Potholes

In addition to the nasty potholes in the streets I've run into a couple in the studio. :P~

Now that these three skeins are dried I realize that the mylar has broken in at least one place in each skein, sometimes two places.

Now if these skeins were for my own use I wouldn't worry about that too much. They are core spun and the broken mylar ply won't compromise the integrity of the yarn and I would just deal with it.

But these skeins are not for my own use - I'm trying to develop an inventory of handspun yarns I can work on when I can't weave, for sale to others. And I can't, in all conscience, offer them for sale when I know they have broken ply threads.

And so I have to look at alternatives. Not that I don't have some already in my stash!

I could also ply the mylar with something else to strengthen it, but that's just way more labour than I want to invest into something that I don't know people will be willing to pay for - at least pay enough to make it worth my while to make it. (Anyone interested in some 'seconds'?)

So I'll be digging through my stash to look for alternatives, two of which I'm pretty sure will work - just have to dig them out of storage.

The other pothole is the test warp I put onto the AVL the other day. I'm having problems getting it to beat in square and the auto cloth advance isn't working properly either. I think that's a function of the cloth not beating in to match the take up so I've just cut the second sample off the loom, removed the 8 dent reed and inserted a 10 and will change the set from 32 epi (4 in a dent) to 30 epi (3 in a dent).

Keeping fingers crossed that will fix that problem.

In the meantime I'm winding skeins and pushing for the scheduled dye day on Monday.

Currently reading Firestorm by Rachel Caine

Ideas

I intended to weave one of this design in turquoise, then had a brain cramp and started a second one. Which then 'suffered' a flaw which will no doubt make it a 'second'. Oh well.



Have been thinking about where ideas come from and how they come into material form. I have ideas. Lots of ideas. Very few of them make it as far as the loom.



Each idea gets filtered through a series of considerations. First one is - is the idea sufficiently original? In other words, has it come out of my own source or have I been unduly influenced by something someone else has done?



If I am sparking off someone else's idea, is my idea far enough from the source to be considered my own, or is it too derivative?



If it is sufficiently 'original' the next question is - in my experience do I think anyone would be interested in buying it? For enough money to make it worth my while to invest the time to make it?



Don't get me wrong - when I'm making something for myself the investment of time is always worth it. :) But my primary goal - beyond working at something I love to do - is to sell my handwoven textiles.



Which then leads me to the question of how efficiently I can make it. If the idea is labour intensive, can I re-tool it to make it more efficiently? If I can't streamline the process, will the results be attractive enough that I can charge more for it? Will it be worthwhile to use more than one shuttle; use a temple; dress the loom with two warps, etc.?



Then I need to consider the materials themselves. Which fibres/yarns would be most appropriate to render this design into material form? All fibres have inherent characteristics. How they have been prepared for and spun will have an impact on those characteristics.



For example, a fibre that has inherently good draping qualities can be given more backbone by combing the fibres so that they are parallel (worsted) and then given a higher degree of twist to make the yarn spun stiffer than it would be otherwise.



So once I come up with the concept, I may go through several different fibres/yarns before I feel comfortable with my choices.



At this point I generally make a sample. Now sometimes my sample warp will be 3 yards long and 10 inches wide - in other words, sufficient to make a scarf (if the concept is appropriate for a scarf). Regardless, a 10 inch width in the reed allows for an easy way to calculate loss of width.



I may weave 6 inches and wet finish the results to make sure I'm going to be happy with the cloth. If I'm not, I may re-sley (looser or denser) or I may change my weft. If my first sample isn't satisfactory, I may try several different wefts. Sometimes the whole 3 yards will get woven off with different sets, different wefts, different weave structures.



Other times I will go ahead and set the loom up based on previous weaving experience. After weaving for 35 years I've woven with a lot of different fibres in a lot of different weave structures. Having that foundation of knowledge to draw on means that I don't start out at square one every time I go to the loom anymore. But when I do use a completely new yarn, I generally weave at least one warp that I consider to be primarily for sampling or getting to know the potential of the yarn.

From the onset of an idea to actually putting it into production can take time. Sometimes, quite a long time, as with this scarf warp. I thought about it for months before I went ahead and dressed the loom with my initial 'sampling' and then a further 12 months passed by before I actually got a production warp onto the loom.

Part of the reason for not getting onto the loom sooner is that the warp required beaming two warps and weaving with two shuttles. It was only when I was in a position of needing to weave slowly that I finally went ahead with it.

Now that I have, I'm very happy with the results and find that I'm running out of warp before I'm running out of ideas for designs to weave on it. Sounds like I'm going to have to put another warp on the loom.

Currently reading Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Ukrainian Skirts and Seconds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Currently reading The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry

Selling Seconds

Hmm - once again I seem to have achieved blurry - the photo looked fine on the camera. Oh well, this is just to show that I am making progress. Nearly at the half way mark on the warp. There are four green and 3 red with the fourth about at the one yard mark. That should make about 19 yards (out of 40) woven.

At the bottom of the photo you can see how I store my reeds - standing upright lengthwise, leaning against the base of the loom.

One of the seminars I'm teaching next week is The Business of Weaving (Crafts). One of the groups has invited other artisans to sit in on the seminar so we broadened the title.

Having chosen weaving as a career 30+ years ago, I very quickly had to come to grips with the business of running a business. Scheduling, motivation, costing items for pricing, general accounting etc., etc. Running a weaving business is far different from having weaving as a hobby and occassionally selling the odd item, hoping to recoup your material costs.

One policy I implemented very early was to not sell seconds. At first they got discarded (rag bag), or if I'd invested too much time in completing them before noticing they didn't pass, were given away.

A few years ago I had a 'disaster'. While sick with a really bad cold I was threading a very complicated pattern and didn't notice until I'd woven more than half of the warp (20 yards or so) that I'd made threading errors. Not something that was going to compromise the function of the cloth (tea towels), but definitely the pattern was wrong.

With the growth of the internet and chat groups, I posted to one that I belonged to explaining my predicament and offering the tea towels to other weavers at a cut rate price. Some of them that bought contacted me to say they couldn't see the error and would have offered them as 'firsts'.

But I knew the error was there. :}

Now I have a store on Art Fire and one of the things they offer is the ability to offer Special Promotions. So I'm thinking that I could take my collection of 'seconds' that are second by virture of flaws that won't in any way compromise the function of the textile and offer them as a Special Promotion on Art Fire.

But something in me baulks. I really don't like the idea of having textiles that I'm not happy with being purchased by the general public. :(

Currently reading Love Mercy by Earlene Fowler