Shipping Woes

So.  Canada Post radically changed their shipping categories in February and I have had to make some decisions about doing mail order.

If you biggify the above photo you may be able to see that an item that I have been selling for $20 just cost me $23.94 postage to ship.  This amount does not include all the other costs of shipping (padded mailing envelope, drive to post office, time involved in writing up customs forms, waiting on line etc.

(I know in the US you can have mail picked up, but that isn't really an option for me.)

Even though I still have a few cones of the 'energized' and lycra yarn, I have had to make the decision to stop selling this specialty yarn via mail order.  When the shipping is more than the price of the item it no longer makes economical sense to try and sell it 'remotely'.  Whatever yarn I have left will just go to whatever shows that we do in person, or it will get used up for workshops.

But this decision has caused me to reflect on selling on Art Fire, which is where I've sold this yarn for the past couple of years.  If I can no longer economically sell yarn or tea towels in my Art Fire store, why bother to have it at all?

So I am seriously considering cancelling my Art Fire shop and just continue to market and sell my publications via internet sales groups or my contact list.

Since there is no longer a 'cheap' category to ship items, there is no longer any need to keep the Linen and Hemp publication as small as possible.  With just a few dollars separating the cheapest rate from ordinary expedited mail, I may as well go for a significant publication and make it worth while for people to pay the shipping to receive it.

I have already determined that the print run for L&H will be 50.  Right now I am thinking of going back to 10 samples (before and after wet finishing, of course!), including a binder and plastic pocket pages for the text pages.  I will decide on a price for the whole package in the next little while after I finalize the 10 samples to be included.

With just 50 copies, be sure you are on my contact list.  I will send out a notification closer to publication date.

AGY:Silk will likely be about the same in terms of format and price - possibly a little more expensive due to the cost of silk yarn.

Another Mini-Milestone (or two)

This morning I went up to the annex and did some more pressing.  The colours of the Fox Fibre yarns are actually a little more intense than shown here - guess the flash wiped some of the intensity out.

From the left - 50% green, 25% green, 50% brown, 25% brown, then regular 2/16 unmerc. cotton in cream and on the far right, natural white wefts.  I was going to put some of the 'raw' yarn on the cloth to show the change in colour - and I forgot.  Brain is truly not firing on all cylinders these days.  :(

Three of the wraps are almost ready to go.  I still have to sew the Fox Fibre label onto the two FF wraps that are ready, measure them and attach the care/hang tag.  The other three will get sewn some time this week, depending on how I feel after Wednesday.

In the meantime I have a long list of things that need to be done yet, including threading the guild loom on Monday, drive mom to her doctor's appointment and so on.  I'm still hoping to get the silk scarf warp sleyed and tied on today but it doesn't look like I'll get any weaving done.  We'll see how things go on Monday - hopefully I can at least get the first scarf started.

My web master made a truly Herculean effort last week and it looks like he's getting very close to finalizing the transfer of Magic to digital format.

Since word of mouth is the most effective marketing tool I'd appreciate it if you, dear readers, would pass the word that Magic will be available sometime in September in digital format.  I'm taking names and making up a contact list to let people know when I have cd's in hand and available to ship.  For those who prefer a 'real' book with actual fabric samples - there are still 14 abridged copies of Magic left.  They are listed on my Art Fire store http://laurafry.artfire.com/

People on my contact list will receive their copies of digital Magic first, then I will be listing it on my Art Fire store as well. 

Towelling Up

2/16 cotton warp with fine linen weft



2/8 cotton warp (warp twist) with rayon/linen boucle' weft




2/8 warp twist cotton warp with fine cotton slub weft


Finishing what I've woven always seems to take longer than the weaving, partly because I tend to do the tasks involved in batches. Since I do my pressing at another location I will put a load through the washer/dryer and then go to the annex and fire up the boiler. When the weather warms up it doesn't take very long before the room is far too hot so I wait for a cooler day before heading up there.

Tomorrow is Canada Day and it looks like it's going to be another cool one so I'm going to leave Doug to the final tearing up of the floor in the hall and bathroom and see if I can't get a couple more loads of towels pressed and ready to be hemmed.

There is also a stack of things already there that need their final pressing after hemming, so I'll try to get those done, too.

In the meantime I did finish some towels to the point where I could post them on my Art Fire store http://laurafry.artfire.com/

My goal in the next 10 days is to see how much of the wet finishing I can get done so that I can get things ready for the fall sales beginning in September.

It's difficult to believe the year is half over and that I've accomplished so little. :( But not feeling well tends to put a crimp in one's energy and I have to remind myself that I've done as much as I have been able to do and let it go. Frankly I've got lots of inventory, especially if I get the mound of wet finishing done.

Having a fringe twisting elf has sure helped with the scarf production, too, but I still have two large boxes of painted warps to be woven so I'm going to keep working on those.

But I also need to look to the future and see what else - other than weave - I can do. What do I want to do? There is still that e-book I was supposed to be writing and haven't had the mental capacity to deal with. Plus I have another writing project that I want to do that is unrelated to weaving.

Do I want to travel to teach more? With all the hassles re: security when one flies, plus all the extra charges for luggage and so on, travel is looking less attractive all the time. :( OTOH, once I get where I'm going I always have a great time and the people I've met are wonderful. :)

In the meantime I'm counting sleeps until we leave for Vancouver.

p.s. I'm extending the special on Magic in the Water; wet finishing handwovens - free shipping until the end of July - Happy Birthday Canada, the US - and moi!

Productivity

orange all used up - changed to cream - the beauty of a neutral warp!


After a weaving demo at a workshop, a new weaver came up to thank me for the demonstration. Essentially she said that she'd resigned herself to the fact weaving was going to be slow forever, and after watching me weave now realized that with practice she could eventually get faster.

Time is a precious commodity. Very few people have the luxury of taking a long time to make something. Granted some techniques are a lot slower than others, but no matter what someone is weaving, there are efficencies that can be introduced in order to make things flow more smoothly.

The past 3 days I have woven 3 eleven meter long warps. Including winding the warps and dressing the loom.

(Warps were 2/8 cotton, 20 epi, 300 ends. Eleven meters is approximately 12 yards.)

No, I have not been chained to the loom. In fact I would have been disappointed in myself if I hadn't woven off a warp a day. After all, the placemats are only 12 picks per inch. It takes nearly as long to weave the hems as it does the mat itself.

I am happy to pass on my techniques to others, either in person or through CD Weaver (a book on cd with video clips). When I'm teaching workshops I make a point of offering to show people how I hold and throw a shuttle. I think this is the area where I most often see inefficient technique and where - with a little help - most weavers can benefit. Not just in speeding up their weaving, but improving the quality of their selvedges.

There are video clips posted to this blog showing how I hold and throw the shuttle. Click on the label Video Clip to view the videos.

I have about 20 CD Weavers left. They are available at http://LauraFry.artfire.com

First Gamp Woven

Plain weave gamp

Today's progress has once again been slow. :( Wound three pastel warps and got one of them onto the Fanny and finally managed to get the plain weave gamp woven. I expect to weave the twill tonight while Doug is out visiting his buddy.

While I've done nothing about the two Mountains on my job list, I did tackle a separate issue that had been plaguing me. Unfortunately my blood pressure shot through the roof doing it, but at least it is now dealt with and not festering at the back of my mind. And for that I feel relieved. :)

I reviewed my blood pressure readings and made an interesting discovery. My bp settled down in June with readings that were not only good, but even a little on the low side. They shot up in September and have been very irratic since then.

In June I switched from Ezetrol to Niacin for cholesterol and in September I stopped taking the diuretic. When I reviewed the dates when my bp settled down and went ballistic again, I realized that in June I had also started taking a nutritional supplement, and in September I ran out of my supply and stopped taking it.

Ding!

So rather than try and change my medication again, I'm going to ask my doctor if we can wait until I can get another supply of the supplement to give that a go and see if it is the missing piece of the puzzle............

The downside is, of course, the fact that nutritional supplements aren't covered by my medical insurance while pills are. :( We'll see what the dr says on Wed. when I go in to get my Rx's renewed. I'm sure he'll have words about my bp readings, especially the one this afternoon when my bp really went ballistic. :( I hate being such a 'fragile flower'! :P~

I'm also hoping that getting my bp settled again will mean I'll feel more settled in my own skin and once more feel like working.

Currrently reading The Shack by William Young (read Sand Sharks by Margaret Maron and Fire and Ice by J. A. Jance while I was away)

Good Enough to Eat!

Here are the yarns for the pastel colour gamp kit. Delicious!

I'm not entirely happy with the pale green (third from the left) - dye lot difference means it is a tiny bit more intense than the sample card. But it's about the same value as the salmon (third from the right) so it should balance out nicely.

I continue to have a hard time getting myself to do anything at all, but finally got the twill neutral gamp woven, and that and the earth tones gamps are in the dryer along with a load of the hearts cotton tea towels - all of which will get pressed tonight.

Doug got me some more filtered water for the boiler so that has also been dealt with and I'll take it to the annex tonight when I go to press. There was only one 3 liter jug left so it was time.

There are a couple of things on my job list that I am finding to be real roadblocks mentally. They are committments that I agreed to a while ago and now find less than attractive. But I have given my word and feel honour bound to complete. Until they are done, I really don't want to start anything else but have been finding myself perfecting procrastination and therefore - not doing anything.

But that has got to change as show season has begun and there are many things that need to happen in very short order. My goal is to get both of the Mountains summited before I leave for the Seattle Weavers Guild sale on Oct. 20. That gives me 10 days.

This afternoon I'm going to wind the pastel gamp warp and see if I can get the loom dressed before dinner, press the load of stuff I just wet finished and tomorrow start tackling Mount Everest. Kilimanjiro may get offerred to another weaver because I'm really not wanting to go there, do that. :}

Tiny Steps of Progress

I'm not sure why I've been struggling the past few months, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I'm extremely deadline oriented. :}

Since I have plenty of inventory, the incentive to drive myself to the loom to make more seems - well, a little excessive?

Arrived home Sunday evening with a vanload of stuff (how on earth did I collect so much????) which filled the kitchen floor once it was offloaded. Where I'm going to put it all is a mystery, but the boxes and suitcases did get carried downstairs to the studio. Something to worry about another day.

Monday was frittered away catching up on mail (e and snail), attending a luncheon for a moving guild member, and then who knows what? I did work on the orders for the colour gamp kits, but need to wind more warps in order to assemble them.

The rest of the yarn arrived while I was away, and I'm much happier with the substituted colours so I can go ahead with the other two kits now.

I'm calling the one above "Neutral". It's also a sort of grey scale. I had intended to make all the gamps with the lightest value the dead centre, but this one worked with the natural white stripe slightly off centre, and I kind of liked the fact it was asymetrical. I also included a green because people often forget that some greens can make a great 'neutral' when crossing other colours.

Three of the kits are now listed http://LauraFry.artfire.com Pastel will go up later this week, once I've woven the test warp.

Today is errands with mom, then a consult with a guild member about her loom. I don't know if I can help, but I will go and take a look anyway.

Neutral Colour Gamp

For the past few weeks I've been high into procrastination mode. Today I finally figured out why - I'm waiting on word about a significant project and have been on tenterhooks wondering if it is going to go ahead with the co-operation of another person, or.....not.

I am terribly deadline driven, and with this project up in the air I find myself waffling. Nothing else that needs doing holds as much interest to me as this Major Project. The other person in question is also someone I admire greatly and could learn a lot from, so my interest in doing it is somewhat selfish. :}

So I have been playing a lot of computer solitaire (!), knitting my silly scarves from left over yarns from weaving, reading and distracting myself by doing video clips and posting here - a lot!

However, I have managed to make a little headway on the colour gamp kits. The Earth Tones kits are posted to my Art Fire store (http://LauraFry.artfire.com) and I'll be completing the Neutral kit today.

That said, my store will be going on vacation mode tonight as I head to Seattle area once more, this time to pack out the show at the Puyallup Fair, and inventory everything in preparation for the Seattle Weavers Guild sale Oct. 22-24.

Currently reading 206 Bones by Kathy Reich

Silk Yarn

50 skeins of silk dyed today

The dyeing went quite well. I got four dyepots done (two colours per skein) and some of the colours are unusual but attractive, I think.

The red/green at the bottom will look terrific with a dark teal weft - it will be hard to put these skeins up for sale!

The blue/purple above the red/green also looks great in real life. The light purple is not solid but shades from a pale almost pink to a lavender.

I'm really happy with the turquoise/blue. The red/blue isn't my personal taste, but looks pretty good for 'spring' type people. The red in these skeins is more of a coral colour.

These are 50 gram skeins. In future if I import more yarn I'll get it done in 100 gram skeins, so I'll sell this yarn two skeins at a time. That should give enough for a scarf warp at 30 epi.

It should show up on my Art Fire store in a few days as it will take a couple days to dry.

Currently reading The Lacemakers of Glenmara by Heather Barbieri

Too Much Quiet

The house seemed awfully empty and terribly quiet once our 'playmates' had left and I just didn't feel up to fighting with the fly shuttle box on the AVL.

So, consulting the handy job list, I was reminded that I needed to weave some samples of the yarn I will be offering for sale (some of it is already listed in my Art Fire store http://LauraFry.artfire.com)

The skeins of painted rayon slub have about 800 yards per skein - too much for a warp for one scarf, not enough for two. However I also have some painted Tencel from Yarns Plus in the right colour, so I coned off a skein of each and wound a 7 meter long warp using the two yarns together. A 7 meter long warp should easily give me 3 scarves.

Since this was for sample scarves I wasn't too fussed about exactly how wide the warp would be and simply kept winding until I ran out of yarn - 9 inches plus 4 ends wide.

The warp is set at 24 epi and for the first scarf I'm using Bambu 7 for weft.

The threading was a straight twill with Wall of Troy every once in a while. I'm not really sure why so many people say you must use only plain weave with variegated yarns. I think fancy twills look quite nice, too. :)

Not sure what else I'll use for weft for the other two scarves. I'm toying with trying a 1450 rayon chenille for one as I've several shades of blue that would probably look nice, too. If I use rayon chenille, I will use plain weave, though. Will see where the Muse leads me.

Tomorrow is lace - I'll let my Lace Ladies know the article in WeaveZine is published as they beta tested the pricking for it. :) http://www.weavezine.com

Currently reading The Devil's Disciples by Susanna Gregory

Seeing Red - Again

I seem to be having a red-fest. :) In the past week I've woven a couple of red shawl warps on the AVL, a red shawl on the Fanny, a red chenille scarf warp today and am just now dressing the Fanny again with a black and red warp. ;)

Red - the colour of energy. Perhaps my week of rest has allowed my energy to come back and my colour choice reflects that.

Don't know if I will finish weaving it before I leave tomorrow, but that's okay. The AVL is (gasp!) naked and destined to remain that way for a couple weeks. Well, not quite naked - the last warp still needs to be stripped off, but somehow a completely naked loom always looks so - hmm - pathetic? sad? :^)

I will go away and think about my priorities for when I get back and then decide what to weave on the AVL next.

A huge priority will be to get the studio cleaned up to the point where one can walk without the do-see-do between boxes. I have students coming this summer, and the studio has to be able to hold more than just me!

Another priority (sub-priority?) will be to finish skeining the yarn to be dyed and get that dyed this summer. Once I've done that I will have to decide if I continue to purchase natural yarn and dye it to sell and for my own use. I could get rid of a lot of stuff if I stopped doing that. OTOH, with my Art Fire store, perhaps I can sell it on the internet.

So I will be doing a lot of mulling over options and thinking about how I really want to spend my time for the forseeable future.

That's one of the nice thing about long road trips - lots of time to think without too many distractions.

When I come home I have a number of medical type appointments - I need new eyeglasses, a crown on one of my molars and a meeting with my family doctor to discuss changing my cholesterol medication (and find out what to expect in terms of my blocked arteries in terms of symptoms/treatment).

Bette Davis had it oh, so right - getting old is not for sissies! Who knew I'd reach that stage in my late 50's! ;^)

Ukrainian Skirts

The skirts are more orange in real life, but this gives an impression of what the cloth looks like.

The skirts are 'railroaded' - in other words the warp will be horizontal and the selvedges can be used for waist and hem.

The fabric is a 3:1 twill - i.e. the face of the fabric has 3 threads of warp to 1 thread of weft showing. As usual, I'm weaving the cloth backside up so that I only have to lift the one thread. Now that I have air assist it isn't that big a deal, but I figure anything that is hard for my body to do will be hard for the loom to do.

So I content myself by looking at the back side of the cloth while weaving.

Last night I managed to get two yards woven by the time Doug got home at 9:15. Today I've carried boxes up the stairs in preparation to loading the van but for now I'm going to go weave and see if I can get another two yards done before lunch.

And then I'll head to town with some of the orders that arrived through my Art Fire store. :)

Ukrainian Skirts and Seconds

Ta-Daa! Here is the fabric for the skirts beamed. I've just started transferring the bouts to the long stick that I use to carry all the bouts together to just behind the heddles for threading.

This warp is relatively narrow at 32" in the reed, so it has been off set to the right by 4" in order to make sure the fly shuttle works properly.

I've been thinking a lot about seconds and as usual with weaving, the answer is 'it depends'.

Partly it depends on what the flaw is that makes a textile a 'second'. If the flaw is something that does not compromise the function of the fabric, I have no difficulty selling or giving it away - with a caveat that it *is* flawed.

Flaws that can be fixed are always fixed to the best of my ability, and once fixed may lift the textile from 'flawed' to perfectly able of being sold as a 'first'.

Threading errors can't be fixed once the fabric is woven and ultimately I don't mind selling those seconds to other weavers. Who better able to appreciate that - once again - I've proved myself all too human and made a mistake?

Dye lot differences are another 'flaw'. Sometimes dye lot differences are all but invisible on the loom and only pop out at your eye after wet finishing. Again, nothing that will detract from the function of the fabric, but something that can be a lot more obvious than a threading error.

It all depends............

So my conclusion is to judge each 'second' on a case by case basis. :}

In the meantime, a weaver has offered to buy some of my seconds. Thanks Barbara! And when I looked at the pile, there weren't as many as I'd feared. Just a couple left now.

As for the Special Promotion on Art Fire? I've come up with an idea for May 9-July 9 and will test drive that option when the time comes. Stay tuned!

Currently reading The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry

Forging Ahead

While I haven't made it to the press as often as I'd hoped, today saw another 20 towels wet finished and 4 finished towels given their final press - ready to be tagged and sold.

This one is probably my current fav. The colours are brighter than all those pale pastel blues I wove so much of last fall/winter. Somehow the aqua seems to match my mood for spring?

Anyway, the four finished towels were posted to my store on Art Fire but if these ones don't sell, I can't say I'll be disappointed in having to keep them for myself. :D

I don't know where the days go. I always have such high hopes and never seem to get all I'd like done accomplished.

Oh well - there's always tomorrow.......

http://LauraFry.artfire.com

Currently reading My Great Big Supernatural Honeymoon (collection of short stories)

More Stash? Moi?

Falling into the category of 'what was she thinking?' - this photo shows in the foreground about 70 pounds of yarn that arrived this morning, along with a few of the boxes of yarn returning from the Fibres West show that still need to be unpacked. Somewhere needs to be found for it all to live until the next show. :}

Now twenty pounds of that yarn will be skeined and sent to Teresa to be dyed for re-sale, and some of the rest is for a commission, but still! Where it will all go remains to be seen.

Add into that the fact that my Basic Weaving students will begin coming next Monday to wind warps, and I confess to a little panic along with low energy and no particular desire to actually attack the unpacking.

However I continue to think a great deal about the shape of my time and how I want to spend it and ultimately feel that while I do still want to weave, I also need to deal with the over abundance of inventory.

To that end I have opened an Art Fire store, and begun by listing one lonely tea towel. As I get myself organized over the next few days I expect to add more stuff. I've got lots of tea towels and scarves. I haven't researched enough to find out if I can sell yarn on Art Fire.

One of the advantages of Art Fire is that they don't charge listing fees, just a flat fee per month. Payment can be by Paypal and since I already have a Paypal account set up, that was easy enough.

While I have the tea towel listed on Art Fire for sale on my website, my website is really much more about education and my workshop/seminars and the books that I sell.

I've had my website since the internet was mostly about education, not selling, so I've sort of kept that approach in terms of format. I would likely have to work a lot harder to turn my website into a 'store' than I really want to, so thought I'd try Art Fire.

Well, we will see how it goes!

http://LauraFry.artfire.com