Friday, January 9, 2015

Piling Up



Cut the table toppers off the loom this afternoon.  There are five for my customer to choose from.  From the far left, two 100% cotton woven in twill blocks, the rest are in plain weave - from the centre a cotton/linen blend weft, linen weft and 2/16 cotton weft.  Not entirely happy with them - yet - although wet finishing should improve them considerably.

I wound up using a temple, which while slower than not using it gave me better results.  So....

Still no word from the hospital with a firmer date so I'm recklessly continuing on steaming through as many warps as I possibly can.  So far it doesn't seem to be making my back or hip worse, which is good news all by itself.  The bad news is that I'm ignoring computer work, which will have to stop soon so that I don't leave too many things unattended to before we leave, whenever that will be.

Partly I feel as though I need to store up as much weaving zen as I can because it is likely to be up to  three months before I will be able to weave.  Six weeks of no loom time last summer was bad enough!

At this point I just want to get it over and done with.  Thankfully it should not be too much longer.

Trying to decide what to leave on the looms - I've got enough 2/16 bamboo for a warp - sort of - I think I can make it work for a shawl warp.  Since I pretty desperately need more shawls for inventory it would be good to get some more in the queue.

As for the small loom, I've time to weave a few more place mat warps, I think, so I've wound a nice deep red one from the left over red in the table topper warp and have a beige/sage combo pulled for next, maybe.  I've done the math for a shawl warp for the small loom, too, and since that yarn needs just the barest brush of the beater am thinking that might well be my first foray into weaving when I get the all clear.  With any luck I can begin sooner, rather than later.  But it will depend on how the healing goes.

I very much appreciate all the good wishes and the sharing some of you have done privately.  It really helps to hear from people who have already trod the road before me and to hear how much better life will be afterwards.  We will have the iPad with us and I expect Doug will post updates to Facebook for those of you on that.  Who knows, I might even buy some air time in the hospital (they don't have free wifi).  :)

3 comments:

Peg Cherre said...

Will you be able to use a multi-harness table loom or rigid heddle loom while you're recuperating? Or will sitting be restricted? Or maybe just not interested in weaving on one of these.

Do keep us informed. I'm not on FB, so will just have to make do with what you can post here.

Laura Fry said...

I doubt I will be able to use either small loom as arms will be 'weak'. One reason why I'm planning on getting the bobbin lace pillow out, and doing things like spinning, at least until I can use my arms again.

Cheers
Laura

Meg said...

As far as I'm concerned, you are a weaving machine, or an android at best, Laura Fry. You make my head spin. Perhaps if you can use yours arms/fingers enough, you could spend some of your computer time playing with drafts, too, but I'm sure you've thought of it. But May I recommend, for your consideration, finger painting with watercolors; it gives a certain rather primal, ancient, straight-forward joy.