Endings, Beginnings

 

Well, the last Sunday Seminar has happened.  It was a delightful series, and I'm pleased so many agreed with me, with especial thanks to instructors who dared to give it a go.  Some of them wrote presentations especially for the series, for which I thank them.

In the meantime, other organizations have begun doing similar events, and I have run out of spoons to do more, so the seminar with Linda Hendrickson on tablet weaving calligraphy (the art of beautiful writing) will be the last.

However, Linda does do Zoom lectures, so if anyone is interested in having her do a presentation for their guild, she would be interested in hearing from you.  

What could be better than beautiful writing in beautiful cloth?  Take a look at her website (link above).

As one thing ends, another begins.  

Yesterday I received a copy of Beverly Gordon's book Textiles, the whole story and took a quick peek inside.  This looks like the book I've been looking for with an emphasis on textiles and culture.  It's a weighty tome, and I don't know when I'll be able to sit down and savour it, but I'm pleased I bought it.  It's not cheap, so try to get it through inter-library loan.  I decided I would get myself a treat and I'm pleased I did.

Since 'retiring' at the end of 2019, I've worked with a single focus - weave down my stash!  The challenge is that I have an awful lot of very fine yarns, and you get a *lot* of play time from fine yarns.  For example, a 2/20 cotton yarn has 8000 yards per pound.  And I have pounds and pounds of the stuff.  More than I realized as I dug down to the bottom of the pile of boxes, then discovered cones of the stuff purchased from Robin and Russ decades ago.  Those cones have now been added to the pile.  Then, at the back of a shelf I 'found' 3.5 more one pound cones of bleached white.  Those are now in the pile as well.  

But it felt like I'd barely made any progress on stash reduction when I realized that much of the mercerized cotton, poorly stored, had weakened enough that it wasn't suitable for warp anymore.  I can still use it for weft, but I needed to buy more yarn for warp to use it up on.

That led me to working out a new design using 2/16 unmerc and 2/20 merc cotton, one warp, the other weft.  A combination I had never done before.

After several weeks of rummaging around in the back of my brain, I think I've come up with a combination that will work, but only weaving it will tell me if I've done all the calculations, considered all the things that are variables, and chosen the correct combination.

However, that first warp of 2/16 cotton intended for the merc. cotton will *also* be used to weave off two other yarns that just weren't going to work on the current 2/8 cotton warp so the bonus is both of those will get used up and if the combination for the 2/16 and 2/20 doesn't work well, I won't have an entire warp 'wasted' with a bad approach.

Win-win!

In the 'beginnings' column is also the guild activities.  After being very quiet for the past 2.5 years, we are carefully planning small events - hands on activities including dry and wet felting, spinning prep, and in the new year I've agreed to teach a 4 day beginning to weave class.

Because I'm immune compromised I've said I will only do it if everyone wears a mask.  We have agreed that an instructor gets to state their preference for mask/not mask and if someone doesn't want to wear a mask to protect the teacher, they can wait and take a different class.

Covid is killing the elders of our communities and quite frankly, our elders are the keepers of the knowledge.  If we want to protect the future of the craft, we must protect our elders.

For me this is personal, of course it is.  I'm immune compromised.  For me covid won't be 'mild'.  But we also have a number of guild members who are compromised in one way or another - age, other medical issues.  It won't do us any good at all if we don't have mitigations in place.

So we carefully begin planning guild events.  Living with covid means protecting guild members (and their families) from illness, not ignoring it.

The guild is beginning to get very busy with sales events coming up for the fall/winter season.  I won't do public facing jobs because far too few people are masking, but I will continue to work in the background and try to help the guild keep going.  My goal has always been to share knowledge, keep the craft alive and vibrant.  That won't end although I may choose to tackle it differently than previously.  Most of all, I will keep weaving for as long as I can.