Show's Over

Well it is nearly over. We just have to pack up.

Next ANWG will be in two years in Salem (OR).

We will head north tomorrow.
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ANWG

Here in Spokane at The Assoc of Northwest Weaver's Guild conference. Haven't made it to the guild exhibits yet but Sheila says the gallery tour last night was excellent.
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Over half way

The rain has stopped and it has warmed up so much I have to doff my sweat shirt and don a t shirt! Apparently it is supposed to get rather warm in Spokane for the weekend. :)
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What a Difference

a week makes!

We got home around 9:30 pm with the plum trees just past their peak.

There is still lots of snow at higher elevations. We even had some on the trip to Olds last Thursday and there was lots left on the mountain peaks on our return. I don't remember the name of this one, but this is the view from the parking lot at Saskatchewan Crossing about mid-afternoon Sunday.

Now to try and fit all the yarn left over from the sale onto the shelves and get ready to leave again tomorrow morning. :)

If anyone will be at ANWG in Spokane (WA) drop by Teresa Ruch's booth and say 'hi'. I'll be there most of the time.

Reading during the trip: The Language of Bees by Laurie King and Conspirator by C. J. Cherryh. Just starting House of Stag by Kage Baker

HWSDA

The Alberta conference is nearly over. Just tomorrow morning left, then pack up and head home.

The weather has been nice (no snow!) And the people friendly and enthusiastic.
I'm looking forward to ANWG next week.
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Fringes

Thought I would share how I go about setting up my fringes. Above picture shows the end of the first scarf (bottom of the ruler) and the cutting line for between the two scarves.

The picture below shows the cutting line, the first four fugitive picks and then the beginning of the weaving for the second scarf. The measuring 'tape' is just pinned to the web. I have a variety of these 'tapes' for different textiles. This one is 66" long as that is a common length I make for scarves.



I don't weave anything into the fringes, just let the unwoven warp ends roll onto the cloth beam ensuring that they don't fall off the cloth on the cloth beam.

The first and last pick of the scarf are wound into the appropriate bout of fringes - I fringe twist regenerated cellulose fibres to make sure they don't disintegrate and that they will wear well.

When the scarves (two per warp) are removed from the loom I cut them apart through the cutting line, fold them into quarters and set them aside until they are ready to be twisted.

I always begin twisting on the side away from the weft tail and work toward the loose weft pick twisting the weft tail into the last bout.

Doug has just started to load the van up (he had to gas up and fill the tires) and as it's just 4:30 pm there is plenty of time to finish the second scarf and cut this warp off the loom.

And then I need to pack........

Currently reading The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King

Seeing Red - Again

I seem to be having a red-fest. :) In the past week I've woven a couple of red shawl warps on the AVL, a red shawl on the Fanny, a red chenille scarf warp today and am just now dressing the Fanny again with a black and red warp. ;)

Red - the colour of energy. Perhaps my week of rest has allowed my energy to come back and my colour choice reflects that.

Don't know if I will finish weaving it before I leave tomorrow, but that's okay. The AVL is (gasp!) naked and destined to remain that way for a couple weeks. Well, not quite naked - the last warp still needs to be stripped off, but somehow a completely naked loom always looks so - hmm - pathetic? sad? :^)

I will go away and think about my priorities for when I get back and then decide what to weave on the AVL next.

A huge priority will be to get the studio cleaned up to the point where one can walk without the do-see-do between boxes. I have students coming this summer, and the studio has to be able to hold more than just me!

Another priority (sub-priority?) will be to finish skeining the yarn to be dyed and get that dyed this summer. Once I've done that I will have to decide if I continue to purchase natural yarn and dye it to sell and for my own use. I could get rid of a lot of stuff if I stopped doing that. OTOH, with my Art Fire store, perhaps I can sell it on the internet.

So I will be doing a lot of mulling over options and thinking about how I really want to spend my time for the forseeable future.

That's one of the nice thing about long road trips - lots of time to think without too many distractions.

When I come home I have a number of medical type appointments - I need new eyeglasses, a crown on one of my molars and a meeting with my family doctor to discuss changing my cholesterol medication (and find out what to expect in terms of my blocked arteries in terms of symptoms/treatment).

Bette Davis had it oh, so right - getting old is not for sissies! Who knew I'd reach that stage in my late 50's! ;^)

May 19, 2009

No those aren't plum blossoms on the ground. The plum blossoms had barely erupted on the trees yesterday - and today SNOW is falling. Sigh.

So much for global 'warming'!

On the weaving front, I got two shawls woven yesterday, labelled and priced yarn and packed up another couple of boxes for the trip to Alberta (HWSDA conference in Olds, AB), finished the project for Handwoven and got it and some yarn orders packaged up ready to mail today.

Now it's time to get dressed and pick mom up for brunch and errands. I hope to finish the last shawl on the AVL today and then perhaps dress the Fanny with one of the chenille warps I wound Sunday.

All the time keeping fingers crossed we don't have to drive through the Rocky Mountains on Thursday during a snowstorm.......... :}

Red Shawl

While I still have to trim the fringes, the red silk boucle shawl is essentially done. And I am much happier with it than previous incarnations using this yarn.

Sometimes we get so set on an approach we can't see any other way of working. :( So it was with this yarn. I stuck to my original approach in spite of the fact that I wasn't particularly happy. After all I was selling some of the scarves. :}

But not enough of them, and I finally had to stop swimming in De Nile and face up to the fact that something had to change.

I have a couple of dozen painted warps that were wound for scarves. I can only get one shawl from each of these scarf warps, but you know - I'd rather get one really quite nice textile than two so-so ones.

The rest I took this week helped me see more clearly. Since I wasn't caught in the day to day scramble to work I had time to ponder and let subversive thoughts like "those silk boucle scarves really aren't as nice as you like - what do you need to do to change the outcome" bubble to my conscious mind.

After all, if you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting.

Currently reading Always Looking Up by Michael J. Fox

Seeing Red

Got the placemat warp woven and wet finished. While the washer was running I decided to beam a painted silk warp.

I had a bunch of these silk boucle warps painted, but have never been 100% happy with my results. After mulling it over for a rather long time I decided to change my approach entirely.

Instead of setting the warp up for a 10" wide scarf warp at 20 epi, I spread it out at 10 epi for a 20" wide shawl warp instead.

I have no idea if it will come close to results that will make me happy, but I figured investing one warp to make a full sized sample would be a good investment. If nothing else, I may keep the shawl for myself. :D

Since I have a bunch of this yarn dyed up I can do silk weft on silk warp. The yarn is a bit on the stiff side so will have lots of 'tooth' and a very open gauzy fabric should still wear well as a shawl.

I also have about 30 more pounds to dye so I can do semi-solids for weft on the painted warps. Just have to get the yarn wound into skeins and dye it. :}

Actually I have quite a lot of yarn left to dye, so that's one of the things that will take a higher priority once I get home from ANWG in June.

My week 'off' seems to have worked to re-energize me. Good thing as deadlines are most definitely looming!

Currently reading The Murderer's Tale by Margaret Frazer

The Root of Wild Madder - Book Review

Expectations - we all have them. Sometimes they are accurate, sometimes they are not.

My expectations for this book were something quite different than what the book actually turned out to be about. It was so much more than I expected.

Part poetry, part philosophy, part spiritual quest, part travelogue, part political history, and just a little bit about madder itself.

There are many thoughts from this book that I would like to quote, but I'll settle for just this one.

The author quotes an Iranian by the name of Ibrahimi:

"Time is something man created to bring order. Am I right? We are the ones who long ago sliced it up into hours, minutes, days. Are these pieces the same length for all? Yes, that is true, you could answer. But think again. It is not true at all. Is an hour praying the same as an hour digging a ditch? Is an hour making a carpet the same as an hour making bricks? The same time has passed, yes, but what this hour means is different for each person. Think about this."

Then Brian Murphy muses:

I did. It was another valuable - and unsolicited - lesson in my education into carpets. An average-size carpet - say four by six feet with a good knot count - can take up to two months for two waevers working eight hours a day. Few tasks I can think of, apart from specialized work such as archaeology or delicate surgery, require so much effort with such incremental progress. The weavers' clock, I was learning, is calibrated far differently from mine. Minutes and hours are just too small to matter. Bigger blocks - weeks, months, or even years - are much more relevant. It's almost an agrarian point of view: season to season, carpet to carpet. I would need to slow down, too. If not, I was at the risk of being like a car zipping along on a good road. I would see the sights, but roar past the more interesting tidbits and trifles noticed by someone taking it slower. I told myself: For a while, at least, stop tallying and weighting each hour like a bookkeeper. Patience is, indeed, a virtue.

Playing Hookey

The THUD you may have heard last week was me falling off the energy wagon.

For the past couple of months I have been feeling more and more exhausted, which I attributed to a hectic travel/teaching schedule, poor sleep, what have you.

May 4th, when the specialist confirmed my suspicions I felt myself teeter, and subsequent minor irritations ground at me for the rest of the week. By Saturday when I was trying very hard to be upbeat and positive about the future, I kept mulling over the events that had brought me to where I am in the here and now. And found myself sinking futher into a funk of feeling - well, just plain bloody tired. (Apologies to any Brits out there.)

Sunday after lace I fell into bed at around 4 pm and dragged myself out at 6, feeling worse than before. Needless to say, doing anything productive was beyond me.

I managed to pull myself together while Karena was here and finish off the first shawl warp and beam the next but after setting up the guild loom, essentially crashed and burned.

It's taken me several days to think through why this happened. My conclusion? During the course of the past year I never had time to stop and deal with what was happening, because it just kept on happening. My blood pressure has been pretty good for the last two months, and essentially things have been under control. Which means that I haven't been focussed on trying to gain control.

You know how they say you never have a nervous break down during the crisis but after it? Well, my crisis is pretty much over - until the next one - and my body was finally able to make me pay attention to the fact that it was tired - exhausted - from all the stress, turmoil, pain and grief.

Even when I said I was going to cut back on my working hours, I got two special orders, and found myself working just as much as I had been. :}

So now, in spite of two critical deadlines coming up, my body has said "Enough." And this time, I'm going to listen.

I've been watching tv (egad - even daytime tv!) knitting, making jigsaw puzzles. And if I feel like heading down the stairs to do a little puttering, I do. But if I don't - well, I don't. :)

Today all I managed was to pack up an order, trim and tag the placemats I pressed on Sunday and deliver them to the local consignment shop.

Hopefully I can at least do the weaving/writing for the project for Handwoven I'm trying to pull together. That deadline is one I really don't want to miss. :)

A Special Day

May 9 has been a special day for Doug and me since getting married in 1970. Last year it became an even more special day as that was the day I got the angiogram and angioplasty that pretty much saved my life. It certainly saved me from having a heart attack.

So now instead of just being our wedding anniversary, it is also my re-birth day. :)

After a year of eye opening experiences, and recent news that wasn't surprising but not welcome, I have come to a point in my life where I cannot forget that life is fragile, brief and very precious. I had always been aware that I could make more money, but that I could never make more time. Little did I know how close I would come to running out of time long before I was ready. :}

But I've been given the enormous gift of life through circumstances that I had no control over, and would have changed if I could - my younger brother's death far too early - that alerted my doctor to the fact that I was also in danger. I would much rather Don had been saved, too, but that didn't happen.

His death has given me the opportunity to stay present in this world, enjoy my friends, continue to weave - and celebrate another birthday.

As part of my Celebration of Life I have decided to offer a very special deal on Magic in the Water; wet finishing handwovens.






From May 9 until July 9 (my actual birthday), purchases of Magic in the Water will come with a free copy of CD Weaver III.



CD Weaver I was originally published with one topic - You Have to be Warped - which shows how I dress a loom back to front. It includes lots and lots of colour photos, text and video clips of the parts of the process I felt needed to be seen in action.

CD Weaver II added a second 'chapter' - Weaving Hints and Tips - how to wind a bobbin, pirn, paper quill, hemstitiching, holding and throwing the shuttle and so on.
Again with lots of colour photos, text and video clips.

CD Weaver III added a third 'chapter' - It Isn't Finished (until it's wet finished).

At the time of publication I wasn't feeling at all well and as such wasn't sure how much longer I and my website would be around so we took pretty much everything I had on my website, added a few other publications I'd written, and archived it onto CD Weaver III as bonus material.

The good news (for me, at any rate) is that I intend to be around for a good while longer. But I can not ignore that life is, indeed, fragile, brief, and very, very precious.

Orders can be placed through me directly at laura@laurafry.com or through my Art Fire store http://LauraFry.artfire.com
If you want to add the sample packet I made to go with It Isn't Finished, there are still some of those left, too.

Optimist

I love my public library. :) Right now I've got about 12 different books on request - well, it's actually 10 now because today I picked up two of them.

One of them is Michael J. Fox's latest. Lucky Man was his first book. Not exactly a memoir because he doesn't focus on his past, but on his present. The first book was an exploration of how his Parkinson's Disease was affecting his life.

Always Looking Up is more about his attitude toward Parkinson's, and, well, Life.

The fact that my request came through today was a little bit of serendipity because tonight Fox's documentary aired on tv. So, while I haven't actually read the book yet, I got a taste, a little preview of what is going to be in it.

I suppose that in my own way I, too, am an optimist. You kind of have to be in order to try to make your living in the arts. I'm always digging through the clouds to find the silver linings, so I suppose that alone would qualify me as an optimist. :)

During the hour long program, one of the people Fox interviewed was Lance Armstrong. Armstrong talked about how his cancer affected the quality of his life. That if he hadn't had the cancer, he likely would not have managed to reach the heights he achieved in the ultra competitive world of bicycle racing.

Fox has also talked about the 'gift of Parkinson's'. He talked about life being a process, and that just because you haven't achieved your goal - yet - that wasn't the point. The point was the striving. And the hope that you will do 'the next right thing'. Not do the next thing 'right', but to try to do 'the next right thing'.

I admire so much people who can look at the quality of their life, see the gifts adversity has brought and go on to live full and happy lives. Those people who get served lemons and go ahead to make lemonade. :D

Puzzle

Well, it's not weaving, but thought I'd share this puzzle anyway.....

Wallowing...and Getting OVER it!

The last three days have been challenging for a number of reasons, and I found myself wallowing in procrastination, not wanting to do anything. So I watched a lot of tv and knitted or worked on a jigsaw puzzle. :(

Finally late this afternoon I gave myself a smack upside my head and told myself to Get Over It. I had managed to finish winding a warp Karena had started Monday and since the Fanny was empty, put it on today.

Decided to work with the flanges and warping valet again.




Here is the warp just entered into the loom and attached to the apron rod at the back. The choke tie is still in place. You can see the warp travels under the breast beam. Since on the Fanny the breast beam lifts off, I got Doug to secure it so that it was fixed. I don't need to remove it to thread, so leaving it fixed is not a problem for me.



And here is a close up of the water jug attached to the chain. I use a loop of heavy cord, lark's head it around the warp chain, then suspend the water jug from an 's' hook.

My studio has a fairly low ceiling so the warping valet is mounted to the ceiling with brackets. Doug joked today that it was a good thing the ceiling was so low or I wouldn't be able to reach the rod. I told him he would just have used longer brackets. :^)




Here is another view of the flange sticks. I did a better job of getting them aligned this time, and it didn't take me nearly so long. Practice makes perfect!

You can also just see the Purrington Angel Wings attached to the loom. After beaming, I transfer the cross and set the lease sticks into the Wings. Doug made me dowels as well as flat lease sticks, but I find I like the flat sticks better. It's easier for me to see the cross in order to select the next threads in their order.

You can't see the lease sticks in any of these photos. I leave them in front of the reed to help clear any tangles out and help with gauging how far I can wind before I clear the next length.

I did finally manage to thread, sley and tie on. I also hem stitched the first mat and wove a few inches, just to feel as though I'd accomplished something today. My mood is still low, but at least I've broken through the procrastination.

Maybe I can also finish transcribing WeaveCast episode 36. :)

Currently reading The Root of Wild Madder by Brian Murphy (I'll probably post a review when I've read it)

Master Weavers (GCW)

For those who are interested, I thought I'd post the list of GCW Master Weavers and their monograph topics. The GCW now requires that a copy of the research topic/monograph be lodged with the GCW library, so some of the more recent ones are available for study to guild members via library loan - including both my monograph and the resulting book Magic in the Water.

MASTER WEAVER LIST

1955 Mary Black: Tartans
Mary Sandin: Linen and the Linen Weaves

1958 Nell Steedsman: Two Frame Weaving

1959 (?) Grace McDowell: Box Loom Weaving

1973 Adrienne Whitelaw: Ceinture Fleche

1975 Mary Andrews: Fundamentals of Weaving

1977 Sandra Feenstra: Double Weaves
Dini Moes: The Use of Color in Handweaving

1979 Judith Rygiel: Stitched Double Weave

1981 Eileen Shannon: A Workshop Study of Point Twill

1985 Jane Evans: Tied Latvian Weave

1986 Linda Heinrich: A Comprehensive Study of Flax and Linen
Noreen Rustad: Beiderwand

1989 Anke Keizer-Bles: Exploring the Moorman Technique for Clothing
Margaret Berg: A Study of 8-Shaft Multiple Tabby Weaves and Twills

1990 Sandra Fearon: Shadow Weave Design

1991 Patricia Corbett: Color and Texture Variation in Knotted Pile
Gaye Hansen: Twice Warped - Twelve Techniques for the Second Warp Beam
Kay Reiber: Summer and Winter: A System for All Seasons
Frances Timbers: The Handkerchief

1992 Valerie DePorto: Design Dynamics of Multishaft Swedish Lace

1993 June Bell: Finnweave
Mabel Verigin: The Forgotten Weaves

1994 Margaret Hahn: Opphamta

1995 Christine Hill: Wool: Fleece, Fibre and Fabric
Evelyn Oldroyd: The Wonder of Weaving Silk
1997 Laura Fry: Transformations: Fulling Handwoven Fabrics

1998 Carol Oberg: Brain-based Learning in the Weaving Studio - Process of Regeneration

2001 Ruth Jarvis: Ramie

2003 Helene Ruel: La Magie de l’Ikat (The Magic of Ikat)

The GCW translates all their bulletins into French, and Helene Ruel submitted her tests in French. So far one American has submitted and received her Master Level. You don't have to be Canadian to submit, just be a member of the guild.

Testing, Testing

A recurring theme in discussions with other weavers over the past couple of months has been that of testing oneself. My experience has been with the Guild of Canadian Weavers certificate program, but I also have some knowledge of other test programs.

Why would anyone want to do the tests?

Well, the programs make a great study guide, especially for people who don't have a local guild handy or haven't the time/money to take workshops.

If there is an interest in teaching, following the program gives a good foundation of knowledge over a broad range of weave structures.

If one is working in isolation it is difficult to gauge one's progress, so submitting the problems for marking is one way of getting feedback.

My personal decision was based on all of the above. I confess I'm not a huge fan of certain weave structures. :) OTOH, one of my career goals was to teach weaving and I felt that in order to do that effectively, I needed to at least understand the principles underlying the common structures.

I 'grew up' as a weaver in an area where there were few resources - there were a lot of people interested in weaving, but none of us knew very much about it. I looked closely at the HGA COE and the GCW programs and felt that the GCW would best fit my needs. It was also cheaper, which fit my budget. :D

Some people aren't comfortable with the GCW program because you work on your own and submit when you're ready. The COE requested that you notify them before you submited, pay your fee and then submit on deadline (as I understand it - this may have changed over the years).

For me the GCW program was a little more in-depth with 4 levels, allowing me latitude about when I submitted. This latitude has its advantages and disadvantages, of course. If I had been held accountable to a firm deadline, I'd have finished the program years sooner. OTOH, by taking longer, I learned a whole lot more and felt a good deal of satisfaction when the research project was completed. I felt I'd accomplished a much more mature work than if I'd pushed through the program and submitted 10 years earlier.

The GCW program can be down loaded for free from their website: http://www.thegcw.org/

If you have Mary Black's (New) Key to Weaving, you have pretty much all of the information in one tidy package to begin the program. Other resources are helpful, of course!

A bit of history - Mary Black, Mary Sandin and Ethel Henderson formed the Guild of Canadian Weavers in the late 1940's. Mary Black was an Occupational Therapist who had begun weaving as a child, studied in Sweden and the US as well as Canada. Mary Sandin had lived in Boston, MA and had done the Boston test levels before returning to Canada.

One of the aims of the GCW is to foster and encourage excellence in weaving, and as such the three of them developed the GCW program. As an example and encouragement to others the two Mary's completed the test program in 1955.

There are now about 30 GCW Master Weavers. Several have gone on to publish works based on their monograph (as it was then called) and from these efforts we have Linda Heinrich's Magic of Linen, Jane Evans A Joy Forever and my own Magic in the Water. Others have self-published various titles - Nell Steedsman, Mary Andrews, and Carol Oberg. There may well be others that I've misremembered - if so I apologize and hope that the MW's will set me straight. :) Many more have, of course, written and published articles in periodicals.

As I began my studies I was curious about which topics had already been researched and studied for the final level. At the time no one had kept a list, but Nell Steedsman combed through all of the GCW Bulletins and gave me a list to study. As I perused the names I realized that we were beginning to lose our MW's - out of that initial list of 13, one had died, and some of the rest (including Mary Black) were elderly. (Mary Black died in Nova Scotia in her 90's. She was well into her 80's when I wrote to her.)

I set about contacting as many of them as I possibly could, asked if they would send me slides of their work and asked them some questions. From their replies I made up a slide kit and donated copies to GCW and HGA. Several years later when several more weavers had completed their Master level, I was asked to up-date the kit, which I did. By the time I turned everything over to the new co-ordinator, the kit filled 3 carousels. Jane Evans made a video about the Master Weavers and more recently a DVD was made.

Someone else kindly offered to take over when my schedule precluded continuing with it and I look forward to hearing of more people completing their Master levels in the near future.

A recent brief discussion with the test administrator revealed that there are several more candidates working toward their certification.

One of the questions I asked the MW's was what they had learned by taking the tests. Many of them said that the most important lesson was how much more there was *to* learn. :)

Ditto.

Beginning Weaving

Here are the intrepid new weavers, weaving away at 3 pm this afternoon. :)

Cindy already has a loom - it's been in storage for a while, waiting for her to have more time for it - Charlotte is anticipating a loaner. Both are doing very well and I expect them to be able to finish off their sample which will (of course!) be wet finished before they leave.

While they dressed their looms, I lurked in the background (literally) winding another warp for a guild group project. I expect to be able to wind one more tomorrow, then dress two more looms in the coming weeks.

The Baby Wolf you can just barely see in the foreground was warped last month with an 8 shaft Bronson Lace project and at least one person has woven on it so far.

It was a lovely day - predicted temp of 19 C (70F) was surely hit - which meant the room got rather warm in the afternoon. Fortunately I found the fan so we managed to keep going. :)

After dinner I wove 3 placemats which means I'm about 1/4 the way through that warp. Still have to finish the sashes though and call the client re: delivery. :) Hopefully Monday.

Currently reading The As It Happens Files by Mary Lou Finlay

Stash Reduction Continues

After dinner I went back down to the loom and used up another cone weaving a couple of table runners.

Then I started in on some more yarns, bundling them together to make a nice thick weft yarn for place mats.

In this photo you can just see the table runner turning round the breast beam and the beginning of the place mat.

The threading is Wall of Troy, but I'm treadling it so that a highly textured fabric results, partly to make the fabric thicker, partly because the weft is already textured I doubt the pattern will show very well.

I may change to tromp as writ with a different combination of yarns - I'll see what I use when these yarns are used up. :)

Am about as ready as I can be for the class tomorrow. Doug is still in the attic worrying away at spreading the batts of insulation now that the fan is wired in.

Warp Flange Sticks

I got these beauties in Sweden. They are great for longer warps - warps long enough that I don't really have sufficient warp packing for.

This warp is 11 meters long, and while I can eek out my bamboo blinds I decided to go with the flanges again. I've been beaming so many short warps for the past few years I'd gotten out of practice with the flange sticks.

Using the warping valet (another tool first seen by me in Sweden - same studio as the flanges, actually) I got the warp beamed this afternoon. I really like using the flanges for longish wide warps - this warp was just 15" in the reed, so it was a good one to use to practice before I do something wider - like tea towels.

I'll also confess that I do use a brush on my warps. Not all of them, of course - just ones that won't be harmed by brushing. Many weavers gasp in horror when I reveal my heresy.

Yes, I could just finger comb. If I had all day to put a warp on that is. Quite frankly a brush speeds up the process considerably. This warp took about 25 minutes to beam. Would have been faster if I'd just been tossing the blinds in - the flanges do take a bit of fussing to get them to the correct width. :}

I don't generally announce how long it takes me to do the various tasks involved in weaving. The initial response is usually disbelief. :(

But I am fast, and the reason I am fast is that I chose weaving as a career right from the get-go so I have spent 30+ years analysing what I do and working out how to do it more efficiently and ergonomically. I try to accomplish the most by exerting the least amount of effort. And I steal good ideas whenever I see them. :)

So since I was doing a time study with the flanges, I also noticed how long it took to thread (about 13 minutes to thread 150 ends in a 10 thread repeat over four shafts), and about 7 minutes to sley. Tying up took about a minute.

Then I hit an impasse because before I can start weaving I have to cone some skeins of yarn. So I watched some tv and knitted and now I'm about to head back to the studio and see if I can't finish getting ready for the Beginning Weaving class tomorrow while the cone winder chugs so I can start weaving yet tonight.