Sunday, July 26, 2020

Merry-go-round



Yesterday I did the edits on the latest draft in readiness for when the current warp is woven.

One part of me takes enormous comfort from repeating the tried and true.  Another part of me frets that I have more than enough tea towels, when am I going to work on something else?

But right now my need is for comfort.  And stash reduction.

The yarn I am using up is 2/16 cotton which has about 6700 yards per pound.  Each 20 (approx) yard long warp takes about 2.5 pounds of yarn. 

On this warp, I will be continuing to use up the bits of pastel/mid-value colours as weft.

The problem is, most of those 'bits' have dye lot differences.  Sometimes so minute as to be impossible (for me) to detect in the tube.  It isn't until I'm weaving that I see the faint line of demarcation between one dye lot and another.

But at this point?  If the difference is that slight, I figure most people won't ever see it, so I'm not going to worry about it.

It is becoming harder and harder for me to select yarn for warps.  Usually it is because I don't have enough of any one value (value is more important than hue) but I'm finding the rather simple stripe approach that I have been doing recently works quite well.  So I expect to be doing more of those in the coming weeks (and months?  I have a LOT of yarn!)

Doing something completely different - different yarn, different product - means a level of discomfort that I find myself not wishing to have right now.

My province fairly successfully navigated the first wave of the pandemic, but with the recent loosening of guidelines, there has been a steady increase in numbers of cases.  Nothing to panic over - yet - but worrisome, nonetheless.

The reports coming out of the US are truly terrifying.

Times are very much of the 'interesting' variety.  You know, "May you live in 'interesting' times"? 

No one knows how or when things will settle down, allow for more 'normal' life.  No one knows what the new 'normal' will even look like.

And so I keep on making tea towels.  My comfort zone.

Stay at home if you can.  Wear a mask if you need to go out.  Maintain physical distance of at least six feet.  Wash your hands.

{{{hugs}}}

2 comments:

Peg Cherre said...

When you use 2/16 for your towels, do you double it in the heddles? Or are your towels lighter weight than I typically weave? (My go-to for towels is 8/2)

Laura Fry said...

Single at 32 epi usually. Sometimes 30 or 36, depending on weave structure and weft.