Final Throes

We called it Puff.  It served us well, pressing hundreds of yards of textiles in the time we had it.  We are still hoping to find a new home for it, but things have gotten complicated.  As in...the weather.

Suddenly it's winter and it's wintering hard.  First we (the entire province almost) got slammed with one long winter snow storm.  Roads were closed.  Avalanche mitigation was done, closing more roads.  We now have a respectable amount of snow cover which allays some fears of not having enough snow pack in the mountains to get us through the summer.

And now it's getting cold.  As in harsh cold.  At this moment it is minus 20C.  The forecast is predicting temps down even further as the week progresses as in the minus 30C range.  (F and C converge at -40)

And today Doug and his helper go pull wire.

When Puff was installed, there was no heavy duty electrical panel and the boiler needed one to run.  So we bought one and hired an electrician to hook it up.  However, it meant running a heavy duty wire from the big box up into our room.  Since we bought and paid for that, and the landlord has assured us he doesn't want it, Doug is removing it and will try to find a local buyer.

But some of the places the wire runs is in unheated areas.  So the guys are dressing warmly and will take breaks to prevent frost bite.  Working in heavy gloves/mitts will be a challenge and so the whole job may take all day as they may need to go warm up.  Repeatedly.

In the meantime I continue to work on weaving.  I pressed a run of place mats on the little press and need to contact the person who wants them that they are now ready.  I finished weaving the burgundy mats and need to wet finish them.

But I also finished dressing the Megado with the silk warp, filled bobbins and stored them in a humidor.  Because with the drop in temperature, the relative humidity also drops and the new humidifier is having a tough time keeping the relative humidity high enough for weaving with something like silk that tends to generate static electricity.  And I want/need to keep the computer assisted dobby happy.

But I'm anxious/excited about getting started on that warp this morning.  The first scarf will be the 'easy' one - intended for publication it will be a four shaft version.  The next one, intended as a gift, I will get to play around a bit.  Fun times!

Too Many Hats

The beginning of staging for the conference

All of my life I have worn too many hats.  This year has been no different except that I took on way too many hats given my current state of health.  But five years ago I was in pretty good health (I thought).  I was in remission from cancer and cardiac seemed to be well in hand.

So to tackle co-chairing another 'major' conference seemed like it would be easy-peasy.

Life has a way of tossing curve balls and I got hit with both barrels (apologies for the mixed metaphor).  By-pass surgery in 2015, the return of the cancer last year.

My energy levels are much lower than I'm used to having so I'm struggling to get everything done that I want to do let alone what needs to be done.

In addition to general conference organization there is the vendor booth and teaching of four seminars.

Fortunately Doug is a very real support and participant in doing shows so he is doing most of the lifting in terms of the vendor booth.  And I mean that literally.  There are boxes of books, set out on the living room floor - the beginning of the collection (or staging) for the booth.

Ignore the bin - it's the contents of my desk I cleared off and have not, lo these many months later, had the inclination to sort through and toss or keep (if keep, where?????)

So I don and remove hats frequently throughout the day.  This morning I'm getting the comp copies ready to give to those people who substantially helped with The Intentional Weaver.  Since several of them will be at the conference I decided to a) save the postage and b) hand them over personally.  Maybe I'll get a hug.  :)

And no, I'm not doing the conference all by myself.  This weekend I forwarded some files to a friend who is a great administrator and loves spreadsheets and organizing data.  She will take care of the exhibit paperwork, labels and awards, act as 'secretary' when Mary and I do the jurying.

A member of the committee will print out the numbers for the models to carry in the fashion show as well as her duties of treasurer, and a guild member has been very helpful with getting the fashion show booklet printed.

Other committee members have been spending many hours on their areas of responsibility.

My biggest issue is that I no longer have the energy I used to have.

Of course I'm also still trying to weave for the craft fair season, do the marking for the Olds classes - there are two who are VERY late and will simply have to wait until after the conference is over.  They will be marked before Fibre Week so they have gone ahead and registered for their next level.  I have every confidence they will both pass.

Then there is getting ready to teach level one again at Olds in July (and possibly Yadkin Art Centre in NC August, if they get enough students for level one and two to go ahead.)  And I can't find my sample book so I can place my order for the yarn needed for the students.  :(  It isn't in the file drawer where it is supposed to live so I can only assume it's buried somewhere in the studio.  (weaving gods help me!)

The past month has made it abundantly clear that Things Need to Change.  I turn 69 this year.  I know people who retired at 55 to do the things they wanted to do.  When you have had the job you wanted and you love it and want to keep doing it, it doesn't make much sense to 'retire'.  On the other hand, when it becomes increasingly difficult to do everything you want to do, it is time to make some changes in what it is you actually want to do so that you can do them!

So some decisions have been made since the new year.  It seems like monthly I make a few more.  I keep chipping away at the things I do not have the time and energy for and try to hang on to the things that I feel I need to keep doing.

I need to preserve whatever energy I have for the things that mean the most to me.

I find myself going back to the original 'plan' I had when I first began weaving.  Production weave for 25 years, then teach.  Well, as it happens I did both at once.  Time to let go of the production weaving and focus on the teaching and learning.

Also time to face the fact that I am 69, in not great health.  Time to think about what happens in 10 or 15(?) years, especially in the face of so many people I know dying, at relatively 'young' ages.  Time to think about needing to have assisted care.  My gigantic AVL will never be appropriate in assisted care, but another loom might.  So I have decided to purchase a Megado with electronic interface because if I'm going to dig more deeply into the formation of cloth I will want more than four shafts and an electronic dobby will help with complex treadlings.

The AVL has served me well.  But it is showing signs that it also needs to be retired.  I will continue to limp along with it for a few more warps but expect it to be sold off for parts when the time comes.  It's too big and too worn for me to even think about selling it and it will have to go away for the new loom when it arrives, sometime in the new year.

The industrial steam press and the industrial pirn winder will go to the scrap yard.  The metal in them might pay for the truck-with-crane that will be needed to move the press out of the annex and onto the truck bed.

The annex will be given up, in no small measure because the rent has been increased - again, which means I need to squeeze everything there back into here.

I plan on doing the Art Market craft fair one last time and make that my last big out of town show.  I will continue doing the two shows here I've done for the past - in one case 4 decades - while I still have sufficient inventory to make them worthwhile doing.

Mentoring will become more and more important to me and I hope to continue teaching the Olds program in some fashion.  It gives me great joy and satisfaction to see the light come on in student eyes and see them go on to keep the craft alive and fresh with good solid information being passed on.

I am going to try to remember that my goal is to hang some hats up and leave them there, rather than wear them.

Wish me luck!!!

Ch-ch-changes

Life is full of ups and downs, ins and outs, lefts and rights, backwards and forwards.  The only thing certain about life is that Things Will Change.  (And Death and Taxes, but that isn't the subject of this post!)

About 12 years ago I had the opportunity to obtain a large steam press.  So large it would not fit into my studio.  This necessitated renting additional space which came to be known as The Annex.  It was space in the same building as where I originally learned to spin and weave.  Not the exact same room, but in the same building.

The space was large enough that part of it became devoted to storage, first for copies of Magic that remained unsold, then yarn, then completed inventory.  Renting this space has been a constant drain on my resources and it has been a struggle at times to make the money to pay the rent.  So off and on, now and then, I have thought that I really need to give up the press and the space.

Well, the universe has spoken.

The space below where I have the annex has been rented to a tire store.  (The space is in a light industrial area.)

The thought of having even yarn in a space that will soon be filled with the fumes from tires is the final straw in finally making a decision.

I've asked Doug to find out when the tire store will move in (I am assuming the beginning of next month) so that we can begin to arrange for the removal of All My Stuff from The Annex.

When you don't make a decision, sometimes it is made for you.

Of course, I've just purchased several hundred pounds of yarn which I had been intending to store in The Annex...oops.

Currently reading Off the Grid by C. J. Box

Working Out Who is Boss

At times Doug was curled into a fetal position in order to see and work in the cavity but in the end he prevailed.  Doug is the boss of Puff (my name for the press)!  With any luck at all he can actually get some pressing done tomorrow.....and I can work on the list of things I intended to do today....

Keeping God Amused

I had a plan.  It was a good plan.  I was going to get soooo much accomplished this weekend.  Can you hear the chuckling now?

Doug offered to take over the pressing this weekend, which would free me up to work on the samples for Handwoven and the designer.  Great!  I was looking forward to having the 5 buckets of textiles pressed ready for the next step - trimming the fringes of the scarves/shawls Tuesday evening at guild, spending Wednesday getting everything tagged and priced so that Doug could start loading boxes with inventory on Thursday.  The van was going to have it's winter tread put on sometime during the week so once we loaded the van for the first show on Oct. 20/21 it would just get loaded back into the van ready for the next sale.  Everything was going to go smoothly.

Hear the chuckling yet?

We went up to the annex and I reviewed what needed to be done to the shawls/scarves, the finishing press for the tea towels and the yardage for the 'after' samples for A Good Yarn: Rayon, then came home to tackle some of the stuff here.

Well, it was lunch time, so why not start with that?

I hadn't even finished eating when the phone rang.  "The press has broken down, I can't get the press to release the cloth.  Come now!"

Off I went - by the time I got there Doug had figured out how to release the top 'jaw' but obviously it had to be fixed before he could continue so the boiler got shut down and he ran looking for parts and pieces to cobble a fix together.

The press is very old and made from cast iron so getting a replacement part is not really possible and even if it were, we need the press back up and running today!

I will be heading back up there in a few minutes to act as mechanic's helper.  In the meantime I started cutting apart the loom state samples for the rayon chenille Diversified Plain Weave sample for A Good Yarn: Rayon - and ran out of masking tape.

Surely you hear the laughter now????

Steamed

Welcome to my steam bath.  :)

It never fails - I wind up hitting the steam press on the hottest days of the year.  Yesterday and today the temps were/are in the high 20's (C not F) and after spending a couple of hours each day pressing scarves I'm pretty much 'steamed'.

The photo was taken with my phone so isn't great.  Both doors are open for maximum air flow and I'm standing in the loading dock looking back into the room.  To the left is the nice shiny boiler that provides the steam, and the big yellow/greenish thing in the background is Puff - the industrial steam press.  On the right the bucket with the scarves I pressed yesterday ready to come home and the rack with what I'd pressed so far today.  They will stay overnight to complete drying as they are still slightly damp.

The room in the far back (washed out by the sunlight coming through the one window in the space) is my storage area for extra copies of A Good Yarn, Weave a V and the yarn I have for re-sale, along with other miscellaneous bits and pieces.

I keep thinking I really can't afford to keep the space but am loathe to say goodbye to Puff.  Using Puff it takes about 6 minutes to press a scarf - a job that would take closer to twenty minutes otherwise.

Satisfying

After a jet-lag induced slow start to the week, I've had a satisfying couple of days.

Yesterday I threaded, sleyed and tied on the 2/20 mercerized cotton warp I beamed on the AVL on Friday and will start weaving today. The first 6 yards will be woven with a temple because of the density of cloth I want to build. The rest should go fairly quickly as shawls (with Tencel as weft) and tea towels (with cotton or linen as weft). I put 40 yards on so I will likely do a couple of shawls before starting the towels.

This morning Doug started work at 8 am so I was up fairly early (for me). I got to the annex by 10:30 and started pressing - 3 shawls, 14 scarves.

I confess I find the pressing the most tedious of the various tasks involved in creating textiles. But since it is absolutely necessary I try to space out my trips to Puff - no more than once a week. :) When I get there - usually on a Sunday so as to avoid the neighbours and lack of parking - I crank the stereo up loud and listen to music while I press. It takes about 20-25 minutes for the boiler to heat up so while that's happening I either read or try to straighten out the stuff stored there. This morning I was re-arranging the spinning fibres because I have a customer on Tuesday, plus I need to see if I have to order more fibres in.

Now I'm home for lunch and as soon as that's done I'll fire up the AVL and finish tweaking the auto-cloth advance in order to start weaving. The first bit will be slow so it will feel good to get that out of the way first. And I can return the small temple I borrowed in order to weave the cloth.

Tuesday evening I'll take the bucket of pressed items to the guild room and trim them there. It's also a job I find a bit tedious, so doing it with company will make it seem to go more quickly.

And later today I have to clear off the d/r table, balance my ledger and then set up my fringe twisting area again. I've a bucket of scarves woven in December that have to be twisted, then wet finished. I am determined to get on top of the wet finishing and utilize Puff as much as possible before I bite the bullet and get rid of him once and for all.

Can you tell I'm dragging my feet on that????

A Pressing Matter

This afternoon I went up to the annex for a binge of pressing. The wet finishing mountain avalanched on Mizz B last time she came over so it was past time to start dealing with it. Besides which I haven't been feeling well so hemming seems about the right speed these days. :(

I'm still weaving as much as I can, but it's going very slowly. The specialist did say it was important to exercise plus I still need to weave as physiotherapy for my ankle so I've been weaving at half speed and only winding one bobbin at a time so that I have to take a little rest while I wind the next bobbin. I'm hoping to get the date for my medical test when I see him again on June 9 and find out where we go from there.

One of the things that many weavers don't understand is the function of a hard press or compression in terms of adding stability to their fabric. When I'm pressing I press side A then side B then side A again as my minimum press. This helps the threads to lock into each other and hold the structure just a little more firmly.

Not that I compress everything. Blankets or other textiles where one wants trapped air in the cloth for insulation for example may not get compressed. But certainly any cloth that will be used for garments does.

In the photo you can see my industrial steam press and just visible in the background is the boiler that runs it. There's a box behind the drying rack full of place mats that have had their finishing press after hemming. Tomorrow Mizz B can label and price them.

The scarves will have their fringes trimmed. I don't like the look of the frayed tips so those get cut off. The fringe then looks like it has been finished with beads - without the weight. :)

Yes I press the fringe too which leads to interesting discussions at times. At a show a couple of years ago a man was looking extremely closely at my fringes while his wife waited patiently for him. Obviously not customers!

When I went to talk to him he asked me how I made my fringes so I explained about fringe twisting. He professed amazement - he was an engineer - and commented that he had been trying to figure out the construction of the fringe - it looked twisted but it was flat!!!!

I laughed and fessed up that I pressed the you know what out of them. Then we both laughed and he and his wife walked away, mystery solved.

Currently reading Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

A Pressing Matter

Or perhaps I should say, a matter of pressing?

I've mentioned my industrial steam press in previous posts, and since I had my Blackberry with me (I'm finding a camera phone amazingly handy!) thought I'd take some pictures. :D

So here is Puff.............




Doug installed Puff in my 'annex' which has two areas. The front, which has no windows, is where Puff resides. The other area has one tiny window and is crammed to the rafters with stuff!

Here is a shot of the drying rack with some of the tea towels I pressed this afternoon.





I don't mind doing more than one of an item. I find that customers buying placemats or even tea towels, quite often want more than one of the same design.

My goal is to use up as much of the yarn in the background of this photo as possible in the near future. The yarn to the right is a high quality acrylic and I've been doing throws, using it for weft. But I've got an awful lot of it...........

Here are some photos of the tea towels that I gave a finishing press to today. They are now ready to be tagged, priced and sent out for - hopefully - sale. The natural linen looks a bit green in this photo - it's actually much more beige. I think it's partly that the blue is coming through from the other side of the fabric. I wove these towels in August/September and finally got the last of them hemmed.





The following towels were woven in Nov/Dec/Jan. I've been lagging behind on my hemming, so it felt really good to get these dealt with today. The blue and beige are cotton and linen, the blue and white is all cotton.




Yesterday I cut and serged the last warp and those are the towels on the drying rack above. Well, some of them. There's still another load to go into the washer/dryer, but probably not until later in the week, now.

Today I got a phone call from a gal I met in December at a craft fair. She does surface design using embroidery techniques. She called to invite me to a drop in for craftspeople every second Wednesday. The next drop in just happens to be tomorrow, so I'm going to go and bring my tub of hemming. ;)

One of my goals was to be less of a stick-in-the-mud and try to develop more of a social life. The call felt like an invitation that I really wanted to accept, even though I'll miss the next one as I'll be out of town.