Time Management

next (last, for now) rayon chenille warp, empty AVL in background

When I chose to become a professional/production weaver I had to make some choices.  One of those choices was in the type of product I would make.  Even though I am mostly interested in weaving, intellectually, in terms of weave structure, quite often exploring that aspect of weaving can be quite time consuming.  Because exploring in that area is, for me, searching beyond my comfort zone, my foundation of knowledge, an effort to increase my knowledge.  And that pursuit is fraught with 'errors'.  It is not a pursuit that lends itself to product for upcoming sales.  Or at least, not right away.  Product development happens during the spring, not the weeks leading up to the shows...

Therefore, when I am in full blown getting-ready-for-sale-season, I am not pursuing my love of weaving by wandering down unexplored avenues.  I am trying very hard to get as much product ready for the sales as I possibly can.  I have no time to baby recalcitrant warp threads, use more labour intensive techniques, slide around on the slippery slope of the learning curve, etc.

I need to slam warps into and get them out of the loom as cloth just as efficiently as I can.

With just two weeks before I leave for the Eastern Great Lakes conference, I am feeling the pressure of deadlines enormously.  I have very little patience.  I am...testy.

I have made a significant financial outlay for the up coming sale season.  I have put very many of my 'eggs' into one basket - that of a 4 week time frame during which I need to earn enough money to last me all through most of next year.  It's not a very secure feeling.

After the rather disastrous day yesterday where I cut not one but two rayon chenille warps off the loom and consigned them to the recycle bin, I decided I would only weave two more rc warps (hopefully with no adventures during them) and then turn my attention back to place mats.

The disadvantage with having all my inventory elsewhere is that I can't just run around the corner and see how my inventory is looking.  Mind you with everything jammed onto the shelves it was hard to see exactly what I had, anyway!

But I do remember that I also need more place mats.

If I can get 4 more scarves woven (two are now done), that will give me about a dozen and a half of those, not a large selection, but at least enough to be starting the season with.

The advantage to switching to place mats is that they are very fast to weave, I can bring bins of them with me to Seattle to hem - I can even bring unhemmed ones to Vancouver/Calgary along with my small flat bed press and during down time find a quiet corner and hem.  Then press them in the hotel room to add to inventory as needed.

Once the show season is over I can go back to the rayon chenille and weave them in a more leisurely fashion.  I have used enough of the yarn to see that the shelves do have a tiny bit more space on them, but I'm still far from done with rayon chenille.

As for the AVL?  Doug is winding a 'fast' towel warp onto it.  They won't be terribly fancy, but once again I will be able to use up some of my never-ending (seemingly!) stash and have some tea towels for sale and hostess gifts.  Not sure when I'll find time to weave on it, but at least it won't be nekkid.