even some adults that who are dealing with their own tapestries, some of which may be worn or damaged by life.  Like me.

Lives are not all that different than a textile, be they tapestry or tea towel.  We experience life through the experiences that we have, the trauma we have dealt with, and we get worn (down) and at times we need to make some repairs.

I don't have any young people in my life, but I know plenty of my readers probably do.  It might be good to take a gander at this book.  Maybe you have some young folk you can share this book with.  

At the ripe old age of 75 I am once again examining the tapestry of my life and attempting to make repairs.  It's never too late.  But maybe 'better' if it is done sooner?  Dunno.  This is my tapestry and this is where I am.  If nothing else, I am learning it is never too late.

Snowflake

 

I made it to the halfway point of the 2nd scarf today.  The photo doesn't really do the colour justice.  The grey is shiny, more like metal.  Silver.  Or steel.

The opposite side of the cloth is a 'negative' of this side - where the cloth is white, it's grey and vice versa.  

Part of the reason I wanted to examine my life more closely was because I was dealing with several chronic health issues.  For the chronic pain I was assured that people with chronic pain will tend to have less pain if they have therapy and examine their lives more closely.

I've never been one to shy away from taking a deep dive, but I was pretty much doing it on my own.  At the ripe old age of 75+, I decided it was time for me to get an outside perspective.  Again.  Because I couldn't trust my own, anymore.

The therapist I'm seeing is kind and gentle, and carefully checks in with me to make sure that what we are discussing is - balanced - I could say.  I particularly wanted to look at my birth trauma, long buried, never truly examined for the harm that I had stuffed down and out of sight.

So she is careful to make sure that I'm okay.

As we talked today I mentioned that weaving is full of life lessons, and that life can be examined through the lens of weaving.  I suggested that cloth is not just the warp, or just the weft - that only once the warp and weft are interlaced together that you get cloth.  And that I felt that the concepts we had been discussing - integrating the various 'parts' of ourselves - could be thought of in the same way.  That only when the various 'parts' of a human are woven together - integrated - can we be 'whole'.

We talked about that for a while, and I have been given homework again.  

As I was weaving this afternoon, looking at this snowflake in the colour of metal, I began to think of how the alt right throws the accusation of 'snowflake' at the more left leaning among us.  But snow is not just 'fragile'.  When it comes in blizzards, or avalanches, it is a force to be reckoned with.

I wonder if there is a punk rock band called the Steel Snowflake.  I'd listen to them...

Good Idea

 

old photo of some of my silk stash

Sometimes I get a 'good idea', mull it over, don't see any down sides and then proceed with it.

And it doesn't turn out the way I would like.

When I have minimal numbers of spoons for each day, I have little in the way of energy or desire to fight with a warp.

So it has been with the current warp.

I had a couple bins of left over spools that I'd used to make silk scarves.  I also inherited a huge amount of silk yarn, most of it single skeins of various colours.

What to do?  What to do?

So I went ahead and beamed a white warp to use up the spools because I was going to need them to wind all the dyed skeins onto the spools.  

But.

But none of the spools had enough yarn on them to wind a warp.  So I had to keep stopping and tie another spool onto the end of one of the threads that had run out.  In the end, I didn't even have enough yarn to wind a 12" wide warp, but gave up when I reached 10".

The warp is a mixture of 2/20 and 2/30.  Not a deal breaker, but still, not ideal.  The deal breaker is the fact that so many spools ran out and needed to be replaced that that narrow warp has a tonne of knots in it.  I tried to replace the ends before they ran out but didn't quite manage it.  So not only is the warp too narrow (as in narrower than planned) it has multiple knots in it.

And then the weft.

I had planned on using my cashmere skeins.  

But again, unforeseen problems.  Some of the skeins had matted and were 'felted' so that they didn't want to come apart.  Instead the yarn kept breaking.  One bag had critter carcasses, and I figured some sort of bug had gotten into that bag and the yarn was likely also compromised.  As I tried to wind off one skein, it kept breaking as well.

At the end of a tiring day, I had enough.  All of the cashmere skeins went into the recycle bin.

With exactly one scarf woven out of a planned 6.

I looked at the silk bin again and realized I had two skeins of a medium value grey which would look nice on the white warp and began winding bobbins.  

With just one skein of most of the 2/30 and 2/20 silk, there isn't really enough yarn to use it as warp and have enough for weft (I don't think).  So I thought about what else I could use.  

In addition to the cashmere (now history) I have some very fine wool, about the same thickness as the finer weight cashmere which I used doubled in a two bobbin shuttle.  So I'm going to go ahead with my plans for silk warps, but I'll use the worsted wool, also doubled.

While I'm winding the silk skeins onto spools, I'll continue picking away at the white warp.  I'm not sure I'll bother weaving until it is 'done' or give up on it when I've used up the two skeins of the grey.  I could use black, but I'm not in the mood for a high contrast black on white.  

I'm trying really hard to use up as much of my yarn stash as I can.  What will I do when I run out?

I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

Seriously.  I have enough stuff going on in my life that I cannot see more than a few months into the future.

However, I did finish the rough draft of the next article for WEFT.  My alpha reader has the file and will pick nits.  And then I'll do the edits and bundle the whole thing up and email it all to the editor.

Once that is gone, I will then begin giving more serious consideration to my future.  

This morning I talk to the pain doc (hopefully) and will try to figure out a way forward.  I am seeing positive gains on one front, although as usual the path to recovery is not short and not smooth.  I'm hoping to get a better perspective on what is going on in my body.  So far I can still weave, although I've cut back to 30 minutes a day.  I'm hoping I can increase that if I can get another injection in my lower back.  But I think my back is less stable than it was and I don't know what that means for me in terms of continuing to weave.

The past couple of weeks have been spent reflecting on what is going on, personally, nationally and internationally.  All of it is very concerning.  I'm hoping to feel up to reading because I didn't feel capable of tackling Humans; the 300,000 year struggle for equality.  It is a lot more 'chewy' than I had the spoons for.  Perhaps after I talk to the doc I'll have more focus.  It's hard to focus when you are flailing.  And fighting with a warp.

But I will keep mulling over things.  And who knows, maybe I will have a 'lightbulb' moment and finally figure out what I need to be doing.

Driver's Manual

 

I get it.  People are interested in weaving.  So they buy a loom and then...ask for a 'manual' for the type of loom they bought - usually second (or more) hand loom.  Sometimes they know so little they don't even know if the loom is complete.

Or they wonder which brand it is - because the 'manual' didn't come with it.

It's like buying a car then expecting the Owner's Manual to teach you how to drive.

There is a vast distance between owning a piece of kit and knowing how to use it.

What I wish is that every person interested in weaving would buy a 'how to weave' book *first* and then get a loom.  

I mean there are lots of books that will teach a person how to weave.  I know several people who learned how to weave with a copy of Mary Black or Margaret Atwater or Deborah Chandler in one hand while sitting at the loom/warping board, etc.

It can be done.  But don't expect the loom's owners manual to teach you how to weave, is all I'm saying.

(That said, if you go to the Leclerc website you *can* download the small book that Robert Leclerc wrote that will teach you how to weave, illustrated with Leclerc products.)

There are so many 'how to weave' books available that everyone should be able to find one that suits their learning style.  

Of course, in person is 'best'.  To demonstrate a process/technique is much quicker than to try to read through a lot of weaver language that you probably don't understand - yet.

So if you are really truly wanting to learn, I advise you to buy a book and read through it.  Absorb the language.  It's 'sleying' not 'slaying' (I know auto correct will tell you it's wrong, but it isn't), and while I'm on it, it's dyeing, not dying.  No one wants you to die for the craft, but will encourage you to dye for it.

I wrote my book as a way to help people weave 'better'*.  I cover things like ergonomics, fibre characteristics, how to read a draft, how different weave structures work.  I talk about the relationship of the various factors in designing a cloth interact.  It's not a 'how to weave' book as such, but how *I* weave.  And if you want to weave like me, I tell you how I do it.  But ultimately, you have to decide what works for you, given your equipment, physical attributes, what quality of cloth you want to make, using the yarns you want to make them with.

Because change one thing, and everything can change.

Keep in mind that as a new weaver you are first and foremost making a weaver.  Once you have gained enough experience to understand the dynamics of the craft, then you can work on 'perfect' textiles.  And no, there will likely never come a time when you stop making mistakes.  But if you have been paying attention you will  have also learned how to fix them.  And learned also to accept 'good' if you didn't quite manage 'perfect'.  Not that I don't *want* my textiles to be perfect!  Far from it.  But I also know when a mistake will affect the textile adversely in performing its function, and when I can be human and perfectly imperfect, at times.

If you can't manage an in person class, I have classes on line at School of Sweet Georgia and Long Thread Media (Handwoven)

*Please note - I am Canadian and I write in Canadian English.  All those spelling 'mistakes' you see are not typos.  That is true for all of my books, my articles in WEFT - because they use the form of English that the author of the article uses, and do not convert them to US English default.