Day of Rest

beginning...

By the time you get to this point, most of the 'work' has been done and what is left is the 'fun' bit.

Today I am going to wind two warps and attempt to dress the Megado with a warp wound on a warping board instead of sectionally beaming it.

I would do this on my AVL for short warps where I wanted more than four shafts, or other reason where the AVL was the preferred tool, but I haven't done it on the Megado yet.

I am still working on fine tuning the studio layout so I will have to shuffle some things around.  Doug is going to make the table top on the table next to the loom larger so that I have more room for the laptop and mouse and perhaps room for bobbins, too.  Then I can get rid of the tv tray I set up to hold the humidors with the linen weft.

The table will get castors so I can more easily move it around, but not today.  So I will be shuffling things around so that I can more easily get to the front of the loom where the warp will hang from the breast beam.  Unless I try to use the warping valet.  Which might actually be better because I can more easily adjust the position of the warp relative to the sections.

(Still thinking my processes through!)

People tell me I work too hard.  Even as I declare I am 'retired' they tell me to slow down.  Thing is, I don't want to 'slow down'.  What I 'retired' from was a particular set of obligations.  As an introvert, doing the craft fairs was the least enjoyable part of what I did.  It was stressful and physically demanding.

Last night we went to a small gathering of local people who do craft fairs and talked about the shows and we all had pretty much the same experiences.  We talked about the long drives, the bad winter roads, the horrible move in and out situations at the different venues.  We talked about not having enough inventory, or the 'wrong' inventory for a particular show/region.  How you just never knew what any show would do in terms of sales.  How a good show could pay off debt and a bad show season meant you went into the coming year scrambling to keep going - pay/service the debt and still keep the lights on, buy more materials to make product so you could eventually pay down the debt.

I will not miss any of that.

But we also talked about the lovely people.  People who would order special commissions.  Or save up their money over the year after seeing our work and come back the following year to purchase something special for themselves or as a gift.  The people who delighted in letting us know how much they enjoyed having what we made in their lives.

I will miss that feedback.

But as for wanting to weave?  It is now officially - as of two days from today - my hobby.  I will now get to set the deadlines I want to meet.  I can now weave things that might not sell, in colours I prefer, instead of making sure I had sufficient inventory in a good enough range of colours that would be attractive to people with different colour preferences from me.

Oh, I will still make things not to my taste - I have a stash that goes broad and deep, and not all of it is in colours I like for myself.  And I will still offer things for sale at the consignment shop.

But selling textiles will not be my primary concern once I've filled the place mat orders I accepted this month.

My goal for weaving has reduced from five sessions per day to two.  Three if I'm feeling able.  But I still want to weave, to learn, to teach and no doubt I will write about all of that.