Keeping it 'Simple'

 

This is one repeat (threading) and 1+ repeats of the treadling.  The beginning and end of the towel is woven in straight draw for the hems and to 'frame' the motif.

The motif is more-or-less circular with a tendency to look elongated, so now that I look at the cloth itself, it looks pretty much like the draft.  So I'm not too bothered that the pick count is less than I'd hoped due to the number of threads at 2/8 for size, instead of the intended 2/16.

In so many ways, weaving is like life.  You make plans.  You do your best to make 'good' decisions.  But sometimes life throws a curve ball and you scramble to adapt, change what you can, accept the results.  Or give up, entirely.

The largest investment in weaving a textile - especially for hand weavers - is the setting up of the loom.  I spent several hours thinking about it (what yarn do I have on hand, what will go together), sorting through my actual yarns on hand, choosing (in this case, badly), setting up the spool rack, tension box, and beaming.  The beaming takes about 2 hours (or more depending on how long/wide the warp is), then threading (hours, depending on the width, fineness of the yarns, the complexity of the draft), sleying, and tieing on.

And that's all before you ever start to throw the shuttle.

So to throw all that effort away?  I will weave 'imperfect' results so long as the results will still dry dishes...because at least I will have something to show for the time and trouble I went through to get a warp into the loom.

This is essentially the same draft as the last one, but simplified even further.  After my last pain procedure, my brain was not functioning well (was warned that might be the case) so I purposefully whittled down the last draft and made it simpler to thread for this warp.

Yesterday I started weaving, and that seemed to go well enough.  The big benefit of having it beat in less  than expected?  Less time to weave 'a' towel.  So I was able to weave one whole towel yesterday and even get started on another.

I'm aching a bit today, but I think I will feel better if I get up and get to the loom.  If nothing else I will feel less 'broken' if I can see some progress, somewhere in my life.  And I'm still trying to figure out my current 'limitations' and then see if I can expand them, going forward.  

Now I need to begin thinking about my next 'challenge' - that singles 6 cotton with twist energy in it.  I think I'll weave a sample of that on this warp and see how it looks.  I may have to reduce the epi to accommodate that relatively 'thick' yarn (in comparison to the 2/16).  Maybe 30?  Dunno.  I will have to wait until I can get the sample wet finished and then go from there...