Winter Arrives

 

It's almost noon and it's warmed up.  To -18C in our carport.  

So far this winter, it has been overwhelmingly grey, dreary, too warm, too little snow.  We finally got a bit of snow and this week?  Winter has arrived.  It is supposed to continue like this for the rest of the week.  Polar vortex in action.  The sun is more than welcome, too.

Along with the cold, the relative humidity indoors has dropped to 25%, in spite of running the humidifier on high for the past week.

I have nothing to leave the house for, so I'm not going to.  Self-isolation?  Oh yes, I am doing that!

The lack of humidity means that things generate static electricity, like my hair, like yarn.   Using the electric bobbin winder is going to spark every time I wind a bobbin, yes, even the cotton, at this level of humidity.  The computer assist on the loom is grounded, so it should behave ok.  But just walking across a carpet means a shock when you touch something.  We have little carpet in the house now, so that happens a lot less.  

Yesterday I wound a warp on the warping board when the humidity was at 30% and that went ok, but a silk one might have been more of a problem.  In that case I will actually mist the warp to keep it co-operative.

I won't put the cotton bobbins in the humidor, they should be okay, but if I were weaving with linen, they go into one just because linen behaves so much better if there is a higher level of humidity in the fibre itself.

The initial flurry of getting the study groups organized is mostly done and now it's on to the slog of writing the Power Point slides, getting the information organized - in my own mind - taking the photos I want to include.  I have taken photos of diagrams from several books - with credit, of course.

Today I need to tackle some stuff on line - submit the info to the National Archive re: The Intentional Weaver, collect my tax info from the Olds College website.  Stuff I really dislike doing.  But deadlines, er, loom.

I also have a column to write for consideration of Handwoven magazine.  The deadline is March 15, but I'd like to get the first draft down.  Assuming I would need another mat warp to take photos for that, I will be dressing the smaller loom for the last mat warp I had planned to do.  Some time.  Seems that time is now - or at least, very soon.

And of course - weave.  I'm over the halfway mark on the current warp and while I really like the results, am anxious to put the next one into the loom.  Hopefully before the end of this week.

But to that end?  I need to get dressed and go do something productive.  Getting dressed sounds like a good first step.