Community

 

When my samples were returned from WEFT after being photographed, they included a lapel button.

For a moment I had regrets that I am no longer travelling so that I could go to a conference and wear my 'contributor' button.

I've been contributing to magazines for a rather long time, so it's not like seeing my name in a list of contents is 'new'.  But it's a 'new' magazine, and it seems a bit special to be included.

What the button did for me, however, was remind me that weaving is a community.  And while too many forces in our society are, right now, trying to rip people apart from their communities, to take a stand and say 'this is my community' is much more important than to ignore it.

It is through community that we find support, encouragement, find answers to questions.  In this time, standing up for one's community is - in many ways - a political act.  An act of resistance.

I am, frankly, flattered that the editorial staff seem to like what I'm providing.  There are many times I have been chastised - for my focus on efficiency, my equipment choices, my standards.  It took me a few years to understand that we all get to choose.  And to realize that everyone needs to make the choices that are appropriate for *them*.  

Gradually I got to the point that my focus was to provide the information, document the 'spectrums' that are built into the craft, and help people decide which were appropriate for them.

Ultimately the craft of weaving has far fewer unbreakable rules than it does cases of 'it depends'.  

As I have been weaving the samples for WEFT, I have had time to explore many of those 'it depends' issues.  Over and over again I am reminded of how little I truly 'know' and how much I tend to tweak what I am doing to encourage the quality of cloth I want to be brought into reality.

Sometimes it works.  Sometimes, it doesn't.  

But every warp, every project, increases my knowledge.  And if what I know (or suspect) is helpful to someone else, then the time/yarn/money I have spent exploring that particular rabbit warren has been worth every penny.

Because knowledge is never a waste of time.  And community is necessary to help grow the foundation of knowledge of the craft.

The first issue will begin arriving soon.  

Report From the Fell

 

tea towel with cut line woven in for easy cutting/serging

What goes into the creative act?

Things.  Lots and lots of...things.  Lots and lots of thinking.  

Many times the thoughts are barely conscious, hardly noticeable.  Many times I come away from the loom realizing that I'd been thinking about the 'next' warp the whole time, paying only surface attention to the actual, physical act of weaving.

Writing these articles for WEFT has created a great deal of grey cell crunching.  This warp was meant to be the beginning of the weaving for the next article.  Instead I had to make some changes on the 'fly' as things were not turning out the way I wanted them to do.

Somehow I made a threading error - but it only shows when I use weft of a high contrast to the warp.  I'm not a big fan of throwing yet more time down the drain when a simple 'cheat' will make it possible for others to use these tea towels, most of them never spotting the 'mistake'.  These will get designated 'seconds', not sold.  I have a rather large coterie of health care professionals and I like to give them a thank you in the form of a tea towel now and again.  :)

In order to get a colour that was saturated in the more-or-less correct colour, I decided to use one of the huge cones of 16/2 cotton for the weft.  Having just woven a bunch of samples looking at things like density, I had a pretty clear idea of what would happen when I substituted the open end spun yarn for the ring spun - and I was not disappointed when my speculation turned out correct.

Most of the weaving today was me, turning the idea of the differences between the two yarns, ostensibly 'identical' but knowing they were not, showing me that what I expected was what I was getting.

Now that I've sorted that warp out and it appears to be weaving nicely, it is time to turn back to the writing.  I've been worrying away at the article that is *nearly* finished.  Given my judgement is not great right now, it seems even more important that I have someone help make my way through the language.  Someone needs to make sure that I am saying what I *think* I am saying, rather than depend on my brain which still has sinkholes into which words will sink out of sight.

After a few days of 'spring' we now have snow - again.  Spring break up strikes again.  Oh well.  It was a nice day to stay in and get to the loom.  

WEFT

 

honeycomb - loom state

honeycomb - wet finished

Well, here we are - March 25.  As in, *nearly* April - and the debut of the magazine WEFT.

I've just spent the morning reading through 'proofs' (not sure that they are called that anymore - yes I'm *that* old!) and sending them back approved or corrections noted.

I'm excited to have this opportunity to continue to write about weaving and looking forward to this new addition, see how it grows.

In many ways I don't feel like I have much more to 'offer' than what I've been doing since the 1990s and first got onto the internet using a Free-Net portal (yes, including the electronic 'hand shake'!)

However, just writing the first few articles I've learned stuff.  Sometimes it is a sharpening of my focus, sometimes it's realizing I've gotten used to certain 'assumptions' that are sort-of correct, but not the entire picture.

(Amazing how the picture changes when you add a microscope!)

It is part of what continues to fascinate me about textiles.  How many times can a person take the same quality of yarn and make something 'new' and/or 'different'. 

Perhaps even 'original'?

OTOH, with the centuries that humans have been making textiles, the sophistication of the technology, even long before the age of 'computers', I don't know if some ancestor has done what I've done, previously.  So I give a nod to Elizabeth Zimmerman (knitter) who never claimed to have 'invented' anything knitting related, but would say instead that she had *un*vented something - as in she was pretty sure that someone at some time in history had likely done the exact same thing and she had only 'uncovered' it again.

With the fall last August and the slow recovery (it feels like, experts tell me I'm doing *really* well), I have been struggling with the rather huge change in my physical well being.  But it's been almost 7 months since I woke up - rather surprisingly - in Vancouver General Hospital sporting a rad new scar.  It was a pretty radical change on top of everything else I was dealing with, but eventually I had to stop being angry at what I'd lost, and grateful about what I was still able to do.  Much more slowly, much less energy to burn, but - still here.  Still weaving.

And - still learning.  

Textures

 

It's been quite a few years since I've woven this design and I had (sort of) forgotten the tendency of the cloth to develop quite a lot of 'texture' during wet finishing.

I know people tend to say that 'tracking' only happens in plain weave, but the phenomenon of tracking will happen to other weave structures - it just looks different to what happens in plain weave.

I wet finished this load of towels the other day and finished pressing them yesterday.  When I had taken them out of the dryer, I was immediately reminded about the twill blocks tendency to 'fold up' - when I'm working with small sized 'blocks' of twills that change from warp emphasis to weft emphasis.  Especially when using two completely different yarns, warp and weft.  

This morning I did the finishing press on another twill block design, also a small size of twill blocks, and it also tried to develop some texture, similar - sort of - to waffle weave.

Not all, and not woven in all fibres.  But if you do something similar and you wind up with a very 'crumpled' cloth while still damp from wet finishing, don't panic.  Keep the cloth damp until you can give them a good *hard* press.  The above photo is before hemming and will receive a 'finishing' press once they are.  But even so, if you look close you should be able to see the difference between the blocks.  Plus you might just be able to see the 'faux' plain weave design woven into the cloth.

AI and Me

 

Lately it seems more and more of 'life' on line comes with a helping of 'artificial intelligence' - which has less knowledge and more 'thieving' to it.

Again, I'm seeing a wash of authors speaking up, saying that their books have been stolen by LLM companies to 'train' their 'AI'.  

When someone who is *not* a writer tells me (or another author) that they are going to just use AI to write books and make a mint, it is really difficult to say nothing.  

Even my Google email now offers to help me 'summarize' my emails, or gives me writing prompts.

Excuse me, I can write my own thoughts, thankyouverymuch.

Likewise I'm seeing more 'new' weavers popping up, asking for help.  I remind myself that they just don't know - how wide, deep and thick the craft is - and how many centuries humans have been weaving to generate a many lifetimes' worth of knowledge.

Since I am now 'elderly' and crabby with it, I try to scroll on by, unless the question is specific enough I feel I can give a meaningful answer.

But since I've been doing this thing that I do for most of my life, I also feel like I have already said everything that I could (or should?) say.

I'm asking myself again if I should give up, give over, and ignore the pleas for help.  And then I get an email from a publication saying 'please write'.  

And I remind myself that for all that I've published 4 books, written so many articles I'm not even sure how many there have been, and this blog since Aug. 2008, none of those things have given me the audience I might get by appearing in a large audience magazine.

I have been procrastinating about finishing the article that is *almost* done, and I have begun working on the 'next' article.  And now I have a list of topics the magazine is hoping someone will write about.  Do I pull out my 'usual' culprits?  Or do I go further afield from my 'usual' and maybe talk about something else for a change?

Whatever I decide I should let them know I'm interested...

Today's job task:  press 21 towels; begin threading new warp; create chart of samples for nearly-done article and proof read.  And yet, once again I'm dragging my feet getting to the studio...

Brain Cramp

 

This is what I spent several hours the past couple of days doing - mucking about with twill 'lines'.

Then this morning I woke up (I use the term loosely because I hardly slept all night) I panicked and thought I had designed it for 36 epi and I wanted to only use 32.  Because reasons.

The density at which a weaver sets the warp has to take into consideration a number of variables.  There is a reason that density is generally given as a 'range' (e.g. twill 30-36 epi for 2/16 cotton).  While I sat and drank my coffee I decided I had better double check what I designed this warp for - 2/16 cotton at 32 epi.  This is a pretty 'standard' density for 2/16 cotton and I will go up higher depending on the weave structure.

This past year (nearly) I've been using 2/16 cotton and the fine singles linen from Lithuania.  The linen is quite a bit thinner than the 2/16 cotton and will be woven in some kind of 'fancy' twill.  However, the next warp is also meant to be tea towels. It seemed to me that 32 epi  for 2/16 cotton warp/weft with a 2:2 twill was reasonable, so that's what I'm going with.

I cut the other warp off yesterday, but was pretty achy after chiropractor.  I worked on some 'prep' work and in between the 'up/down' periods of insomnia overnight, I went down to the studio and inspected/repaired the cotton/linen towels.  They can now be tossed into the washer/dryer.  The spool rack is all kitted out with the tubes I'll be using to beam the warp.  I might begin beaming when I get home from a therapy session.  Although by then I might actually be tired enough that I will be able to sleep.  

As for the pain meds, I continue to ride the Mad Mouse.  I have no idea what my body is doing right now, but letting me sleep is not one of the things it is willing to do on a regular basis.  

However, I've just reviewed the draft.  There is an 'issue' at the selvedge because it divides unevenly to frame the body of the towel.  However, it will be very difficult to tell at any kind of distance that the selvedges are not identical.  I *could* force it, but it leads to some awkwardness in the threading and honestly?  I donwanna.  I just want something fairly simple but effective at illustrating the topic for the article.

I used to sweat bullets trying to get my warps 'exactly' 'perfect'.  Over the years I began to realize that something I was sweating bullets over were just not that big a deal.  

And why the weaver really has to wait until after wet finishing before making up their minds!  Even though I am used to the transformation - even with fibres that don't full - the last set of samples for the article I'm finishing writing proved once again that you really can't judge your results while the web is still in the loom.   

Seems like the lesson I need to keep learning.  

I see newer weavers worried because they don't have reeds to fit the density they wish to weave.  They want to know what size reeds they should have.  Personally, for most of my weaving, I have used 8, 9, 10, 12, and 15.  I use a 'compound' sleying if I don't have one that exactly divides into the number I need.  You can use more than one end per dent and can even cram more into each dent if you want/need a higher density.  Most of the time the reed marks will come out, but not always when weaving with linen (the special fibre that needs special handling!)  If I have used a 'standard' division of the threads, each with 4 for example, if the reed marks don't come out in the wet finishing, they will be consistent.  

And we all know that if we can't be perfect that we work to be consistent.  

As for what kind of reed?  If you live in a humid climate, stainless steel is 'best' to avoid rust starting.  My reeds are around 40+ years old, most of them.  Over the years I've accumulated other sizes, which I find useful in rough sleying when I beam a warp wound on a warping board.  They are expensive, but they should last a weaver for their entire lifetime if cared for properly.  

Yes, you can weave without a studio full of equipment.  Figure out what appeals to you, why you want to weave.  Then focus on that type of weaving and buying looms/equipment that best suits that type of cloth.  Weaving is full of things that behave a certain way, until something changes and then oopsie.  It is part of why I keep weaving, keep digging, keep weaving samples and experimenting.  This month is 50 years since I made the decision to quit working for someone else and become my own 'boss'.  I have gone through changes, some minor, some massive.  Some I've initiated myself, others have delivered an offer I couldn't refuse.

But always, I am always learning.  And that is why I keep weaving.

Faux Spring?

 

This photo is from a few years ago and shows rather more ground than it does currently - but much later in the season.

Is what we have 'faux' spring?  Dunno.  The forecaster is saying much higher temps are coming, so this could be it - the last 'gasp' of winter?  And how the yard will look in a few days?  Time will tell.

I've been struggling with managing the new pain meds.  The new medication is behaving differently and while things change, I have no idea if it is going to be a good medication for me.  That is yet to be determined.

What is happening is that I've not been sleeping well, and I drag myself through the day knowing that I'm running on short rations for sleep.  And the less sleep I get, the more my brain hiccoughs and swallows whole words, or spits out doubles.  

However, I have managed to make some progress on the article, and will be sending to my alpha reader in a few days (she says, hopefully).  

In the meantime, I've plugged away on the loom and just this afternoon cut the warp off and started cutting/serging the towels.  Tomorrow I will inspect/repair and get them into the washing machine.  I have appointments every day (mostly) this week, so I don't know if I will feel up to actually beaming the next warp soon.  OTOH, I could work on the wet finishing and finish off the article?  Start the next?

I have a short list of warps I want to do and since I'm this close to done the last article, I'm going to work on the next article sample/project.  This afternoon I finished tweaking the draft I've been working on for the last couple of days.  I will likely design several drafts, but only weave one of them.  Readers will need to understand how to 'read' their cloth and the best way to do that is walk people through designing a draft of their own.  

My story, sticking to it.

One of the things that teaching weaving has taught me is that different people process information in different ways.  The more information I can provide so that people can process the way that makes most sense to them, the better they will learn.  If they want to.

But someone has to continue to explore the craft and understand how it works.  Not everyone is comfortable designing their own patterns, and there has to be enough people left who *do* understand how to do that so that people get good information.

And the more people who understand the craft, the more people there will be to keep the craft alive.