Making Things

 

While I was writing this book of essays, I was also working on a new-to-me approach to designing.  As part of that process, I worked in a series, with each new design building upon the previous designs and what I had learned in the process.

After about 18 months of pushing, pulling and tweaking the drafts, I think I'm ready to move on.  But I feel like my current design is pretty decent (although still not 'perfect'!)

There is much to be said for allowing the design process to take all the time it needs in order to get to the point where you feel you have pushed the boundaries as far as you want - or need - to do.  And then it is perfectly ok to go back to something simpler, easier.

I have enough yarn for two more warps of the current 'blue', and I think I will go back to a couple earlier iterations of the tile design currently on the loom, which was kind of the 'pinnacle' of my development of this line of exploration.

I have 10 of this design ready to sell, with another 5 or maybe 6, left on the loom to be woven.  I'm hoping to finish this warp off in the coming week, although the entire month of March somehow got very packed with appointments of one sort or another.

However, since this design seems to have stirred some interest, I have listed the first 10 towels in my ko-fi shop.  This one is listed as Matrix 19, and there are still *some* of the first 18 designs still available there as well.

There is also still one signed copy of Matrix left, and once that is gone, it will continue to be available in both pdf and print options.  I wrote about the development of this weave structure in Stories from the Matrix, including a 'skeleton' tie up.

If you have 16 (or more) shafts and a computer assisted dobby, weaving these designs is easy - once you understand the logic of how it works.  After 18 months, I still have to remind myself of how to make the weave structure behave the way I want it to.  I use Fiberworks as my weaving software, but any software will work.  Although I did have to dig my graph paper out and do it 'old school' to do the initial work of understanding how to make it all weave the way I wanted it to.

Speaking of appointments, I have a number of Zoom presentations this month.  If anyone is interested in booking me for a guild program  (1 hour - although fair warning I do tend to run over because there is SO much to share) or seminar (2 hours - but again, tend to run over especially if there are lots of questions).  My topics are listed on my website, and if you book now, I will honour the current pricing if I decide to increase my fees later this year (maybe in July? TBD).