In Real Life

 

A few years ago I got to know about a person because of their on line posts, then briefly met them in real life at a fibre event.  There was no time to do more than chat because fibre events are, by their very nature, not conducive to having any kind of in depth conversation.

Last night I had a Zoom 'meeting' with that person, and it was lovely and delightful and rare - and I found myself wishing I could do that sort of thing more often.

Then this morning on Twitter, two other fibre folk were saying the same thing - how much they missed hanging out with each other and they should really get together via Zoom (or whatever platform) and erase the miles and time zones and enjoy each other in real time (if not actually in 'real life')

And suddenly I felt...lonely.  Wanting more interaction with people who are as passionate about fibres as I am.  People who dig deep into the craft, then joyfully share their discoveries.  People who aren't afraid of making mistakes - because that's how we learn.  I wanted more one-on-one time with some people.

Last night we talked about how this pandemic has begun to open opportunities to interact with people in a new way, people we might never have come to know because of the aforementioned thousands of km and time zone changes.  

The problem is, most of the people I would love to interact with are busy as beavers trying to scratch out a living and there is little time, energy or opportunity to sit down, even across the miles via the internet.  They have on line classes to teach - or prepare for - they only have so much energy, so much time, and they have to use it wisely.  

My schedule is no longer crazy with travel and classes which means I have even less interaction with folk about textiles.  And after a year plus of not getting together with fibre folk, I find I'm missing it.  

The Sunday Seminars have really helped as I have had a chance to learn from others about textiles/techniques I know little about.  They have kept me engaged and inspired.  And the next one is coming up THIS Sunday.

Stefan Möberg will talk about some of his projects that I find intriguing.  He has been working to develop a Swedish tweed, using Swedish wool.  He also managed to acquire a Hattersley loom, and has been working to get it set up and reliably running.  Plus another project that I find very interesting and would love to know more about, but we'll see if he has time to discuss that one as well as the other two.

There are seminars booked through to October, then three more in 2022.  If interest in this series continues, I will consider adding more, but it will depend on there being enough interest to make them profitable enough to pay the speakers (and a little left over to help pay the guild room rent.)

Stay tuned...

Textile Travels

 

Over the course of my life, I've actually travelled a few miles.  As a child we routinely did Sunday Drives wherever we could get to - and back from - home in a day.  Mom would pack a picnic and we would set off.

As a child I needed medical care in Vancouver, and for a number of years we set off on the overnight Greyhound bus (overnight to save a night in a hotel) and we walked and bussed around Vancouver in between trips into the medical office.

At 16 mom put me on the train and I went from home to Montreal and back.  

At 19 I took the train to Montreal again, but this time it was just the jumping off place in order to board a freighter as a passenger to disembark in Oslo, train to Örebrö, Sweden.  While there, I also booked a bus tour of Europe.  That meant another train trip - Örebrö to Stockholm to Malmö to catch the ferry to Travemunde, Germany.  That tour did a circle - overnight in Brussels, then Paris, then Nice where we stayed for a week taking day trips to Cannes and Grasse (to visit the perfumery) and Monaco.  Yes, I 'lost' a few coins in the one armed bandits in the lobby, just to say I'd gambled in Monaco!

The trip back to Travemunde and the ferry took us through Milan, then through the Alps (and I mean through, the bus boarded a train that went through a very long tunnel to get us to the other side of a mountain), then Hamburg before boarding the ferry and taking the train back to Örebrö.

On my travels I met very kind and helpful people, some of whom I stayed in touch with for a number of years before losing track of them.

As a weaving teacher I mostly travelled in North America, but also met kind and helpful people.  Many of them also had interesting travel stories, one of them Winnie Nelon, who will be presenting a Sunday Seminar on May 16.

She has travelled extensively and collected textiles on the way.  In the photo above there is a textile with an interesting story and it is one of the textiles she will talk about.  (If I'm remembering correctly!)

We can learn much about different cultures by learning more about the textiles they make and use, and that is part of the reason I reached out to the people I did - they could shine a light on other cultures and their textiles.

I have begun booking people for 2022.  Zoom isn't the best medium but it's actually quite easy for even 'old dogs' like me to learn 'new tricks'.  And I've been having a great time talking to the speakers as we make our arrangements, then listening to their adventures.

Given Covid and how the pandemic is playing out, I suspect it is going to be another year before travel outside of the North American bubble is really recommended, so I'm looking at booking another 10 seminars for the coming year.  There are names on my list of more people to contact but I'm holding off a bit.  I have three so far with more I need to get in touch with.

I invite you to check out the guild website (link above) and consider registering for one of the seminars.  The prices are in Canadian dollars, so Americans get the exchange rate discount.  :)

In June Stefan Möberg will talk about a project near and dear to his heart and Janet Dawson will share her travels in Turkey.  All are now available for registration.  So far everyone has allowed the live presentation to be taped and made available for 30 days afterwards if you can't make the live date.  Anyone registered will receive the link to the Zoom meeting the Friday before the presentation, then the private link to the recorded meeting.

I've been enjoying my armchair travels a lot.  I hope you are too!

Shetland

 

This morning's Sunday Seminar was with Deborah Robson talking about Shetland fleeces and textiles.

It was a fascinating overview of the characteristics of Shetland fleeces - which are varied - and a peek at some of the textiles that Shetland is so famous for.

Shetland is definitely one of those places in the world I would love to visit, but being able to have a taste was greatly appreciated.  

It was also heartening to hear that the Shetland textile traditions are not just being preserved, but are changing and growing with younger (than me!) practitioners exploring the crafts and keeping them not just alive, but living.

Deborah talked about a well known person who does the very important job of grading the fleeces, and how he now has a younger apprentice, ensuring that the quality of the fibres will continue to be assessed for spinners who understand what they want in a fleece.

In many ways I thought about my own stay upon this earth and how we need to do the same in weaving. I have found the Olds master program helpful in finding like minded students who are willing to dig deep into the craft and keep it alive and living - growing, changing, evolving.

During this time of living pandemically, being able to reach those people via Zoom has been enormously satisfying to me.  While I do love to teach in person, being able to continue the passing on of knowledge remotely means that I can continue to reach out and actually touch many more people than what I can do in person.  

For anyone interested in these Zoom presentations, each one can be done in about 2 hours and given as a guild presentation, via Zoom.  Or I can add more to the Saturday Study Group on Facebook.  The third presentation is coming this Saturday, the first two remain accessible via private link.  If anyone is interested, send me a message on FB and a friend request, and I can add you.  Or, if you know someone already in the group, they can add you.  

In the meantime Deborah says she is working on more books.  I've asked to be notified when they are ready so I can spread the word.

Necessary Tasks

 

Since November I have woven rather a lot of tea towels.  With no craft fairs and little other opportunity to sell much, as each warp was woven, wet finished, hemmed and final press given, the stacks were simply put on another shelf and ignored.

Doug has begun tagging them now, which means my work table is tied up with that task.  Which means processing the warp I finished weaving yesterday has to wait until he is done.

However, I did rough sley the place mat warp and, if I un-bury the Leclerc Fanny, I can be dressing that loom today while Doug continues with the tagging.

But my heart is not on weaving place mats right now.  

I tend to work in series and like to complete each one before I move on to something else.  However, since I have a second loom, the transition from one to the other isn't as great as if I only had the one loom.

Because my mind is on track for a particular quality of cloth, it is somewhat jarring to switch from one to the other.

It didn't used to be.  Time was I could blithely switch from one to the other without too much thought.  I don't know if it is the ordinary process of aging or the chemo/stress brain that is making flexibility more difficult, but I find myself being very one track about things.

In the evening I can more easily shift from hemming to spinning, but am finding myself reluctant to switch from Megado to Fanny then back again for just one warp.

I have managed to do a few other tasks that are necessary.  My tax receipts are sorted and just need to make an appointment with my accountant to go over a few things.  I continue to read through a manuscript that was sent to me.  I would have printed it out so I could read it sitting in my recliner in the window but it was 300+ pages, so I read it in smaller chunks sitting at the desktop.  (I don't much like reading a book on my ipad - personal preference!)  Several bins of yarn have been pulled for future warps and I continue to 'edit' them, sometimes changing my mind entirely about what I am going to do.  But I have the next one ready to go into the Megado as soon as Doug is done.

I continue to work on the Power Point presentations.  The latest one is on design considerations, which I'm finding particularly challenging.  Again, I will be focusing on principles, on theory, on concepts.  I have touched on some of these in one presentation already, but everything is connected so the principles drift into and out of other themes.  Everything about creating a textile is dependent upon multiple factors.

The sifting of potential Sunday Seminar speakers for 2022 has begun.  I'm just trying to clear a few things off my desk before I start working on those again.  

Speaking of selling tea towels, I expect I'll begin posting more of the towels to ko-fi, and I've added a ko-fi tip jar link to this blog.  Thank you to all who have bought (a) coffee(s).  It helps to pay for things like studio insurance, postage, parts to repair equipment,  Zoom, and who knows, maybe even a trip to a conference one of these days.

Now that vaccines are being rolled out, I have been toying with another trip to Cape Breton area, see if I can get my research 'paper' and access to the textile collection at Louisborg.  But that will have to wait, maybe until 2022.  And I will no doubt wear a mask while travelling because who knows what state the pandemic will be in.  Trudeau is saying September for full vaccination, but if so, that feels too soon for me to be traveling from one side of the country to another, even if Air Canada and WestJet are flying into Sydney, NS again.  

And once again we face the time change this weekend.  I had hoped that BC would stay on standard time, or next best, join Yukon on Daylight Savings.  It makes little sense for people living in the north to bother with the seasonal change when we wake up in the dark, go home from work in the dark for a chunk of the year, or have daylight well before waking and well after bedtime.  Far enough north and it is 24/7 dark or daylight, winter/summer.  So why bother to change at all???

Well, no matter.  Bottom line is I need to get to the studio, dig out the Leclerc, start setting up that last place mat warp (of this quality of cloth).  I'm looking forward to the next towel warp which will be mostly turquoise with a little emerald green, a couple of variegated ends of blue/green, to be woven off with the black cotton flake.  I think they will be pretty.  And that should empty another section of shelf.

Onwards!

Deborah Chandler

 

I had a Zoom meeting with Deborah Chandler this morning getting comfortable with Zoom.  It was great to talk and learn more about her and I'm looking forward to her Zoom seminar tomorrow.

Just finished reading Jann Arden's book If I Knew Then and part of her 'message' was that good things come out of bad things.  That is not to say that we need to be happy about the bad things in our lives, but that we can look for the silver linings in those clouds.  A philosophy that I have lived by for a very long time.

So while the pandemic has been bad, some good things have come out of it.

Being able to talk to someone in Guatemala, or Peru, or Sweden, sharing our stories, sharing our photos, our textiles?  Definitely a good thing.

We talked about things that we are doing during the pandemic, her relief work in the highlands for the people who are, on top of the pandemic, dealing with flooding.  I talked more about how and why I decided to learn how to do Zoom (badly, but never mind) and work on the seminar series.

We talked about how amazing it is to reach across the continent, indeed around the globe, and be in touch with others.

We talked about building bigger tables, better understanding between folk and different cultures.  

It is a discussion I would like to have with more people, for longer and deeper, but it felt good to have that hour of connection.

We talked about continuing the series into 2022, and I am open to do that.  But that will have to wait a bit while I deal with my three study groups and continuing with the seminar series as it currently is.

The next one will be Deborah Robson, talking about Shetland.  I'm looking forward to that as well as the rest.  

Deborah Chandler's seminar registration is closed now, but Deborah Robson and Winnie Nelon's are still open with Stefan Mo:berg's opening in the next day or two.

The sun is shining here, spring is in the air (maybe, maybe not!) but I'm still not walking as I will wait until it is a bit more spring than it currently is.  Instead I am heading to the loom to weave my two towels of the day, then rough sley the warp for the Leclerc, then cut/serge the 8 towels and get them wet finished (if there is time or energy left in the day - time will tell).

Another Week

 

Sunday has become the 'standard' for a new week - Sunday through Saturday.  We are so used to this that one time I bought a pocket planner that had Monday as the first day in the calendar layout and it caused me so much confusion I replaced it with my usual 'norm'.

The hours seem to creep by, and yet here we are at another Sunday.  Where did that last week go?  I barely left the house - on Thursday (to deal with personal maintenance issues) - and yet so many of the things that I wanted, needed, to do...are still undone.

This morning, scrolling through Twitter, I was reminded that the entire population of the world is dealing with a flood of stress hormones.  These hormones interfere with brain function.  So no, it's not just me.

In a few minutes I have to go to the studio and get set up for another Sunday Seminar and then the afternoon will be spent getting the video uploaded to You Tube.  I have some minor tasks that I can be doing while that happens.  Mostly it's sitting around waiting for the progress bar to creep across the screen.  I'm getting better at walking away and leaving the laptop do it's thing.

But I also have several things on my to-be-done list that really need to be put on the 'done' list.  So this week I will be focusing on that.  Deadlines loom.

Beginning this week I am going to be in the throes of Zoom meetings.  Every Sunday for the next few months I am involved with Zoom, either hosting or attending.  Plus one Saturday a month.

I appreciate the chance to stay in touch with folk, even if it is at long distance.  I appreciate the opportunity distance learning provides so that I can continue to learn from others.  I appreciate the chance to reach out to others who also want to learn.

The pandemic continues.  But so do we.

Sending best wishes for the coming week, and a nod to whomever made February the shortest month.

Stress Fatigue

 

Stress wears on a body.  We have had a year of pandemic stress on top of whatever else we are dealing with and the stress hormones flood our systems.  We are in a constant state of alertness and alarm.  And we get tired.  Fatigued.  

I went through a trough of energy in August and pulled myself out of it by setting up the Sunday Seminar Series.  It was a tonic.  At the same time I continued to work on my health, physical and mental, and felt better, overall, than I had for a while.

Winter arrived and after a long, grey, dreary summer, we entered a long, grey, dreary winter.

In January I started to slump again.  It has been more difficult to maintain a positive attitude, in no small part due to the continuing uncertainty of the pandemic and political situations.  And I started a mentoring group for my students.  

Word got out and I started another group for people outside of the Olds program.  Yesterday I set up a 3rd as the 2nd group became quite large.

Doing the seminar series and the study groups has meant I have had to learn new-to-me technology.  Learning anything new is tiring, mentally.  I had to work out what I was willing to do.  And what I wasn't.  I had to set boundaries and limits on how much time I was going to spend on these programs.

On the physical front, my massage therapist encourages me to continue with the exercises as prescribed and assures me I am making good progress.  And I know that is correct, but I am so far from where I was before the cancer returned in 2017 it feels too big a hill to climb.  I'm so grateful I made the decision to close my business in 2019 or I'd have the additional stress of trying to keep said business afloat.

I tire of posting encouraging things on FB about staying home, wearing a mask, etc.  If people haven't gotten the message by now, they never will.  I grieve for those people losing a loved one, or even their health, dealing with Long Covid.  It could have been so different if we'd just learned from history and the flu pandemic in 1918-19.  And yet, here we are.

I find myself once again in a trough, feeling tired and achy, looking out the window at the grey dreariness that seems to be becoming the norm these days.

There are still many things I would like to do, places to go, people to see.  We have to continue to navigate what is happening now so that we can get to that stage of safely traveling again.

In the meantime I have a warp I really like on the loom.  I've woven with this combination before and am pretty confident that I will really like the results after wet finishing.  I like the colour combination, and more importantly, I am using up stash.  The thicker yarns get used up faster but I'm getting low on combinations that I will find pleasing so am having to really stretch in terms of my choices.

In between sessions at the loom, I continue to work on the Power Point presentations.  I started the study groups with only a vague idea of what I could do but my vision has begun to take more solid form.  And by the end of the year I will have about 12 Power Point presentations that could be used, individually or in combination, for on line guild programs/seminars/mini-workshops.  This should allow me to continue to teach even if I cannot travel in person.

And that is not a bad thing.

In the meantime we continue to stay home as much as possible, wear a mask when we go out, not gather in person.

And rest when the fatigue becomes too great.

Maintenance

 

Work has come to a halt on the spinning front.  I have an electric spinner, and it has, slowly over time, been working more and more erratically, as in not holding the speed it has been set to spin at.  At first it was only a mild fluctuation, but gradually the variation has gotten worse, to the point where it was frustrating and my results were...variable.

Having a handy in-house maintenance person who seems to enjoy tinkering, I explained what was going on and when I finished the burgundy rolags, he tore the spinner apart to see if there was a bad solder connection or some other reason for the inconsistent behaviour.

When all looked to be ok there, he called someone he knew to come and take a look at the speed controller and after taking a long hard look at the set up and then using a testing tool, he diagnosed that the part was not working properly and needed replacing.

Doug is never shy about checking websites, and eventually between Jim and himself, he found a supplier of the part and just now ordered some spares.

Thing is, the business that made this spinner is no longer in business and whatever warranty they might have provided (plus my initial inquiry about the problem to the business wasn't very helpful anyway) long ago lapsed so I had no qualms about letting Doug and Jim have a go at getting it working again.

My desire to spin down my fibre stash is strong, so I even paid for courier delivery from the warehouse in Texas, and Doug bought four of the parts.  They are 'cheap' and the point is to have a part that works, plus spares should they be necessary.

All being well, the parts should be here by the end of the week.  

So, my spinning is on hiatus until the necessary maintenance is done.

In the meantime, I have hemming again.  Yesterday I finished the grey warp, cut/serged the mats, wet finished them, including their hard press.  Then because that warp seemed to go ok, I wound another mat warp.  This one will be a gift for the guild treasurer, a thank you for all the work she is doing with the Sunday Seminar Series.  I have two more colour combinations pulled and may do a couple more warps on the Leclerc before I switch back to the Megado and start making scarves.

I realized that my making dozens of things in order to use up one of my yarns entirely (or as close to that as I can manage) probably isn't the best strategy right now.  So I expect that my series weaving will be shorter - both in terms of numbers of things woven and time involved.

The tea towels served a purpose and I'm not sorry I made so many.  Once I had the nuts and bolts of the quality of cloth I wanted, I didn't need to think much any more, just choose colours that appealed to me and then just go do.

But hopefully the pandemic will begin to be suppressed now and I'm beginning to look forward, to the 'after', the life beyond the pandemic.

The first of the seminar series happened on Sunday, and there is a pretty good chance that I will do more for 2022.  But that decision will be made around May or June.  In the meantime, I'm making a list.  If there is someone *you* would like to participate, I can consider that person if you let me know.  Email please laura at laurafry dot com

Sunday Musings

 Today was the first of the Sunday Seminar Series and it was...bittersweet.

I have so much missed getting together with like minded textile folk, just sitting down with them, maybe passing samples or finished items back and forth, my fingers feeling the quality of the cloth, and just talking.  About textiles.  About life.  About following ones passion.

While I have been doing really well during this time of pandemic, the seminar really jolted me into what we have been missing for the past year, what we have had to set aside, what we are having to do without.

But Abby talked about community, and serving, and how time is a commodity, and it all rang so many bells, I longed to be able to meet with her in real life and just sit and chew the fat, follow the threads of a conversation that we could weave into stronger community.

So while I long for in person interaction?  This morning was a pretty darned good second best.

I don't know Carol James in real life, but I do know the work she has been doing with sprang and I know I am going to find her presentation just as interesting.

Carol has focused her time and attention on ceinture fleche' and sprang.  With more archeological finds finding textile goods, there has been speculation that some of the first trousers ever made were made with sprang.  Art from Grecian times shows 'amazons' (Sythians, from the area around the Caspian Sea) wearing trousers with decoration that can easily be achieved using sprang.  Sprang is a textile technique that lends itself to any number of uses, and can be quite elastic, much like modern day leggings.

photo of trousers by Carol James

If people are interested in learning more, Carol's website has a lot more information.  Check out her classes, too.

Registration is open for Carol's seminar in February.  A bargain at $15.75 Cdn ($10.50 if you are a guild member.  

After Carol comes Deborah Chandler, then Deborah Robson.  Both Deborah's seminars are now open for registration as well.

Rolling Right Along

 

Yesterday I finished the dark navy weft and wove the first with green weft.  I'm actually liking this combination - a lot.

I might make this side the 'right' side because more green shows and the other side might be a bit dark.  Right now it's too hard to see and really know how it is going to look on the other side. 

There is enough of this green to do 5 or 6 towels and then?  Then I have a really dark purple, which should do about 6 or maybe 7 towels.  And that should finish off this warp.

Registrations for the seminar series has begun.  I'm hoping that as more people find out about it, more people will register.

As previously mentioned, I decided to organize these partly as a way to break down some of the isolation we are all feeling.  And of course here in the northern hemisphere we are heading into winter, a time when many people wind up isolated due to the weather and poor driving conditions.

When the internet was first made public it was touted as being a great leveler, a way for people around the world to communicate and share information.  Since then commercial endeavours seem to have taken it over and we are bombarded with advertising.  Setting up this series felt like returning to the original intent of the internet - the world wide web.

With so many people seeking to divide (and conquer?), it seemed like this series might be a way to remind people that we are more alike than we are different.  Plus put people you may have heard of but would never be able to learn from right in your home.  People who you may never have heard of, but who have textile stories you will find interesting.  People who love textiles as much as you do.  

A way to bring people together instead of building barriers.

Registration has begun, people are welcome to join in.  Americans should know that prices are in Canadian dollars, so you get an exchange rate discount.  What's not to love?  

Prince George Fibre Arts website will take your registration.  Sign up yourself or buy for holiday gift giving.  Most of us will be shopping on line this year anyway, why not have something to look forward to in the new year?  You can also join the guild as an associate member.  That way you get first chance to register and only pay the guild member price.

Spark to a Flame

 

I have always believed that it is better build something than tear something down.  And if you need to tear something down, have a plan to re-build - better than it was before.

The pandemic has required us to shutter so many aspects of our lives.  There has been deep disappointment in having to cancel things - workshops, fibre events, family celebrations.  We have had to find new ways to do things.  New ways to communicate.  New ways to be together - apart.

With the rise in the use of things like Zoom, I saw an opportunity.  Even though I'd never hosted anything via Zoom (I'd participated in exactly one Zoom meeting), I knew hundreds of folk were using Zoom to communicate with groups - sometimes quite large groups - of people.  Even though I didn't know exactly how Zoom worked, I knew it could be made to work.  And I knew a number of fibre folk were initiating Zoom presentations.

And so I decided - if not now, when?  If not me, who?  And started contacting people I knew - or knew of - and asking - would you be interested in doing something via Zoom?

It took just a few weeks to contact people, get an answer yay or nay (because some people have unreliable internet) and move on to the next.  I had a mental list and simply went down the list, checking each one off as we set a date, and moved on to the next.

The guild had other things going on until the end of the year, so I decided to begin in January - a new year, filled with hope.  Seemed about right.

Birthe worked getting the guild website updated, set up payment options, developed spread sheets to keep track of registrations.  My part in this was just the spark.  Hers made it a flame.

A flame of light as the days became darker, colder.  Something to look forward to.  

Registration went live Wednesday night and people have already begun to register for the first three seminars.  As each seminar ends, the next in the queue will go 'live' for registration.

As things get 'worse' here with Covid, I have to accept that our guild room sale may get shut down before it even begins.  But I'm hoping for at least a couple of days where folk can come and buy guild members work.  Time will tell.

In the meantime we have an 'official' covid plan for the sale - and the seminars for those members who either have unreliable internet or don't want to deal with the technology.  All we can do is try.  All we can do it make an effort.  All we can do is hope.  And try to keep that flame alive.

Check out the seminars to see if there are any of interest.  You don't have to be a guild member, although if you want to, you can join as an associate (if you live more than 50 kilometers from town) and you will get the guild member rate and priority registration.

As for me, one tiny bit of  hope for 2021 - I have agreed to teach level one master weaver class for Olds next June.  Let's all wear our masks and beat this virus down so we can get back to in real life classes!

More Log Jams

 

Abby Franquemont

Yesterday after writing about log jams, the universe seemed to think I wanted more of them, and I spent way too much time trying to unpick several.

However, I did eventually prevail!  We now have an official Covid plan for the guild sale and hopefully the questions I answered today will seal the deal.  I cannot complain about the necessity of having a Covid plan - we already did - it just took some time to get the 'official' plan in place.  I am actually pleased that everyone here seems to be taking the pandemic seriously, even though our town has been pretty safe.  At least up until now.  (It probably doesn't hurt that the person in charge of the arts facility got covid early in the pandemic and is therefore hyper aware.)

Last night registration for the first three of the Sunday Seminars went live for guild members.   Birthe has made it as easy as possible for people to register and I am pleased to say that Abby Franquemont has agreed to take the lead spot.

The seminars are scheduled for 10 am Sunday mornings Pacific time (whether that is standard or daylight savings is to be determined, but it is easy enough to find out with a quick google search.  Our premier has been dancing back and forth about cancelling the time change and may do so now that he has a solid majority).

I choose a morning time slot so that some of our speakers could still participate without staying up until dark o'clock.  It also means that people living to the east of us can also participate without staying up until dark o'clock.  Because yes, even if you live somewhere else, you can participate.  If you choose to become an associate member, you can take advantage of the early registration and you get a discount on the public registration fee.

The end result was that I spent so much time at the computer I only got one towel woven.  I am hoping to get two done today.

I did pull some additional colours for weft because the dark navy will do about 5 towels.  When value is more important that hue, I was able to pick out a couple of very dark purple tubes and dark hunter green.  Between those two hues, there should be almost enough to finish the blue warp.  If I need more yarn, I have other dark hues that I can use.  Or if it is close enough to the end, I might just sacrifice whatever warp is left at that point.  To be determined.

We have another grey dreary day here.  It rained last night and the roads are a mess.  I am happy to stay home until the weather settles down and we get 'true' winter, not this shoulder season messiness.

Stay safe.  Stay well.  Stay covid aware.

Log Jam

 Log Driver's Waltz

When working on a Big Project it can sometimes feel as though you are dealing with a log jam.  There doesn't seem to be any way to make progress, everything is a jumble.  There doesn't seem to be a way through - over or under, left or right.

But you keep working at it, one log at a time.  Deal with this one.  Move that one.  Resolve this other one.

My life has been one log jam after another.  Every warp seems to take on aspects of a jam - until it is free and clear.

Every design, twisted this way and that.  Consider this thing and that.  Choose this over that other.

Eventually?  Eventually it flows again.  It becomes smooth again.

It feels perilous at times.  In the case of Magic, I was asking a pretty big price, but I had to in order to pay the bills.  Would anyone be willing to pay what I was asking?

Initially I thought that the main audience for Magic would be guilds but in the end it was individuals who ante'd up the money and bought personal copies.  One person bought two - one for herself, one to loan to trusted friends.

Over the years I've organized conferences - and dealt with more log jams.  People wouldn't answer questions, or posed them.  Details had to be dealt with.  Other people needed to be called in to help.  Projects that could not be done by just one person so, many hands made light work.

After many years of juggling deadlines, marketing myself, I got tired.  So I finally decided to step back (somewhat) from what I had been doing.

After publishing Magic I declared that there would never be another book.  And yet...

Another log jam.  Worrying away at this detail and that.  I think it was version 13.7 that finally got handed over to a professional editor who took it into the final form.  And dealt with all the technical questions of publishing.

I organized my 'first' conference in 1980.  The second one was 1985, I think.   Then chaired the ANWG conference here in 1995 AND installed the gallery exhibit - textiles by Jack Lenor Larson.  Then 2019, ANWG again.

Each time, poking logs this way and that until the event flowed.

Now my goals are more modest.  I have contacts.  I have excellent guild members willing to pitch in and help shove logs this way and that.  It made sense for me to set up the seminar series.  The guild treasurer commented that doing this was just like organizing a small conference.  She isn't wrong.

But when you have a team you can trust?  You can dig into that pile of logs, knowing that your co-workers have your back - and your front and side.

Fibre folk are a community in the best way possible.  We share a love of fibre, in all its forms.  We share an excitement about working with it, and seeing what other people are doing with it.

And so we come to the place and time when the seminar series will go public.  Registration opens tonight at 7 pm for guild members (including associate members).  You don't have to belong to the guild to register but you need to wait for guild members to sign up first, and you'll pay a slightly higher fee.

On a personal note, I have finally figured out my Zoom account (I hope!) and now that the series is about to flow, with other guild members taking over their part in the waltz, I need to pay attention to learning Zoom myself.  I need to finish my Power Point presentation for my deadline - and test everything to make sure I can do what I *think* I need to do.

One log at a time.

Mastery

 

Mastery isn't about being 'perfect' but understanding your tools and materials - how far you can push them beyond their limits in order to get what you want in the end.

But that's the thing - what is it you want, in the end?

Which is why I call myself a Form Follows Function weaver.

I begin with where I want to end up, then work backwards, checking each choice of materials, design, colour, etc.  Not once but multiple times.

Since I am supposed to be giving a talk next month about being a professional/production weaver, I have been thinking a lot.  Thinking about how I have chosen to live my life.  All the myriad decisions that I have had to make.  All the 'extra' knowledge I had to learn in addition to learning how to master my craft.

Being a business.  How to promote myself (still the hardest thing I do).  Setting up tax accounts to collect and remit the provincial then federal sales taxes.  Balancing debt vs income.  Setting up production schedules based somewhere in reality - just how many yards can I actually weave in a day?  Then how long will it take to do the wet finishing.  The dry finishing.  The tagging/pricing.  Et bloody cetera.

I am not tired of weaving, as such.  I got very tired of dealing with the minutiae of what needed to happen with all the stuff associated with being a business.

And for me it was simple.  I started as a sole proprietor and ended as one.  I had to make sure I had insurance to protect myself from any frivolous suits, theft, loss through fire/water.  Insurance became horribly expensive after 9/11 and I had to up my liability insurance from 1 million to 2 million dollars.  Just in case someone came into my booth, tripped over something, then sued me for injury.

I had to carry extra insurance on the van because I transported inventory - around $40K for the last few years - plus all the booth apparatus - another couple thousand dollars, and that low only because Doug built the last set of shelving we used.

Learning the ins and outs of creating textiles was the fun bit.  Learning how physics within woven structures worked, the mechanics of the loom were interesting.  The rest?  Not so much, but necessary.

And that is pretty much the story of life, isn't it?  We find the fun stuff, then do the necessary stuff in order to be able to do the fun stuff.

How that looks is different for every person.  Some people go get a paying job so they can do their hobby without all of those considerations.  I chose to make weaving  my career and figure out a way to have that bring the money in so I could keep weaving.

My retirement (closing down my business) came at the perfect time.  I got rid of the annex at the end of February.  Closed my business and tax accounts as of Dec. 31, 2019.  Shut down my business banking.  Got rid of as much of the administrivia of being in business as I could.

This year, the year of the pandemic, turned into a perfect 'retreat from the world and just weave' time.  I struggled with the lack of social in real life meetings, found a way to make one happen by offering my carport for the summer months.

As the summer was winding down (it was a rather grey, dreary, wet and depressing summer, tbh) I flailed around looking for something to look forward to - because the out doors meetings were going to stop very soon.  They stopped the first week of October because it turned cold very quickly this year.

And as I flailed I saw the rise in Zoom offerings, and figured why not?  Why couldn't our guild also have Zoom offerings?  

We now have a solid 10 seminars lined up.  The website is being updated with the list of presenters.  It still needs some editing but it will be available within a few days.  Guild members get first crack at registering.  BUT!  We have a provision for 'associate' members - people who live too far away to attend guild meetings but still want the option of maybe taking a workshop, getting the newsletter.  We made the decision to accept anyone who wants to be an associate, no matter where they are located.

Because with the internet, and Zoom seminars?  A person does not have to attend in real life - they can log in from where ever they are.

So if you take a look at the seminar list, and you want to participate?  You can register as a non-guild member for $15 Cdn.  OR, if you think you would like to attend more you can sign up as a guild member for $25 Cdn (5% tax may be charged - I'm not the treasurer and she is dealing with that) and you'll get the member price and get the chance to register before non-guild members.

And now I need to spend some time mastering Zoom.  Because I'm doing one presentation in November, and might be doing a longer 'mini workshop' in the new year.  And I really need to know how Zoom works for that one.

Stay safe.  Stay well.  Stay covid aware.

Anticipation

 

the door of anticipation - light on the other side

I know I've been teasing about the upcoming seminar series.  I just got so excited I wanted to share that with everyone!

But the infrastructure needs to be put into place and my guild mate is working on that.

They say if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it and she is one of the busiest I know!  In our guild alone she wears multiple hats, including treasurer and newsletter person.  Along with other roles as they come up.

Late last night she emailed saying she had been working on the website but it was proving more complicated than she had hoped, made a suggestion about how to go about doing the registration, and said that the newsletter with the info about the series would be sent out shortly.

So we are nearly there, folks!

If you have joined as an associate member, you should be getting the newsletter with the information.  Otherwise, the info will be posted to the website after the newsletter is sent out.  Only fair that guild members get the news first.

In the meantime I worked on my own Power Point file yesterday, then realized that I needed to add a caption to all the photos I had already added.  Which means going through right from the beginning to edit each slide in order to add them.  What can I say?  I'm a novice at this kind of thing.

But I am also learning.  The past year I have begun to understand the importance of making my teaching materials more friendly in terms of people who need things like captions.  It's a small enough thing to do and will help everyone.

Last winter I saw a meme with a group of students waiting for the access to a school to be cleared.  The person in the wheelchair pointed out that if the ramp would get cleared first everyone could use that, but the person clearing the snow insisted on clearing the steps first.

The point is, when society is made accessible to people with mobility or other issues, society as a whole benefits.

So I am trying to be mindful of things like captions for photos. 

I'm still not doing it on the blog as often as I should - and am going to scroll up and put a caption under the photo at the head of this post, because...becoming aware is an incremental process.  

I've come to realize that that reality bubble that everyone is talking about is more an onion than a bubble.  Because as you remove one layer of being unaware, another presents itself.  There is no magic bullet, just long hard assessment of one's own attitudes and changing of one's behaviour.

So I go to peel another layer now...

Interesting Times

 

challenging jigsaw puzzle

 

hemmed towels, ready for final pressing

One of the challenges of 'retirement' is the new approach to my day.  One of the reasons I stopped production weaving and shut down my business was my increasingly challenging health issues.  In the past few months I have managed to resolve some of those issues, but not all.  And coming to grips with my new 'reality' has been emotionally challenging.  Dealing with a pandemic hasn't helped either, as many health services were highly curtailed which meant delays.

Coming up with the idea of the Sunday Seminars has proved a tonic and I'm feeling much more interested in doing things, especially when they can be done remotely and therefore safely in this time of Covid-19

But there are days when I feel as though I'm making very little discernible progress.  I don't remember when I started the puzzle, but this is as far as I've gotten.  And I do try to work on it a little every evening.  But even water will erode rock, so...

Yesterday we met for the last time this year out of doors for the small stitch n bitch group I am a part of.  It was only 10 or 11C and we got thoroughly chilled sitting out in my carport for a couple of hours.  I figured I would warm up quickly and I could continue threading the next warp, but it took a lot longer than expected and finally I decided that threading was not on the cards for that day.  I did however, finish hemming the towels from the warp that got cut off on Friday.  Today they will get their final press and four will be packaged up to go to their new home tomorrow.  Today is a national holiday so the post office isn't open anyway, so tomorrow is shipping date.

I also worked a bit on the Seminar Series and should be getting info on one of the seminars today.  If the info gets posted to the guild website this week, I will begin promoting the seminars.  In the meantime, anyone who wants to join as an associate member, the cost is $26.25, you get the newsletter, can participate in other on line guild offerings, and get the guild member rate for the seminars.

I've stopped contacting folk for now because I'm waiting for feedback from guild members about who they would like to hear from, but there are speakers booked from Jan-Sept so far.  And I have not come close to running out of options.  We really do have a community with talent to draw from!

The field of textiles is endlessly fascinating.  I follow several historians on Twitter who specialize in clothing or the history of textile manufacture in some way.  I am constantly intrigued and delighted to learn more.  I also follow the Ashmolean Museum which frequently posts photos of items from their collection, including textiles.

We live in 'interesting' times, in more than one way.  

Human beings are incredibly adaptable.  We need to be aware of how to safely navigate through this pandemic (and who knows how many more to come) and we have the technology to do this remotely.  

In the meantime, stay home if you can, wear a mask if you need to go out, wash your hands.  {{{hugs}}} to any who need one.

What a Difference

 

the end of the black, beginning of green, tube being used as a bobbin

Yesterday I started using up the green that was in the warp because I had finally used up the black.

And I really really like the green!  So much so that I kind of regret using up so much of the warp with black weft.  But oh well.

I think most people would be hard pressed to tell that both of these were woven on the same warp.  The black totally changes the look, making it more 'dramatic', while the green blends in more, softening the colours, making a more muted statement.

Both are nice, in their own way.  Both will make towels.  

But mostly?  I'm grateful (and not a little relieved) to have done with the black.

Based on this example of value, I made the decision to use up some really dark grey/blue on the blue warp I have in the queue.  The nearly two full tubes will likely take most of that warp to use up, but I think there will be a similar sense of 'drama' with the very dark value weft on the lighter value warp.

But regardless - they will also make towels.

I think the biggest freedom I feel right now is that I am not weaving for an 'audience'.  I can - and do - choose colours that appeal to me (based on what I have on hand because I'm NOT buying more yarn right now).  I am hoping to sell these at some point (and four of the green weft have been spoken for - already paid for, so now I feel pressure to get them done!) but if they don't they can also be used for gifts or donations.  Someone, somewhere, will like them enough to use them.

Yesterday I added two more speakers to the Sunday Seminar Series.  The first six months will be posted soon - I don't want to rush the guild web maven.  She's busy right now getting ready for Thanksgiving.  So I am hoping to start promoting the first six next week.

The first three of the second half of the year come from the Maritimes, Washington State and the lower mainland.

So much fun to talk to people all over the place.

Until we can safely meet in person, virtual can at least keep us connected.

In order to make that happen sooner rather than later, if everyone would please wear a mask when they go out, that would help.  Honestly.  It's not a cure, it's not 100%, but some protection is better than none.  The 'second wave' is breaking here in Canada and right now Ontario and Quebec are facing really bad numbers.  Let's all do what we can to remove ourselves and our loved ones from the line of transmission and beat this virus back.

Remembered to look up the title of the short story collection I'm currently reading:  The Games Creatures Play.  Urban Fantasy for the most part - lots of myths, magic and supernatural havoc.