Awash

Doug has been working really hard on getting the studio sorted out.  It is a well worn but extremely accurate adage that says before things can get better, they have to get worse.  Sometimes a lot worse.

The loom tear down and studio re-arranging was proceeding nicely when Doug found a buyer for the Whitin pirn winder.  She decided the best time to come get it was now, not later, and suddenly all my carefully thought out plans got tossed aside in order to dig the winder out from behind the several years of accumulation that had been piled in front and beside it.

Since she will also get the shuttles and pirns, I had a good dig through the store room to find some I knew still had yarn on them.

When I was into production, I would wind plenty of pirns and have them ready to go.  If I didn't use the wound pirns up, it didn't matter because I had lots of pirns.  As in lots and lots.

Since I haven't used the fly shuttle the past few years, and only sporadically for about five years prior to that, those boxes of filled pirns had also gotten shuffled to the backs of shelves, into nooks and crannies.

The photo is actually part of the 'becoming better' stages.  With moving things around, floor space that hasn't seen any kind of cleaning in years was exposed so Doug has been vacuuming with his big shop vacuum.  It's that black and red thing with the hoses. 

Piled to the left are loom parts and the two fly shuttle boxes are standing against the wall to the left and back.

The white cabinet holds the computer that runs the loom, a boombox and other tools and it may stay where it is or get moved slightly.  We will decide once the Megado is here and assembled.

That pile of boxes?  Those are the boxes of pirns.  One of the boxes has fine cashmere on them, the rest are primarily 2/16 cotton.  Pounds of it, all told.  I'm going to ask if she minds if I keep those and use up as much of the yarn as I can because she says she won't use it and would just strip it off.  Which would take hours.  Plus it's wasteful.  So I'm hoping she will agree. 

Since I may be teaching not too far away from her studio in April (to be determined - I may have a conflicting commitment, plus the college may choose a different instructor), I will tell her I'll get them to her by the end of April.

That would give me the chance to use the yarn plus gives me a deadline by which I would have to do that.

Doug has made arrangements with a young fellow to help carry some things up out of the basement, including the winder, and once those things are out of the way Doug can begin bringing shelving from the annex to here.

My schedule is really full (given my energy levels) and I would really like to get as much moved out of the annex in advance of the end of the year as I possibly can.

I may have surgery on my foot in December, so the more I can do prior to the surgery, the less I will feel like I need to hasten recovery by dealing with moving out of there so I can reduce my expenses.

Retirement will only work if I can reduce the out-go because the in-come is going to go way down come 2020...

Right now I'm awash in the scramble to get all of this done and keep weaving for the fall craft fairs.

Just cut another place mat warp off the small loom, cut/serged them, and will now go dress the loom again with another.  I'm very low on inventory and to make the shows at least pay for themselves, I have to have more textiles to sell. 

I don't think I'm going to miss the hamster wheel of production/sales.