Twinkle Stars

 

After a week of delay I finally got to the loom this morning.

I discovered a 'problem' with the threading, but nothing dire enough to scrap the warp and re-thread it, especially when I'm using a colour that isn't going to show off the design all that much.  There are some angles where the design doesn't actually show at all.  It's like 'damask' - dependent upon the light shining differently on the warp and weft to be seen.

The motif is large - what is showing here is the end of the first towel and the first few picks on the second.  Mostly what you can see is the tail end of the motif and the hem area.

This will be the last in the matrix series, and I do believe I wove it previously in a different colour way.  

The photo also shows the caddy I use to hold various tools.  I sit - or perch - on a tall stool, so I need something to hold wound bobbins, scissors, the other shuttle with the yarn I use for making cut lines between the towels and my drink.  (hydrate, hydrate, hydrate)  You can also just make out the ends of the tubes of the same yarn which will be used *as* bobbins and woven directly from the tube.

And yes, those ARE cassette tapes.  Right now my goal is to weave two 45 minute sessions a day, so I pop a cassette tape into my boombox (with headphones to help protect against the noise of the solenoids) and listen to one side, then stop weaving when the music stops.  The headphones are on top of the laptop and black so you can't really see them.  They are not just audio headphones, but also rated to provide protection against noise.  I have already lost some hearing, even though I have always worn protective headphones to weave.  But I didn't use them when doing other noisy things, like winding pirns or cones, etc.  But I don't have the industrial pirn winding machine any more and don't wind lots of cones anymore, either.  

The 'test' eBay auction is putting along.  I suppose there will be a flurry of bids on day 7.  I hope.  

I have managed to sell some of the guild books privately - guild members were given first dibs - and some of my students who I knew were looking for particular books.  The count is now around 60 titles, although I may cull a few more as being not really worth anyone's while.  I mean, who really needs an extremely old monograph on how rayon is made?  Not in particularly good condition, and printed in the 1940s, it's seriously out-of-date!  If anyone wants it and is willing to pay the postage, let me know.

We are well into spring here, but it's a lot drier than we had hoped.  The drought really has not broken, and a lot of us are holding our breaths, waiting to see how bad the fire season will be this year.  

One of the things taking up my time was the delivery of our new hybrid truck.  It's going to take some time to get used to it, but it comes with some 'comfort' features - heated seats, yes, but also heated steering wheel.  They are going to be very welcome next winter.  I have minor arthritis in my hands and I was having some trouble with that, especially when the temps went below -25C.  It also has a backup camera, and the cab is large enough for more cargo than the old Ford Ranger provided.  But the big thing was that it should use a *lot* less gas than the Ranger.  

It is also taking me a lot longer to dress the loom than it used to do.  So between the books, beaming, threading, sleying the warp, personal maintenance (or I can't do *anything*), and getting the new truck sorted, it was with a sigh of relief that I finally got this warp started.

The next warp will be a combination of two different shades of beige and the Lithuanian linen weft will be woven on that warp.  I also have a pound and a bit of a fine 3 ply linen in a slightly lighter beige, and that will also get used up on the beige.  Once those linen yarns are woven, the rest of the beige will be used to use up other colours of 2/16 - like the two *huge* cones of two different greens, and natural white.

I'm hoping the book auctions will be over in about 10 days, although it may take a couple of days to get all the sold books to the post office.  But I will be flipping through my pattern books, trying to decide on what threading/treadling to use for the linen weft towels.  I'm also planning a 'sale' of my tea towels the first 9 days of July, so that will take time - the photographing, listing, monitoring, then shipping.  The kind of thing that needs doing, but remains 'behind the scenes', while eating up time/energy.

I'm hoping once the book auctions are over that there will be fewer distractions and I can concentrate on getting through the next few warps.  If I can, I'd like to do one shawl warp before the craft fair in November.  Since I usually fringe twist those, I need to get them woven by September.  We'll see if I make it.

I admit to feeling a bit at loose ends because I have no clear idea of what I will do for the linen.  Once I figure that out I'm sure I'll feel a lot more focused.