New Week, New Plans

 

yarn order - still not used up, but getting there...

One of the things I've been needing to do is start thinking about - and planning - using yarns that I don't have in my store room.  Now that I appear to be (mostly) weaving to illustrate articles I'm planning on writing, I need to consult with the editor of the publication and work within *their* vision for their publication.

This is a lot more of a challenge than I had been expecting, but I find I am anticipating doing the research into the topic and looking forward to continuing my journey into understanding what happens to threads when you turn them into cloth.

It is, in fact, just exactly what I told my friends that wanted to do when I 'retired'.  Sometimes you just need to articulate what you want, then wait while the wheels turn and the opportunity appears?

In the meantime I have not been asleep at the wheel.  I wrote two more books, (here) (and here) some 'articles' for The Handweaving Academy and School of Sweet Georgia.  And I nibbled away at my yarn stash, such that I actually have some 'bare' spots on the shelves.  Still way too much, though!

I have essentially finished weaving the examples for the next article - just need to hem them - and I've begun planning for the next article.  Unfortunately Canada Post is still in labour negotiations and shipping stuff is...challenging...as I search for yarn for the warps (yes, there will be more than one!) 

Both warps will be woven with some yarns I have used previously, so it won't be entirely 'new' but I will be exploring the possibilities of using them differently from what I have usually done.

Over the weekend I dug around and sourced the yarn - now I need to write up a proposal and send it to the editor and see if I have captured the aspect they want written up correctly - and if they approve of my approach.

I think that I could find quite a lot of satisfaction with this 'new' approach to weaving.  But time will tell if I can contribute to their vision in a way that supports it.

In the meantime, I keep trying new pain meds.  This new one comes with the adverse effect of increased fatigue (oh joy) but I'm hoping that as I get 'used' to it that will decrease - or I'll just get used to slogging through the day feeling like I have a 70 pound backpack on my back.  

I am essentially back to weaving two 45 minute sessions a day, and that pleases me.  It was one more step towards 'normal'.

And I must make sure I take every victory I can find.  

Winter motif

 

'failure #2'

This is the second 'failed' attempt to weave this design.  And, it's why I weave 'samples', sometimes full-sized!

There are a few 'technical' issues with this project, and I was very grateful I wove it before I started the 'actual' items.

Number one issue is the combination of a 'fancy' twill with a centre field.  The fancy twill is an 'advancing' twill, and when you try to weave a 'standard' plain weave, the result is basket weave in areas where the advancing twill is threaded.  

I actually preferred this because it would take up more than plain weave (although less than the twill).

It also tracked in the centre field, but I don't worry too much about that considering that it tracked consistently across the area.

But then the different areas also tend to beat in differently.  This sample is #2 because I changed from 32 epi to 30 epi, hoping that would allow the centre field to beat in more closely.  But it also meant the borders would beat in more, too.

So I played with the beat, trying to figure out if I had to change the beat to 'firmer' for the centre field area.

Then when I was weaving it, something 'off' kept catching in the corner of my eye.  I couldn't 'see' it when I looked straight at it, but it kept nagging at me.  So I cut off, intending to wet finish it in hopes of seeing it 'better'.  But I could see it fine *on the wrong side of the cloth*.

Back to the desktop to open the files and try to figure out what I'd done, and sure enough I had not done the tie up correctly.

But doing this exercise gave me a lot of information - some of it anticipated, some of it a 'surprise'!

There is nothing very much 'wrong' with it, except that once I saw the 'errors' I had to stop and fix or adjust what I was doing.  

This type of 'error' makes the textile a 'second' in my mind, but I will likely use it as a 'gift'.  I have several local friends that have no compunction to take my 'seconds' off my hands.  :)

I'll be honest.  There are times that I don't fix minor errors.  Some of them are only 'visible' to me.  So, no, I don't fix every 'flaw'.  Our ancestors probably didn't have a lot of time to fix minor errors that would not affect the function of the textile.  

But in some instances, like this project I'm working on now, I *must* come as close to perfect as I can humanly come.  

And, now that I'm  no longer relying on weaving to produce much of an income, I have the time to make the effort to be as finicky as it takes to nudge the needle closer to 'Nearly Perfect'.  

I have now produced two examples that I consider 'close enough' to Perfect that I will finish the rest of the warp in tea towels.  Which will likely be available in my ko-fi shop in the new year (hopefully by then the Canada Post labour negotiations will be resolved...)

Creative Energy

 

This 'meme' crossed my Facebook feed this  morning.  It is labelled as 'Old Proverb' without saying which culture, although with the incredible tile work, I'm assuming Islamic.

But it reminded me that working with some thread crosses every culture, in some format.  And it reminds me that creative energy is a positive one (by and large).

In this time, so many people are channeling their creative energies to spread mis/dis-information, that it is hard to tell, sometimes, what is actually positive or negative.

When I wrote Stories from the Matrix I felt the touch of the 'divine'.  I would sit down with my 2nd cup of coffee and place my hands on the keyboard, usually not having any idea what I was going to write about (mostly) and the words would just...come.

Granted I was in a space of reflection, so I was open to letting my sub-conscious have full rein.  I would type for about an hour, and as the thoughts flowed to my conscious brain, I would sometimes have a revelation - a flash of understanding - about something that had been simmering on the back burner of my brain.

Now that I'm recovering from an actual brain injury, I have been spending a lot of time too exhausted to think.  Having the articles to do for the magazine has helped enormously, because I get intrigued with the topic and I can find some energy to get to the studio.  What I find 'different' is that my level of energy is very shallow, and I feel tired all the damn time (even more than I did prior to the fall.)

So most days I take an afternoon nap.

Society seems to be going through some shaking up.  It's hard to see it happen, but I have to remember that people doing creative, *positive* things will help.  I may only help one or two people, but that is better than not helping anyone else.  

By getting to the studio every day (that I can) I feel 'better' about myself.  I can gauge how much my recovery is progressing.  I feel productive.  And I love learning new stuff.  This slower 'pace' of weaving is becoming more 'comfortable'.  I no longer do shows (in person) so I'm not selling nearly as much as I used to.  So I don't really need to 'produce' like I used to do.  

But I do like giving people gifts, especially my health care team.  After all, they keep me going and enable me to get to the loom.  And whatever sales I do make helps pay for the bills.  And the yarn.  Because now that I'm weaving to illustrate my writing, I need to buy project specific yarns.  :)  

I'm weaving more samples for the current article because I'm not certain I have it 'right' yet.  I realized last night that I could - if I need to - weave the entire warp up as 'samples'.  And more gifts to present to people who have helped me, especially the past nearly 4 months.  It's hard to believe that I fell less than 4 months ago - and how much my life shattered when I came crashing down to the ground.

As long I can get to the loom, I can get into my happy place, and - perhaps - gently touch the divine.

Hubris

 

It's no secret that I am not perfect and prone to making mistakes.  Such was the case with the current warp.

Yesterday I finished setting up the loom and wanting to know if it was going to work the way I wanted it to, I decided to go ahead and quickly weave a 'sample' (full sized) to make sure all was well.

I got about half way through the 'sample' when something kept catching my eye.  Not full on, but in my peripheral range - or in my side vision.  When I would turn and view the area full face, nothing looked obviously wrong - but the niggling thought that something *was* haunted me.  In the end, because I couldn't spot the actual area of 'wrongness' I decided to finish weaving the full sized sample and see if the wet finishing would reveal the problem.

After weaving the sample I cut it off and took it up to the desktop where I could see the draft better, and yet...I still couldn't see it.  So it was decided I would inspect and repair the last warp and the new sample and see what the water would reveal.

When I got mobile this morning, I went down and started inspecting, beginning with the new sample and oh, hello, what have we here???  I isolated the 'wrongness' and went back to the desktop and fairly quickly isolated the issue in the cloth.  I tried to view the problem on the monitor but I still wasn't spotting it so I printed it out in a large format to make it easier to see.

What I had done was thread two blocks of an 8 shaft fancy twill, then for the centre I had split the tie up to weave the design along the selvedges, and a 'plain' centre field.  (Not exactly 'plain' more like an area of basket weave and plain because of the advancing twill threading.)

I still couldn't see it so what I did was to use the printed out tie up and divide the tie up into quadrants.  Since 3 out of 4 quadrants were the fancy twill, and the 4th was plain weave tie up, I could begin to 'see' each quadrant more effectively.  Starting with the plain tie up (because I had made a mistake in that area in the first place, corrected before I began weaving) I carefully checked to make sure the plain weave was correct.  Since the 'mistake' was in the area where the centre field was being woven, the mistake had to be in the quadrant containing that portion of the tie up.

Voila!  I had not completed that part of the tie up and there were not 1 but 2 treadles that were not correct.

This sample has been valuable in another way.  I had thought that, due to the extra tie downs in the centre field I would have to beat slightly harder in that area, but in the end when I cut it off the loom and measured it, the centre field is beaten too tightly.

Right now I'm putting the towels I had ready for wet finishing through the washer/dryer and will press tomorrow.  For now, it's lunch time and then I will go back, tie on again, and weave another sample.  Hopefully a 'correct' one.

We'll see how that goes...

Pause Day

 

Today turned into a 'pause' day.  

I had been 'pushing' myself harder last week, trying to build up muscle, but I finally figured out I was having an adverse reaction to the 'new' pain meds I was taking.  Just trying to get the loom dressed over the weekend was...not much fun.

But I talked the pharmacist, then my family doctor and last night I got a new pain medication.  The pharmacist advised that I wean off the old medication, but that I could start the new one now if I felt comfortable with that.  Not having *any* pain medication was not an appealing path forward so I reduced the old to one capsule and took one of the new.  I can't say that last night was very successful, but I expect it will take about 5 days to clear my system of the old and then another couple of weeks to tell if the introductory dose of the new will be sufficient, while I wait for the muscle and joint pain to fade (as the old med clears my body.)

Pain is the angry toddler of health issues, I think.  If 'too much' is a trigger, it's hard to know when you have tipped over into trigger territory, usually until it is too late.  Yesterday I had several potential triggers - we got our Covid vaccines, then I walked way too much around Costco picking up a few things we wanted to stock up on.  Then I went to the pharmacy to pick up the new meds and wound up standing longer than I should have after trekking through Costco.  When I got home I wanted to finish getting the loom set up before I took a nap.

In the end I didn't do everything I wanted, but the loom is threaded and sleyed, ready to be tied up.

However, a friend emailed the other day and asked if we could have a (zoom) visit, and we will do that this afternoon.  In the meantime I have a bin of towels hemmed, ready for pressing so I think I'm going to go do that now and then I can clear the worktable off and do the zoom there.

Plus I ran out of my oat bars so I was going to get them done this morning, but a night filled with too little sleep means I slept in (finally!) and the morning has evaporated.  It isn't as though I don't have other things I can eat, but the bars are non-allergen and I can grab one for a quick snack if I am feeling peckish.  Maybe after the Zoom...

However, the treadlings for the new warp are generated, all I need to do is load them into the laptop, tie up, wind bobbins, then weave my samples.  I'm thinking I'll put off wet finishing the towels I just took off the loom and do the samples with that load so I can see what I've got.  And then I can begin writing the article.

Looks I have a full calendar - or, at least, as full as I can anticipate while I hope like hell I can find pain meds that don't make things worse while I try to get better...

Transitions

 

set up for sectional beaming

The above is an old photo because I didn't take a photo of the current warp.  So imagine the loom looking ready to go with a beige warp instead of this blue/grey one.

I cut the previous warp off earlier than expected due to a brain fart during beaming.  I thought I made a counting  mistake, then doubted myself and didn't add the 'extra' 10 turns to the section.  I was actually sad because I was really enjoying weaving those tea towels.  Ah, well.  Onwards...

Next up is the 'real' warp to weave the rest of the samples for the next article.  I've fine tuned the draft somewhat because I changed the epi to 30 instead of 32.  In the end I decided to use the 15 dent reed.  It's difficult for me to focus my eyes properly (still not fully recovered so seeing very fine things, or distant things isn't quite 100%).

As usual, I'm having to give myself extra time to do things, so it's all going a lot slower than I would like.

Recovery seems to be a journey of:  nothing, nothing, hardly anything, sudden (small) improvement, nothing, nothing, nothing much.  Rinse and repeat.

When this week began I had no need to leave the house.  Today we are both heading out because we got an appointment to get our Covid vaccines.  Plus I need to pick up new meds.

I'm such a special snowflake that I react more to some medications, sometimes in 'surprising' (if you aren't me) ways.  So I had a consult with the pharmacist and she has come up with 3 new drugs I can try.

My family doctor agreed to write me a script for the #1 choice on her list of possibilities.  It's so damned frustrating to take a drug to help, only to make things even worse.  The only ray of sunshine about all of this is that I found out that my list of options is bigger than I expected, and everyone on my health care team seems determined to have me not go back onto the Dilaudid.  I hated the brain fog I got from that, plus it's a type of opioid, with all that *that* entails.

But back to the studio, things are going slowly, but I should be able to start weaving tomorrow.  It will depend on how hard the Covid vaccine hits my system *while I begin transitioning to a 'new' drug* for pain.

I knew that old age might not be 'easy'.  I never expected it to be this hard.  However, I *can* still weave (mostly) and it looks like I am going to be writing a few more articles for WEFT magazine.  As soon as I weave the samples I need on this warp, it will be time to start marshalling my words (if I can find them) and documenting the information.  Then, I will begin working on the next one.  I need to source some yarns and with the current postal services on 'pause', I might need to pay 'extra' to get them delivered by a courier.  I sure hope they come to an agreement soon.  Canada Post is an essential service, especially if you don't live in a large town.  

Anyway, it is Dec. 4, it is raining (quite hard!) and I have a warp to finish setting up.  I'm not thrilled about needing to go out, but grateful that I can get my Covid vax and the new pain meds.  And hope for a 'better' result.

Staying Flexible

 

I cut the last warp off over the weekend and starting prepping the next one.  I have about 1/4 of the warp threaded, and hope to finish that today and to commence weaving tomorrow.

As I worked with the Swedish Snowflake design some things bothered me about the draft.  Since I had to 'shorten' the threading draft in order to accommodate the lower epi, I decided to edit out the areas of satin weave threading/tie up.  In the end I'm more pleased with this slimmed down threading draft and I will be working with this draft as I sort out the treadling sequences I will be 'testing'.

I used to have a neighbour who was Swedish, then moved to Canada to marry her Canadian sweetheart.  She had a tough time adapting to a different culture - at times - and one day I showed her a design I was playing with - Swedish Snowflake.  She nearly jumped out of her chair saying that the design was the version of snowflake twill that represented her 'province'.  

It was then I learned that there is a whole 'collection' of snowflake twills and I explored designing with them for a while

At any rate, she asked me if I could make her some tablecloths.  Her table was from Sweden, wider than most tables made at the time here, and she had 3 leaves she could use to make the table longer.  She asked from time to time if I would make her a 'set' of tablecloths for her table and I refused because at the time I only had a manual dobby and I couldn't face pegging a double width version.  My 60" wide weaving width AVL could not make a table cloth as wide as she needed without doing it double width.

As the years went by, AVL offered a computer assisted dobby.  I waited a year for them to (hopefully) work the bugs out, then bought one.  I was also taking a bit of a  hiatus from production weaving, so I told my friend that if she bought the yarns, I would make her tablecloths.  The thing was, she would have to wind off some yarn onto spools because I would need 72 yarn packages and I didn't want to purchase 72 tubes of 2/16 cotton.

She agreed, I ordered the yarn and brought her my small electric bobbin/spool winder so she could wind the yarn onto the spools.  

Beaming the warp was a bit...interesting...given my spool rack only held 60 spools and I had to jury-rig for the additional 12 spools, but eventually I got the warp beamed, threaded, and the treadlings designed.

She wanted the table cloths to have a 'border' all around the edge, not to just have the pattern 'fall off' the end, so I had two treadlings - one for the border, and one for the main body of the table cloth.  I had taken copious measurements of the table with each leaf installed to show the 4 sizes she wanted.  And then I had added about 10 yards in case of 'oopsies'.

This warp was probably the most 'technical' I've done, insofar as I needed to make them 'perfect'.  Her Swedish sensibilities would not tolerate the dimensions being 'off'!

It was also the slowest weaving I've ever done.  Instead of 9 yards a day, I could manage 9".  Every single shed had to be checked that it was 'clear' before throwing the shuttle.  I did NOT want the two layers 'stitched' together!

It was a challenge!  And one I won't repeat.

However, I managed to weave the four tablecloths, and handed them over 'loom state' (in part because in Sweden, when you bought linen cloth it was never wet finished for you to prove that you were buying 'new' and she had lots of experience with wet finishing and cleaning linen textiles.)

After that I still had about 10 yards of warp left and I had some somewhat thicker linen weft so I wove myself and a friend each a tablecloth with the blue linen.  Our blue tablecloths were not 'perfect' but I wasn't about to mess around changing the epi to make them more 'perfect'.

Am I glad I did the tablecloths?  Yes.

Would I do this again? Hell, no!

Sometimes you just need to go more slowly to get the results you desire.  The double weave fold is in this photo.  Can you see it?