Challenges

 

after wet finishing

loom state

Someone asked about weaving something that resembled ribbing.  I suggested something like the above, which isn't exactly what they wanted but what might be experimented with to get the effect they wanted to achieve.

Then I suggested that if they kept their stripes narrow enough, they might be able to encourage the cloth to 'collapse' and wind up with something even more 'rib' like.

Today was the first time I felt able to agree to doing a zoom presentation.  They had chosen the topic of 'Weaver's Toolbox'.  I spent a lot of that time explaining how the 'main' types of handlooms work, because if something is going on, it's good to know if it is a 'weaver' problem or a 'loom' problem'.  One of the things I missed talking about is tightening the nuts/bolts/wedges of a loom which is primarily wooden.  

Relative humidity has been on my mind a lot lately because we are in the depths of winter, where the relative humidity drops, significantly.  Doug mentioned a while ago that he went round the loom and tightens the bolts.  (He knows how difficult I find such things right now, so I was grateful he took care of that for me.)

Anyway, the presentation this morning seemed to go well, once I'd sorted out the technical issues yesterday (thanks Microsoft - NOT!) and the next one is in 4 weeks time.  Once I'm done that I'll assess how they went and decide if I begin promoting my giving more.  I feel hopeful that if people find things of interest, maybe things they were not consciously aware of being issues and that they needed to pay attention to.  

As usual, I went beyond  the time allotted, but people were asking really good questions.  Usually when that happens, I know I've opened some possibilities for people.  Helped them think beyond the 'usual'.  

And bottom line, that's why I do this.

My website is still giving out 'danger' warnings, largely because my security certificate has expired or something.  But I don't collect your data so hopefully you can just click on through, if you are interested in my zoom topics.  Just scroll down the page a bit and they are listed.  

Aftermath

 

This morning I did a presentation for a guild via Zoom.  As part of the presentation, I was going to do some fulling, so I covered the Megado with plastic in case of any water spatter (a potential problem).  There were stacks of samples to show and discuss, a stack of books, more samples, the pre-wetted out 'scarf' to full.  During the presentation (which had a break part way through) I also grabbed the box with the cold mangle, plus other tools I tend to commonly use - brushes, rolling pin, samples of actual Fuller's teasels, and non-Fuller's teasels that people so frequently claim are the real deal - but they aren't.  

I couldn't find the small wooden folding table so I set up one of the old metal ones - which promptly collapsed - but made the point.  Fulling isn't always 'gentle'.  Sometimes, there has to be force used.

Now?  Now I have to put all of that away again.

A presentation like this might seem like very little preparation goes into it, but that perception is wrong.  Most teachers will spend time thinking about what they have to say, then tailor their content to the available amount of time.  In this case I had 2.5 hours, so I could add in a lot more detail, share points of trivia, share more samples, talk about more books, than there is usually time for.

And now that it's over?  The clean up needs to be done.  

I had hoped to get to the loom today, but I didn't sleep all that well and was up early - for me.  I think the most I can do is clean up this mess, then press the 10 towels ready for pressing (8 of which have sold) and then maybe get to the post office on Tuesday.  I have other obligations on Monday, plus another Zoom on Tuesday, so I get to do this all over again.  :)

But I also want to get this warp off the loom this week, so I'm hoping I can do two weaving sessions on Monday, and maybe one on Tuesday.  It looks like 6 more towels can be woven on this warp and then it will be cut off and the next warp beamed.

In the meantime, Brassard says my yarn order was ready to be shipped.  I don't have an email notifying me of the tracking number yet, so it may not leave Quebec until Monday.  And then it takes about 10 days to get here.  

There will be time for me to think about how I want to use the new linen from Lithuania and hope I chose the 'right' colours for the warp.  Theoretically it should look nice, but you never know until you start weaving.

Better go shift all that rubble back to where it belongs and press those towels.  That might be all I accomplish today.

Quiet Days

 

I had another epidural injection on Thursday, and everyone says to be 'quiet' for a few days afterwards in order to let the injection take effect.  I'm not very good at being 'quiet' in the way that they mean, but I'm trying really really hard these days to be kinder to my body.

Today I'm feeling less battered, so I am going to go to the loom after lunch and try weaving.  I'm not sure I'll do two sessions, although I'd really like to get this next batch of towels off the loom so I can inspect and repair them, and along with the first 7, get them into the washer/dryer to be wet finished.

OTOH, I did manage to deal with a couple of things I'd been procrastinating over, so there is that.

I have also contacted another therapist at the suggestion of the pain doctor, and will see them on Wednesday, to see if I can get additional help for the peripheral neuropathy that continues to plague me.

I am ever so grateful I got into the local pain clinic as the doctor there seems open and willing to work with me and try to help make my life a bit easier.  All of my therapists know how much I want - *need* - to keep weaving, and they take that into consideration as they work with me.  All of them understand the benefits I get from weaving - the aerobic activity that generates endorphins and actually helps manage my pain, but also?  The mental health benefits.  So I give them all weaving 'gifts' as an additional thank you.  I mean, they are keeping me able to weave, they should benefit from that, too?

Winter is not over here.  Yesterday it snowed some.  Not a lot, but at least a little is better than nothing.   But tonight the temperature will plunge below -20C again.  That may be the last kick of the dying season.

We are hoping for a 'wet' spring - but not *too* wet, or there will be landslides, especially after all the forests burned last year.  OTOH, fire season has already begun with fires that smoldered over winter springing back into life.  I think 2024 is going to be all sorts of shades of 'interesting'.  And not in a good way.

But I think I can at least do one session at the loom today, so I'm going to try and see how it goes.

I have also got quite a few Zoom presentations lined up.  The next one is Tuesday evening.  Then a one-on-one student for bobbin lace on Saturday.  If she has recovered from the plague by then.  The guild room does have an air filter, though, and she will wear a mask - and so will I.  

My goal to remain covid free continues.  But I do still want to teach, so I continue to book Zoom presentations.  

Topics are listed on my website

I'm thinking about raising my fees as a number of guilds have told me I'm not charging enough (some have even sent more than I'm asking for since they said they learned so much!)  However, if a guild books now, I will honour my current fee structure.  

Behind the Scene

 

when the show was over...

Friday I did the guild program for the Tacoma, WA guild, then Saturday two seminars for the same group.

It was lovely seeing some people I hadn't seen in far too long and talk about weaving - my favourite thing to do.  

As usual I had to set up the studio to do the presentations, which meant shuffling things around to accommodate the topics with samples/examples to show and discuss.  So, I didn't do any weaving Friday or Saturday.  But I got to talk about weaving, and that was lovely.  Some great questions, some of them I had to think about.  And I love to push the boundaries of my knowledge, even when I don't *know* the answer, but give information based on my experience and extrapolate from that.  It's an example of how I think about designing new textiles.  I start with what I know, then begin to question if what I know is pertinent to the new circumstances.

But it leaves a 'mess'.  In this case it was a triple 'mess' because of doing 3 different topics all within the space of two days.

Now I get to put all that stuff 'away' and deal with setting the laptop by the loom again.

In the background, life goes on.  We have begun looking at what needs to happen to get the workmen into the studio area to install the new heat pump/furnace, and it's another snowglobe event in the studio as some of the contents of the clean storage area will need to be moved to a different part of the studio.   Which means goat trails, probably.  OTOH, we only have to move a small amount of stuff, much less than I expected, so that's a relief.  The rest of the shelving can be draped but left in place.

I can't say I'm feeling much 'better' after the injection, but not taking an opioid based pain killer I'm not having nearly as much brain fog, which has reduced my anxiety as I frantically try to find the words I want to use.  When I'm writing, it's less stress because I can pause and let my brain scramble through my words on file, but when I'm giving a spoken presentation, it's stressful when I can't find the words I want to use, especially when I *know* there is a 'better' word.  I didn't realize how much anxiety I was having until I stopped taking the opioid.

While I'm not 'pain free' I am continuing with the current approach in hopes that things will get better and the new pain med will work to control the pain I live with more effectively as the dosage increases.  Taking the naltrexone is an experiment on my part, supported by the pain doctor.  There is zero information to be found on whether or not it will work on peripheral neuropathy, no studies have been done that I can find, but after discussing the situation with the pain doctor, he agreed to write a prescription and let me run the experiment.

To that end, the neuropathy *is* less.  As for the rest, it is going to take time.  I see the physiotherapist tomorrow and her goal is to begin to strengthen my core muscles to help support the injured SI joint.  And hopefully there will be less pain from that, as well.  As for the damaged disc, the jury is out on whether that is part of the pain equation.  And at this point I just have to keep on this path and see how it plays out.

At some point the health community may throw their hands up and declare that they don't know why I have pain and I just have to live with it.  I can live with pain if I can find something to better manage it, but I don't want to continue to have decreasing 'ability' to do the things I want to do.  If I can delay further deterioration, that will be placed in the 'win' column.  Best case scenario is that I can regain some functionality.

In the meantime, covid still floats around.  There is a 'thing' online with the hashtag #SaveDavidTennant which reflects the fact that so many actors and performers are catching covid and either living with Long Covid or dying.  Fans have finally become aware that *they* can help their 'idols' be safe and are now championing audiences to wear masks during live performances.

I really hope that translates into an increase in general mask wearing.  Instead of just keeping select 'worthy' individuals safe, perhaps more people will decide to help keep *everyone* safe(r) from covid and the risk of Long Covid (and death!) and start wearing masks when out in public.

As an immune compromised person, I support this movement...

In the meantime, I am quite enjoying doing the Zoom presentations.  It's one way I can keep on teaching - and be safe.

Guilds should contact me at laura at laurafry dot com to enquire about booking a date.  Topics and fees are listed on my website 

Easy Button

 

One of the road blocks to my doing more on line content is the technology.  (There are others, but...)

I've done some video work and have a basic (very basic) understanding of some of the things that need to go into creating visual/on line content.  Such content is usually done by a team of experts (or at the very least, trained, people).

During this time of covid, I dabbled a bit and eventually started the study groups but they are done on a figurative shoe string, and only because companies like Zoom were developing prior to the pandemic and were able to step up quickly to offer on line services.

But that meant I had to learn how to use their site (and pay for their services) and figure out a way to make what is essentially a static lecture work to teach a hand's on activity.

I chose to focus on people who already knew the basics and were interested in fine tuning what they were doing.  So that a simple description, perhaps with a photo, would be sufficient for them to pick up the nuances.

Other teachers had been working on presenting on line classes using video.  Rather than compete with them, I preferred to recommend them and do my own thing.

I have done some 'video' work (converted to 'classes' by Long Thread Media) and when the crew arrived here I had done my homework.  We were able to film two different topics in the course of three days of very intense work.  We filmed out of sequence in order to make the job go more quickly and the editor dealt with sequencing when they got back to their studio.

In the end I was satisfied, even as I saw sections that I wish had been done 'better'.  But knowing how to storyboard, set up a filming schedule to pitch to the crew, have my samples organized, have the processing worked out with multiple 'samples' at various stages already organized made things go smoothly enough that we were able to finish and the crew returned home on schedule.

In the end, the result needs to look as though it was 'easy' to get to that point.  The lightning needs to be good.  Camera angles show what is necessary to be seen.  Audio should be, well, audible.

I could, if I had more energy, learn how to do the film editing.  I could, if I had more money, buy a better video camera, better lights, tripods, etc.

But I can't clone myself.  I can't be on camera and behind it at the same time.

So I will continue with the study groups for the scheduled topics.  And in the meantime, I'm tentatively exploring other options for the future.  If anything will come of that exploration - or not - remains to be seen.

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...

Making Progress

 

Yesterday I started weaving the last(?) of this series of towels.  The cotton flake is going down quickly and I'm not a fan of playing yarn chicken, so I expect that this warp will be the last of this design.

Overall I'm pleased on several fronts.  I've gotten practiced enough at doing it that it hardly seems to take any time at all to set up the loom.  AND the last tweak I made to the tension box filling seems to have worked and there are practically no areas of concern re: tension with this warp.  The couple of very slight tension difference areas is truly not really distinguishable now that I'm four towels in.

I wanted to show the 'right' side of the cloth because the back side is predominantly white.  The 'right' side is much more interesting and I'm pleased with it.  Must be time to move on, right????

This afternoon I had some more technology issues, with Power Point this time, but managed to punch enough buttons in the correct order, or something, and was finally able to save the file to a thumb drive in order to transfer it to the laptop.  Now that I have the password changed, and carefully recorded, I'm hoping I won't have any more problems.  Time will tell!

I also poked around in Zoom and figured out what a few more of the tools are for, which answered my need for a 'pointer' of some sort.  Turns out I have two to choose from, and I can even change their colours.  

But my deadlines keep rolling.  This Sunday - two hour Zoom, next Sunday 1 hour Zoom, the following Saturday and Sunday, back to 2 hour Zooms.  The content for the rest of the Zoom study groups needs to be finished and now I seem to have Power Point working again, maybe I can get them done.

But folks, I gotta tell ya, I'm tired.  I'm going to put the idea for the short video clips on hold for a while and take some of the pressure off of me.  If and when I feel up to doing any, I can record and caption them, then save to You Tube for future release dates.  When I'm already pouring so much energy into the long form presentations, I just don't seem to have any energy left over to do the short form.

Plus I'm trying to get towels posted to ko-fi for July.  

The weather has been too grey, too wet, too...much...going from chilly to hot, then thunder and buckets of rain.  Yesterday it was almost literally - don't like the weather? - wait 15 minutes.  I didn't feel up to walking.  Today the breaks in between the buckets of rain have been longer, and I finally got a short walk in after doing the two towels and finishing the set up for tomorrow's Zoom.

And I'm delighted, intrigued, and challenged by The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel.  More on that book when I'm further into it.

Persistence

 https://www.youtube.com/user/LauraAnnFry1/videos

Persistence

There are times when I hit a pot hole in life and I just kind of...fall in.  The world, as they say, has been too much with me.

Yesterday I came to the realization that part of my problem with working on short form video clip 'lessons' is that I can't produce them to the quality I would like them to have.

On the other hand, I started doing video clips a number of years ago, have 24 on my You Tube channel some of which have over 30,000 views.

So why am I having such a hard time now?  

The past week I worried away at Zoom and felt totally inadequate to the task.  Then other things happened in the world and my way of coping was to try to ignore as much of it as I could and keep on weaving.  I have this artsy-fartsy notion that if I can just keep pouring creative energy into the world, that I can keep trying to add positivity to counter what is happening.  

I can't solve the pandemic.  I can't solve racism.  I can't solve the crumbling politics, or the poverty, or...anything.  My power, if you will, is to keep being creative, keep trying to educate those who want it.  But it all got more than a little overwhelming.

We have also had a string of grey rainy days which hasn't helped my mood.  The rain has meant that the bush has been kept from drying out, which is A Good Thing, because our snow levels here were below average.  And if it goes dry, there could be severe wildfires again this year.

Yesterday I cut the latest warp off the loom and wet finished the 8 towels.  They will get pressed today and then I'll begin beaming the next warp.  I'm still not happy with how I'm getting warps onto the Megado, so after 10 warps I will tweak my process again and see if I can get better results.

And that's the thing about life.  To live it without getting stuck in a pot hole.  Especially one of one's own devising.

So back to the short video clips.  I need to understand why all of a sudden I am holding myself to a higher standard than previously.  That I need to accept that my clips won't be 'perfect', and that ultimately, it won't much matter so long as I can get the information out there.  I had estimated that I might have content ready for my birthday in July.  Well, it's June now.  If I'm going to do this, I need to climb out of that pot hole and get started.

I have managed to post towels to my ko-fi account shop, so if anyone is interested they can use the link (on my monitor it appears in the lower left corner) and browse.  My plan right now is to offer the current run of towels between July 1-9 at a special birthday offering.  I should have at least 11 warps completed by then, which might be the total number of warps in this series, and I will post one colour per day.  Or at least, that's the plan.  Which all too often gang aft aglay...

This Sunday is another Zoom meeting, and the Sunday after that the next Sunday Seminar.  At some point I need to put my thinking cap on and start working on the short video clips.  And see how awful they wind up once I hit 'record'.  Or if I'm just being far too hard on myself.

In the meantime I've gotten my hands on The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel.  I got it through the library, and decided I needed my very own copy, and voila, the local indy bookstore had a copy on their shelf.  It now has my name on it and I'll pick it up tomorrow.  Barely 20 pages in (if that) and already glad I bought the book.  I'll do a proper book review when I'm further into it.

Pick by Pick

 Well, Blogger seems to be having a problem today and won't let me load a photo, so it's all text today, I guess.

So here is a four shaft colour and weave pinwheel.

Yesterday I managed my goal of two towels.  A friend also acted as tech guinea pig so I could work through figuring out the white board option on Zoom.  I learned some stuff, as usual!  But it was an exercise in frustration again, so once we finished, I had to sit for a while with thoughts of 'what on earth do you think you are doing?'  And 'how much irritation are you willing to go through to learn more new tech stuff?'

With more and more North Americans beginning to engage in real life (as they say), how many are even going to be interested in learning on line?  Will everyone fling their on line Zoom meetings out the window and head for the nearest in person class?

On the other hand, travel is expensive and will remain problematic for a while, and for some of us?  We may never travel again, so...there is that.

What so many people really and truly do not understand is the shelf life of a virus.  In BC, we have just come through a third wave, and we hope like crazy that there will not be a fourth.  But you know what?  There could.  There really and truly could.  Because a virus will mutate.  And it will lodge in a warm body and grow and sometimes mutate into something quite different, and carry on.

There is nothing inherently 'evil' about a virus.  It just is.  Knowing how they work, more or less, we can take appropriate precautions to avoid them, but that relies on everyone understanding how they work, or at least take direction from others who do, and then follow those recommendations.

When I decided to 'retire' (for certain values of), one of the things I had to figure out was what that retirement was going to look like.  Into the midst of my trying to shape a future for myself, COVID appeared.  

Now, the influenza pandemic at the end of WWI isn't all that far ago, so I was pretty sure people would bear that disaster in mind and follow the best practices.  Isolate, mask, etc.  Unfortunately, I was wrong.

We have seen this dynamic play out in real time - denial, accusations, blame shifting, refusal to isolate/quarantine/mask.  

After 14 months of it, people are tired.  Everyone just wants their lives back.  Well, best remember how many people have died.  The 3.5 MILLION people who are no longer with us.   Who cannot get *their* lives back...because they DIED.

As I look at options for myself, I doubt very much I will be travelling anywhere very far.  So any options I have are all on line (unless people come here).

Olds College cancelled Fibre Week and all the master classes for this year and frankly I was relieved because Alberta is still dealing with the pandemic.  I would be very reluctant to go to Alberta right now given my compromised immune system.  I rarely leave the house here in my home town and only go to very specific places, for short periods of time.  Masked, of course.

As we wend our way through the pandemic, it is much like weaving.  Pick by pick, day by day, we keep on keeping on.

It was supposed to rain today, but so far it isn't.  I really need to get back to walking, I'm just not a fan of taking exercise in the rain.  So we'll see.

In the meantime, I have done four towels on the current warp, with two more scheduled to today.  If I then do two more tomorrow, I will have reached the half way mark of this warp.  It's looking quite nice - and if blogger would load photos, I could show you.  But it isn't, so I can't.

The weaving right now is going fairly smoothly, so I'm taking time to let my thoughts going forward simmer on the back burner.  While I *think* the short video clip idea is do-able, I really wonder how much more new tech I am willing to try and learn.  

Guess I'll find out...

Staying 'Motivated'

 

shelves of hand woven textiles

My 'inventory' has grown over the past year plus, in no small part due to the pandemic and the closure of shops and other sales events.  My woven textile stock is now about four times this, and grows daily if I can manage my two towels per day goal.

It doesn't seem like much, but two towels a day?  Add up.  

Not every day, of course not.  When a warp runs out, I have to set up the next one, but each current warp produces 16 towels.  So every two weeks or so, another 16 towels hit the shelves.  Averaging 8 towels a week for 52 weeks of the year?  That's over 400 towels a year.

Sometimes people ask me how I can stay motivated.   Well, I have too much yarn.  I also find that getting to the loom daily helps my mental health.  If I can manage to do something in the studio, I feel as though I have accomplished something positive that day.  Even if that 'positive' is just emptying another tube or cone of yarn.

But I've never been too bothered about instant gratification.  I couldn't and be a weaver.  Because nothing about any hand craft is 'instant'.  Making things take time, effort and yes, a degree of skill.  

The other thing about weaving is that I'm moving, even if I am sitting while doing so.  I know I need to get up onto my feet more, but advancing age means my feet aren't terribly happy with me, for reasons.  Nor my hips, truth be told.  So far my knees aren't too bad.  But I also know that I need to keep my legs working because that will help reduce falls.  OTOH, the weather has been variable and the rest of this week rain is in the forecast.  And I'm still not a fan of walking in inclement weather.  Something I should work on getting over.

The Zoom meetings keep me occupied as well.  Currently finalizing the Power Point for lecture #7 on Colour.  Not a deep dive, but basic info.  Deep dives are provided by Tien Chiu and Janet Dawson as well as Jane Stafford.  Not everyone has time for a full blown class and sometimes all they need is a few pointers.  Sot that's the approach I'm taking.  Focusing on the principles.

Still wrestling with the technology, I have another Zoom practice booked for this afternoon.  In the end, it will be what it will be and people will accept or not.  Not every teacher is a good fit for every student.

Wayne Dyer used to talk about the stages of life and that elders needed to mentor younger folk.  A few years ago I decided to embrace my 'elder' status and try to help others who wanted it.  I stay motivated by trying to pass on my knowledge to others.  And weave down my stash.  And try to sell my completed weavings, in a desultory way.  But it is obvious that I need to do a push to find new homes for some of my cloth.  One benefit is that woven cloth takes up less space than tubes/cones of yarn.  But still.  There are now four shelving units cheek by jowl with handwoven towels, table runners and scarves.  Time to move some of them out of here and into other people's hands.  Check my ko-fi account for my 'shop' as I continue to list a new towel on Mondays.

It Takes a Village

 

white roses

Like so many teachers, I have had to jump into the world of Zoom and adapt my approach to teaching.  I was pretty good at setting up Power Point, but from there a whole new world was entered.  

Power Point presentations are fine, as far as they go, but they can't do everything.  I tried adding video but either they didn't run, or ran so poorly it wasn't worth adding them.  So then I had to figure out other ways to show what I wanted to show.  Back to the good old white board.  Which worked, sort of, but I'm not an artist, and sometimes pens didn't write or they didn't show up well, etc.

Enter the villagers.  People with more expertise in using Zoom or other on line tools, ready, willing and able to help this 'old dog'.

One person off handedly mentioned the white board option built into  Zoom.  It took me a few days to absorb the fact that I didn't need any additional software, it was a feature built into Zoom that I could use.  

As I worked through options for continuing to teach, I knew that I had to do something other than offer long form presentations.  As covid ended, people were not going to have long chunks of time, nor would they want to do that sort of learning on line, once in person events began opening up again.

However, most people are willing to view a short video if it is to the point.  So I began to rummage through the long form presentations and work out how I could present bits of them in a short form.

But for that, I wanted to use my desktop as being easier to work on than the laptop that I use to run the loom.  However, my monitor doesn't have a web cam/microphone, so on one of my rare forays out of the house I went and bought a web cam.  Then couldn't make it work with Zoom.  It rook a more tech savvy person than I am to help me get that sorted.

Also, it was pointed out to me that I really needed to use captions for accessibility.  The challenges to be overcome kept piling up.

Then I discovered the 'personal room' on Zoom, so I could go in and do practice runs of things, like their white board.  It quickly became obvious that trying to draw diagrams with a mouse wasn't going to work well, so then I tapped a couple of people for info on drawing stylii(?)   I found a cheap one on sale locally and asked Doug to go pick one up so I could try it out.

There has been much poking at buttons and gnashing of teeth and many times I have been very tempted to throw up my hands and move on.

But my giving up now would be a disservice to the folk who have helped answer my questions.

I'm still working out the details but I'm getting there.  Now the big challenge is to start fleshing out the content for the short form presentations and how/where I will launch them.

Ko-fi has a subscriber option so the plan now is to offer the information to my ko-fi subscribers.  A subscription can be as little as $3 per month (Canadian, so less than a latte in most places).  

The reason I keep pressing on is the feedback from the attendees of my long form presentations.  Yesterday there were at least half a dozen who commented that the information from that presentation answered so many questions they had about why things might be going 'wrong' in their weaving.

I really hate to see people floundering when I might be able to help them sort out their problems.  So I guess I will keep relying on my 'village' to help with the technical stuff in order to help people pursue one of the most ancient of crafts...weaving...

Today's goal is to thread the loom for the next (blue) warp.  If I can shift myself down to the studio, I might even get it sleyed and tied on.  It is also supposed to be the last 'nice' day with several days of rain predicted.  Guess I'd better plan on walking today, too.

Perfect

 

This morning things aligned so that I got that 'perfect' splash of light tossed across my floor.

The front of the house faces more-or-less east and as the sun makes it's annual journey from spring to autumn, how the light comes through the fanlight will move from the floor up the wall and back again.  Until at certain times of the year I rarely see it because it happens in the wee hours before I wake up.

And of course, we need the sun to be shining, as well.

So when I walked into the living room and saw the 'rainbow' of light on the floor I stopped to admire it, be reminded that time flows, one day to the next, and that this particular image is fleeting and needs to be appreciated when it happens.

Just like all of life, really.

Yesterday I never did make it to the loom because I had a busy day with appointments.  But I got some things done that I'd been 'saving' for a town run.  Then I did some digging on line for new methods of teaching - from tools to programs/apps.

Zoom has a 'white board' feature, but I am not finding 'drawing' using a mouse very helpful.  I don't have the time to spend getting more proficient at trying to 'write' or 'draw' in the feature that way so I contacted some people who are way more tech savvy than I am and they were able to help point me in a direction to find out more.  I have also scheduled some training sessions with people willing to help.

Needless to say, that pretty much ate up whatever energy/brain power I had left so the loom had to be patient - as they are!

I did find time to get the next warp organized.  Four spools of the variegated are wound and the tubes/spools set into the spool rack.   Then I pulled more blue for a darker value warp.  And that, I suspect, will be the last warp in the current series.

So today I will finish the current (beige) warp, then cut off, cut/serge the 8 towels, get them through the washer/dryer to press tomorrow morning.  And then begin beaming the next warp.  Sunday will be Zoom, then a real life visit with a couple of friends.  We'll meet outside in my carport, physically distant.  It's been months since we have gotten together, and while we are all being very cautious, it will be good to have some time to catch up.

Tomorrow I will also have a Zoom meeting with someone who will help me with captioning options and I'm still poking around on the internet for options for video clips.  I'd much rather be weaving, but if I'm going to continue this journey of teaching but on line, I need to spend the time to dig and decide on how I feel comfortable doing so.

But for now?  It's time to start drifting to the studio and do some weaving.  The 'perfect' moment of rainbow splashes on my floor is over for today.  

Carrying On

 

After my blog post yesterday, I asked on Facebook if people might be interested in short videos.  I was thinking of taking just one of the points out of my long form presentations and doing maybe 5 minutes (or less) and posting to You Tube.  I have - amazingly enough - over 1000 subscribers to my You Tube 'channel' so I could look at monetizing the content and maybe earn a little bit of money that way.

Or I could look at other options.

Platforms such as You Tube seem to be getting more and more problematic in terms of small producers like me and a number of people have suggested other platforms.

So I did some poking around.  In the end I wasn't happy with anything I found and then I remembered that is it possible to load short videos to this platform.

So I will think about how I might do this kind of thing.  

I have been using blogspot since 2008 when I started this 'diary' and it's pretty simple to use.  I can also link this site to Facebook and Twitter and could possibly also link to my ko-fi page.

For a number of reasons, this week has been more challenging and I'm short of spoons right now.  But I can use my weaving time to let ideas like this percolate on the back burner.  

Bottom line, I'd like to stay with programs/platforms I am currently using, not throw myself into another pool at the deep end.  Since I've bought a PRO Zoom account, I might as well avail myself of that even if it isn't 'perfect'.  My goal is not to become the next TicTok sensation but just to continue to provide information about weaving principles to those who might be interested.  

Given my dwindling supply of energy, doing short form video clips would be less taxing on me.  So - lots to mull over.

But the concept seems to be of interest to enough people, so I am cautiously heading in that direction.

As always - time will tell...

Zoom Zoom!

 

The information for the Ontario Handweavers conference is now available.  

With Covid continuing to be a problem, a number of in person events have pivoted to on line and a growing number of instructors are becoming quite comfortable with that method of teaching.  

It took me a long time to figure out how I might join in the effort to teach during this time of 'stay home if you possibly can'.  I looked around at what was available, what people were interested in and, most of all, what I was willing and able to do, by myself with minimum technology.

Jane Stafford, Tien Chiu and Daryl Lancaster had already been teaching on line for a while, had systems in place and were providing good content.  Long Thread Media had managed to obtain the DVDs that had been made over the years of Interweave Press and were running those as on line workshops.

It seemed to me that the basics were well covered.  

What was I known for?  What could I bring to the screen?  What skills did I already have that could be brought to Zoom effectively?  How could I convey what needed to be shown?  

Over the months of Covid management, many presenters have figured these things out for themselves and come up with creative ways to convey their lessons.  

Having made the decision to retire from teaching (other than Olds) I had pretty much ignored the efforts to go on line until my Olds students started to get anxious about all the cancellations.  So my effort then became to try to provide them with the course content I felt was most needed for people to 'master' the craft.  While I talk a little bit about things like shuttle handling, the emphasis is on the ergonomics of weaving - position and posture at the loom.  Why I prefer to hold the shuttle the way I do.  Suggestions on how to set up treadles to more efficiently (and hopefully more accurately) treadle.  

And so on.

But what I really wanted to present to these students was more of the underlying principles of the craft.  And the long form answers to the 'it depends' that gets trotted out to pretty much every weaving question.  Because it does!  Depend! 

Writing the Power Point presentations for the study groups has been a personal growth journey.  By collecting the information under the theme of the presentation, I have been able to start the slow process of putting the information together in a way that I hope the students find helpful, maybe even a little mind bending.  My goal is to provide a foundation of knowledge so that they can go on to make appropriate decisions regarding their own practice of the craft.  By understanding how their equipment works, they will be better able to adjust, or repair, their equipment when necessary.  Or push it beyond what it might most effectively do in order to achieve a special effect.

My Zoom presentations to the study groups take about 2 hours or so.  I can cut them a bit shorter, but they are information dense and could more comfortably be done in a 3 hour time slot which would allow for a 'comfort break' halfway through.

Right now my 2022 calendar is pretty open.  I am booking speakers for the Sunday Seminars with three already set up (Jan-Mar).  If a guild wants a 2-3 hour presentation on a weekend, It would be good to contact me now for availability.  Email is best laura at laurafry dot com  I will soon have 12 Power Point presentations that will be available.  I will put my thinking cap on and start doing a marketing blurb for each and post here in a day or two.

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.

Zooming Along

 

Yesterday I managed two towels, did a bit of marking, then started getting set up for the Zoom this morning.

I am limited in where I can set up and have settled on this little 'corner' in front of the Megado.  It's not ideal.  There is a window behind my head that wipes out the lighting and leaves me sitting in shadow, so I've been blocking the window.  Which sort of works.  Enough to be going on with.

The overhead light is too bright and slightly behind my head, so again I wind up in shadow, so now I move two task lights so that they bounce light off the white walls and turn the overhead light off.

If it is a very bright sunny day, I have to also block the other window in the space, or again, I'm sitting in shadow.

There is little room to put any of my teaching resources.  I have a small tv tray to my right that I can put some things on, but it's too small for today's samples.  So I carefully chose which ones I would use and decided on just one run of samples for a set of six, which are on the front of the loom.  The warp is holding them there.  

But I have some binders of samples, too, so they got put on the top of the castle.  

I have no idea if this will work well enough, but it's what I have.  

Because I'm sitting in front of the loom, I sit on my weaving stool.  I've tried other arrangements, but with the laptop high, I also need to be sitting high.  I need to be able to see the keyboard for one thing.

Today's presentation is about how vast the variables are in the creation of cloth.  I'll be sharing some of my experiments and discussing why I did them, as well as how.

This morning I did not wake up with a nasty sinus headache, but I'm going to 'medicate' anyway, just in case anything starts in the middle of the presentation.  I can't call in sick (well, I could, but...)

The thing with being self-employed is that there isn't anyone else to call.  You're it.  I've gotten used to teaching while unwell, it's nothing new.  But at least teaching this way there is no dark o'clock flight to scramble to catch, no scrambles through huge airports to catch the next flight, no suspect food or people who don't realize their shampoo has a very heavy scent.

And now it's time to get dressed and wrap my head around what I'm going to say and how I'm going to say it.

Starting Again

 Yesterday I got the Megado threaded and sleyed after pressing the place mats I'd wet finished the day before.

I've been chatting with some folk about working in series, something many creative people do.  Working in a series is an opportunity to explore various aspects of a design.  In my case, I come up with a quality of cloth I like, then play with colour options within that quality of cloth.

In a seminar, Allen Fannin made the point that the amount of time we spend developing a design is a huge investment of our time.  If we came up with a brand new design/product for each and every warp, we'd never get anything much made.   Which isn't an issue if you aren't trying to earn an income from making textiles.  

But I was.  

I had already been exploring developing a design and then interpreting it in different colours and as I sat with his comments I realized how true they were.  For me.  

Others disagreed.  

It all depends.

It depends on what you are wanting to do. 

Another person asked him how he stayed motivated to get to the loom every day and his answer was the wolf at the door.  When you are relying on weaving to pay the bills, you go to the loom, even when you don't want to.  Even when you are hurting.  And if you work in series, you have a plan, a road map to follow.

This approach to weaving isn't valid for everyone.  Of course it isn't.  But for me, they were wise words.

During this time of transition from fully production oriented to 'retired', a pandemic that makes going anywhere a not good idea, I have found that working in series is comforting.  When my brain was too stressed to think very hard, I found myself reverting to the tried and true rather than the deep intellectual dive I had thought I would plunge into.

Of course I wasn't feeling well for a good chunk of time, either.  Riding a wave of 'comfort' weaving kept me going in more than one way.

My goal became to use up as much of my fibre stash as possible, rather than personal growth.  I may never get to that deep dive I had been contemplating.  And that's ok, too.

So the next warp is ready to tie on and start weaving.  That won't happen today as I have appointments and doubt I'll feel much like jumping on the loom when I get home.  But my days of needing to produce X number of items each and every day is behind me now.  I can take time 'off'.  

A number of weaving teachers have been observing that when they do a Zoom meeting the rest of the day is toast.  Personally when I do the study group Zooms from 11 am to 1 pm, the rest of the day is spent dealing with the video and nothing else happens.  Much.  I certainly don't expect that I will weave.  Sitting cramped for 2 hours, trying to stay on track and on focus and present solid information?  That takes all the brain power I might have for the day.  When I'm doing this sort of thing in person, I am on my feet, mostly, but I'm moving.  I'm engaging with the audience, watching for reactions.  The furrowed brow.  The puzzled look.  I can tell when some people tune out to dump the info into long term memory.  I have a giant white board on which I can draw diagrams.  I have a table full of samples I can pick up and talk about, then send round the room.  I can see questions and answer them immediately.  I can even go on tangents, which is part of the fun of doing in person events.

For Zoom I have to really keep my line of thought focused and concentrate on saying exactly what I mean and saying it much more clearly because I don't have that giant white board nor do I have all day.  I compromise and use a small one, but can only do small diagrams or else they can't be seen on camera.

This weekend I have Zoom meetings on both the Saturday and Sunday.  Both the same topic, which is good in one way, bad in another.  Prep time is less, but then I forget if I've said the info already and may forget something.  I do generally review the video which allows me to catch when I mis-speak or forget to add something, which I can then correct in the FB group.  But that all takes time - another two hours to watch the recording.  And more time spent cramped in front of the laptop.  

But spring is coming.  I may start going for a walk once the recording is being uploaded to You Tube.  Get out into the fresh air.  Move.  

And tomorrow I'll get started on this next warp.  There are four more bins with yarn pulled for future warps.  Stash reduction proceeds.

Zoom Meetings

 

Working on the next Zoom meeting, the theme of which is 'Form Follows Function' I have been doing some deep thinking about issues of design - in all of its meanings.

So - how the cloth is constructed to create the quality required to do the job it is intended to serve.  But also how the cloth will look.

Design is a word that encompasses more than just appearance.  How we design something speaks to all the aspects of the cloth.  Engineers are trained how to do this for their particular slice of creating - be it structural, fluid, electrical, whatever.  As weavers we are trying to serve every aspect of bringing thread into cloth form.  We need the mathematics.  The physics.  The structural capacity of how the threads fit together - taking three dimensional rods and turning them into a flat plane.  One that could be smooth or textured.   Or even not actually flat but three dimensional as well.

We need to think about such things as absorbency, abrasion, drape, dimensions.  All of these things need to be considered.  

I was fortunate in my life to meet and interact with a number of highly skilled textile designers/weavers/spinners.  Even felters.  Since they were all working with the same raw material - fibre - each had something to bring to the conversation that allowed me to learn more.  Dig deeper.

I would name them except there have been so very many I would forget some.  

Not every hand weaver in the 21st century needs to dig this deeply, but some need to be able to hold the knowledge for future generations.  Hence my study groups.

Over the past few years I have had to come to grips with the fact that I'm no spring chicken and am not getting younger.  I am getting older.  I am reaching the stage of life where travel is getting more difficult.  

However, in large part due to the current pandemic, the internet has begun to play a more important part is getting information to those who are interested.  With the rise of computers the late 20th century was touted as the Information Age.  Unfortunately bad information also gets distributed.

So my Zoom efforts.

Each time I do a presentation I learn more.  For example, I did not know I could very simply and easily turn Power Point slide shows into a PDF.  This makes them easier to share with others, if I wish to do so.

You Tube has become very easy to use - once you figure out which buttons to push.  Plus they provide captioning.  Again, something I only recently discovered.  

I have also begun working on more Sunday Seminars for 2022.  I have been thoroughly enjoying the presentations thus far and look forward to learning more.   The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.  But, and here's the thing, I can continue to learn more.

And that is endlessly fascinating, endlessly interesting.

Behind the Scene

 

Every person suddenly finding themselves working from home doing on line meetings has had to figure out where to set up and how to manage this new situation, new technology.

As I prepare for this morning's meeting, I have begun gathering the things I need.  My set up is crammed into the tiny bit of space I have in front of the Megado.  I use the laptop that runs the loom because it has a camera while my desktop doesn't.  I sit on my weaving 'stool', clear the weaving caddy off the tv tray next to the loom to put my resources for the meeting.  

Today I will also be using the small whiteboard to draw diagrams on so there is a box of dry erase markers and the eraser.  I may go get some textiles to show as well.  The last two meetings I have run over to my storage area to grab some.  But maybe they aren't needed for today's presentation, which will focus on equipment.  

Which reminds me, I will be talking about temples so I should bring the smallest one over from the shelf behind where I sit.

It is quite amazing to me how much technology can be packed into such a small space.  I remember spirit duplicators, Gestetner stencils, Kodak slide projectors and overhead projectors.  I even remember life before electric typewriters.

And yet, here we are.  I can prepare a Power Point presentation.  The software now provides 'themed' slides so that I don't produce just text on a white background.  Some are quite lovely and pleasing to the eye - but may be distracting - so I use ones with just a touch of colour, in calming shades, making the text and photos I use the focal point.  I can even choose virtual backgrounds, but decided the best background is actually my shelving of yarns behind me.  :)

I log on to the internet, wirelessly, from next to the loom and get to talk to people all over the continent.  I can record the meeting (well, not me, but the technology will if I punch the correct button), then upload it to You Tube for the participants to view later.

All things that were undreamed of in my childhood - except for the science fiction I devoured.

I sit in my studio and reach out to dozens of people who, like me, find the ancient craft of turning thread into cloth endlessly fascinating.

We live in 'interesting' times.