Towelling Up

2/16 cotton warp with fine linen weft



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




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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book Review

Warning - this book has nothing to do with weaving or textiles....



I first heard about this book via Deb Robson's blog and, intrigued, I checked our local library where I found it on the shelf.

In the current world political arena I find myself uneducated and under informed about a whole great big chunk of history. While in school I never found History to be very compelling - unless it was put into a social (or personal) context. A dry recitation of dates of battles and lineages of kings failed to fascinate.

Tell me the story of how historical events impacted on individuals and I am there. Which is why I read a fair amount of historical fiction - Dorothy Dunnett, Lindsey Davis, Sharan Newman, Sharon Kay Penman and so on. These authors, while writing a fictional story, use real events and social context to flesh out their narratives. And I find that fascinating. I'm much more interested in why people do things rather than just finding out about what it was they did.

I wasn't really sure what Destiny Disrupted was going to be like, simply taking Deb's recommendation that it was worth reading, but I found the 'story arc' (as Ansary refers to it) compelling.

Ansary comes from a background that embraces both east and west. He writes well, with a certain amount of acerbic wit (which I always enjoy). But mostly I appreciate his placing events into historic context, showing the development of Islam society, the growth of the Muslim religion, and how it grew in conjunction with European events.

I'm about 1/3 of the way through the book and am very glad I picked it up. I've also requested the library bring in one of Ansary's other books - the story of his personal journey. I'm certain it will be fascinating reading, too.

Had to Laugh...

...at myself just because I'm so predictable.



Went shopping at Costco yesterday to stock up on vitamins and noticed they had a new display of mats. I had really liked the ones I saw a few weeks ago but they had been far too large for the entry space in my kitchen.

They now had a much larger selection and one size was almost right - a bit on the small side - but the price couldn't be beat. So I bought two. One to leave out daily, the other to lay out when we are getting ready for a show to protect the floor as boxes get stacked up ready to load into the van.

Now shopping at Costco is not a thoughtful affair. You (well, I, at any rate) kind of grab and run and if it isn't right - well, Costco has this great return policy. :}

So I kind of rummaged through the pile and decided on the beige colourway rather than the darker brown and beige - without ever unfolding the mats to look at the overall design.

It wasn't until I got home that I actually saw the pattern woven into the rug.

I am sooooo a weaver!

Currently reading Destiny Disrupted by Tamim Ansary

A Functioning Kitchen

Doug worked late last night but we got the stove and fridge moved back into the kitchen after he got home. While the kitchen isn't quite finished, it's at least functioning again.

Doug still has to finish the trim under the counters but I expect that he'll leave that until the hallway and bathroom are done.

He has 3 days off this week so I'm hoping that he'll be able to finish laying the floor. The trim can wait.

I bought a floor mat to replace the old one but I'm not sure I like it yet. The old one looks better than I thought it would on the cork so I may just shampoo it and put the new one in the bathroom. The old one for the bathroom really doesn't look good and needed to be replaced anyway.

With any luck Doug will help me put the dining room to rights now that the stove and fridge are no longer in that space. I'm hoping that we can deliver his g/aunt's chair to his niece when we drive down to Vancouver in July. And then I need to deal with the last dribbles of clutter that didn't get dealt with before Doug started ripping the floors out and laying the new.

More Thoughts on Original Designs

painted red warp ready to weave...

So, given that I believe that what today's professional weavers are selling is primarily their original designs, how do I feel about patterns (recipes) and kits?

When I first started weaving I kind of pooh-poohed them, but over the years I have come to understand that they serve a useful purpose.

First of all, not everyone has a real live teacher to help them learn to think and make decisions that will lead them to success. Not everyone has much tolerance for spending a lot of time, effort and money buying materials to wind up with something that is rather less than the successful item they were striving for. Not everyone is willing to risk all that and call a 'mistake' another brick in their foundation of knowledge.

Where I still baulk is when people will follow a pattern from a book or magazine precisely and then sell the finished item as a piece of 'original' work. Copyright law forbids selling someone else's creative work as their own, but many people don't seem to understand what a copyright is, or why it should be honoured.

When I have submitted work to a publication or present drafts in a workshop, I do so in the knowledge that some people will follow those directions exactly. And I have no problem with that so long as they don't sell what they make. If they enter the item in a juried exhibit it would be nice if they would give credit to the source.

But how much does someone have to change a pattern in order to call it theirs? IMHO they should at the very least change the colours used. If there is a stripe sequence, they might consider changing the proportions of the stripes. They might substitute different yarns, which might then mean changing the set.

In other words, take the design work done by someone else and use it as a springboard.

But in the end if the weaver doesn't feel confident enough to make any changes that's fine. They are still honing their skills, learning by doing, sharing their joy of being creative with their family and friends by giving them hand made gifts. Perhaps in time they might start to feel confident enough to begin challenging themselves by weaving their own designs. And if they never do, that's okay, too.

Currently reading Every Which Way but Dead by Kim Harrison

Herding Cats (or Pushing String)

There are times when being a weaver as a profession feels a whole lot like herding cats - or pushing string.

Well, truth be told, pulling string works a whole lot better than trying to push it, but there are days.......... :}

I've been thinking a lot about aspects of being in the business of making and selling textiles, partly because of my health issues and partly because Mizz B has voiced her desire to make and sell textiles.

So I sat Mizz B down last night and we had a chat about some of the realities of being in business.

The first thing I asked her is what her focus was going to be.

"My focus?" she pondered as her eyes unfocused (the better to see the future perhaps?)

I pointed out that many people make the mistake of thinking that what they are selling is textiles when what we are really selling is our creativity, our design esthetic, and our skills.

Anyone can weave if they really want to. Not everyone has the ability to come up with original designs and create those. Many people recognize that they don't have the time or skills to make original things but do have the disposable income to pay for the talents of someone else to provide them with unique things in their home or office environment.

I suggested that since she was already very in to re-cycling, re-using, and re-purposing that she should consider marketing her textiles with that slant. I suggested that a good first product might be rugs, in particular rep weave mats. I made dozens of these mats when I first started out and they were fun. You can do a lot of patterning with four shafts just by changing your treadling, and the thick weft could be made from rags.

We talked about markets and the fact that the village she was going to be living in was not going to be her primary market. Even the town I live in isn't big enough to support me - I sell way more of my textiles in metropolitan centres. But likewise I save a lot of money by living in a smaller town where living costs are much lower.

We talked about the mechanics of being in business - logos, hang tags, business chequing accounts, loans to purchase equipment - because being a weaver means there are a whole lot of 'lean' income months where things have be be bought in order to make product long before a sale where income might start coming in, happen.

And it never hurts for a single woman to have her very own credit rating, separate from her partner, if she has one of those. :)

While we only scratched the surface of what she will need to know, I learned most of these things by doing. And I'm confident that she will, too.

The good news is that we have agreed that she can keep fringe twisting since she'll be coming back to town several times over the summer. Yay! And who knows - she may move back?

Catching Up

If you've been reading my blog for a while you might recognize this fabric. It is one of a series of afghans (throws) that I wove late last year, just as my health appeared to be heading into a downward spiral.

There were a few oopsies that needed to be fixed and quite frankly I just didn't feel well enough to do the repairs. :(

Sometimes it's easier for me to just keep on weaving rather than do the repairs on the loom, so if that's the case I will mark the error with a contrasting thread and then needleweave on my inspection table.

With Mizz B soon moving back home I wanted to show her how to do such repairs and with the arrival of the paperwork from St. Paul's Hospital today I'm feeling much more energetic so I dragged out the beam with the afghans wound on it and showed her how to fix such errors.

I managed to get 3 of them inspected and repaired before getting too tired (and with the fading light it was getting too hard to see) so I'll finish the rest tomorrow.

The paperwork took the better part of an hour, plus I have to go in for blood work a week before the procedure, but St. Paul's Hospital has a great reputation for being a first rate cardiac research hospital so I know I'm in good hands. It would be nice to know why this all blew up so soon and so quickly, though. :( (I have my suspicions, but....)

In the covering letter they mentioned that the nurse will let me know if I 'qualify' for one of their research programs - if I'm approached I've already decided to agree. My CAD is genetic and as a female I didn't have typical symptoms the first go round. This time - partly because I'd already been through it once - I started agitating for a stress test before things became critical. :)

Unfortunately at that time I wasn't having much in the way of typical symptoms - those started after I broke my ankle.

But with the arrival of the paperwork today the procedure is feeling much more 'real' - it's exactly 3 weeks until I get 'fixed' and knowing that has made all the difference in the world in terms of how I'm feeling.

In addition to doing the paperwork and the repairs, I threaded the AVL with the Diversified Plain Weave warp and wove a scarf on the small loom.

It's much easier for me to weave on the small loom right now, so I've decided to leave the warp on the AVL until after I get back from St. Paul's. With the air assist on the AVL I don't have to treadle so it should only be a couple of days until I can weave on that loom. It will be a week before I can weave on the small loom with the treadles. :) And if I don't feel up to weaving right away - well, there's all those afghans that will need fringe twisting. After all I won't have a fringe twisting elf after the end of this month. :(

At least there's the internet and she has family here so will be coming to visit fairly regularly. :)