Trade Offs

 

how it started...

how it's going

Well, not quite.  It actually started this morning by weaving one of those white towels, then cutting off and setting the heap on the cutting/work table.

Then I went back to the loom after lunch and started on the second half of the warp.

One of the big differences between the AVL and the Megado is that the AVL had a storage roller at the back of the loom so I could weave long lengths without ever having to cut off.  The Megado does the traditional approach of storing the woven web on a beam right in front of my knees.  There are two down sides to this arrangement.  When advancing the fell, the cloth builds up on the beam and then the tension adjustment becomes a bit trickier.  As the roll builds up on the beam, my knees press into it.  It's not really a problem, as such, just annoying.  But I find that anything more than about 10 yards on the beam begins to mess with re-tensioning when I advance, so it's just easier to cut off about halfway through and re-tie the warp and begin anew.

This is not a big deal for me, just something I miss about the AVL - not having to do this.  (There are a bunch of things I miss about the AVL, but how heavy it was to weave on is not one of them - the Megado is much lighter to treadle and beat - trade offs.  There are always trade offs.)

The older I get, the more difficulty I find doing some things and dealing with half a warp of towels is a lot easier on my body than doing the entire warp all in one go, so I remind myself that there are...trade offs...

This is the 7th warp of this series, with at least 3 more, possibly 4, to come.  At 16 towels per warp (approximately) that means this series will consist of  +/- 160 towels.  

I am running out of storage space.  So the time has come for me to stop procrastinating and begin photographing the towels and putting them into my ko-fi 'store'.  I've been saying this for weeks, perhaps months, now, and it is time to actually do it.

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny so the light should be better.  Part of the challenge is getting photos that are close to 'true' in terms of colour.  On a grey day, that can be next to impossible.  So I'm hoping tomorrow will be the day to begin.

On the reading front, I have decided to give up on the nearly 700 page historical novel by Sharon Kay Penman, not because it isn't good - it is.  It's just that it is taking me far too long to get it read and I now have 4 library books waiting for me to read.  I managed to renew one of them that was coming due in two days, but some of them are brand new with holds on them so I can't renew them.  Time to let the Penman go and start on one of the others.  

The one I chose is This is the Fire by Don Lemon.  He is eloquent and the less than 200 pages should go quickly.  I wasn't sure if I would enjoy reading it, but his way with words is keeping me engaged and I'm glad I requested it.