Steeping

 

Yesterday I wrote another chunk of text for the current article I'm working on.  I was already beyond the word limit, but I had some other niggling thoughts I felt I should include.  And that's what editors are for - weeding out the 'extra' words.  :)

So, I thought about those 'extra' words while I was weaving, and just now came up and added those 'bullet points' at the end of the article.

I feel awkward because at the end of the experiment, I had little 'hard' data to share, but a whole lot more 'sample, sample, sample'!

But that's the thing about weaving.  

Variables.  Lots and lots of variables.  From the effect the climate and or health of the crop affects the fibre, through how it is processed, then spun, long before the weaver gets their hands on the yarn.  And just because you have woven with the yarn previously, doesn't mean it will be identical.

When I was first writing Magic in the Water, I determined that it was actually cheaper to buy the linen directly from Sweden.  So I gulped - hard - and ordered the yarn and then waited while it wended its way to Canada.

I was going to weave those samples on the Leclerc loom, and when I started winding the warps, the yarn was...well let's say that there were rather a sobering number of knots in the yarn.  Upon examination, the knots were all in the singles.  Since there was almost literally a knot every yard, I knew I could not afford to dump the yarn in the garbage, so I wound the first warp with breath bated.

And the yarn once plyed was fine.  I could still sort of see the tiny knots in the singles, but I also knew that by the time I'd wet finished it, those knots would likely be invisible.  

The following year I visited the dye house in Sweden and my friend and the manager were talking, mostly in Swedish (well, they were *in* Sweden!)  Once in a while they would include me in the conversation and one of those times was the comment by the mill manager that the crop that year had been incredibly good.  

"Oh, not like last year's then?"  He was startled, but looked a bit sheepish and said that the previous crop had been terrible.  

"I know.  The shipment I received was full of knots in the singles, but they behaved ok in the loom.  I was worried until I got that first warp woven and it was ok."

Then we talked about the health of the crops and sometimes you couldn't just compost it but you had to do the best you can to make it work, because our ancestors certainly could not have afforded to throw an entire years production away.

So I am going to let what I wrote steep for a few days, see if anything else occurs to me, and if it sits ok, the file will be handed off to my alpha reader.

Although writing is getting 'easier', when I'm tired or stressed whole words will either not make it from my brain to my finger tips - or words will hiccough and double up.  Sigh.

However the next article in the queue is going to be fun.  Too tired to start working on that today, but maybe tomorrow.