Productivity

My attention was brought to a thread on Ravelry where comments were made about how fast I weave.  (Based on viewing my video clip on You Tube.)

Out of curiousity, I kept track of how many picks I wove in a 40 minute session.  This number includes changing bobbins, trimming weft tails, taking sips of water etc.  It is not the speed of my weaving rhythm, which is, obviously, faster.

In 40 minutes I wove 1280 picks or about 32 picks per minute.  Weaving was a bit slower than usual because I'm weaving with fairly fine weft and I have not yet perfected how to wind the bobbins so that they wind off smoothly as they get near to empty.  I rather suspect that as I figure out the bobbin winding my speed will not have to slow to accommodate bobbins that don't behave nicely.

Some people add beads to the shuttle's spindle or axle to prevent the bobbin from 'jamming' in the shuttle cavity - I prefer to figure out how to wind the bobbins 'properly' so that messing with beads isn't necessary.  Just my preference....

At any rate I am delighted with the way this cloth is turning out.  The warp is 2/16 cotton with 2/16 cottolin weft.  I'm just weaving this as yardage which I will cut to towel lengths once off the loom.  I have enough for around 5 yards (or about 5 towels) in this colour and then I'll switch to a slightly darker blue/grey which I think will also look very nice.  I may - or may not - change the tie up and treadling.  I think this one is looking pretty good.

Weighing Options

Finished threading the warp this morning, got it sleyed, tied on and started weaving.  The dark blue is the header - just any old 'waste' yarn I have - dribs and drabs left on bobbins.

This time I paid attention to my notes and threaded it the way the last towel warp was supposed to be done.  Once again I will just weave yardage with the pale mint green and then cut that up into suitable towel lengths.  When I switch to the cottolin - left overs from my summer tops - I will change the tie up and do something different, perhaps in actual towel lengths, perhaps just yardage again.  The goal is to try and use up some of the odds and ends of yarn in my stash.

We are in final count down for the show season.  My suitcase is on the lr floor waiting to be filled - I just have to remember the things that need to be packed, like my silk jacket for the conference fashion show.  I leave in just 8 days so there is some time to weave.  Last night I managed to put a small dent in the hemming pile, but there are more mats to come so I'm going to have to stay on top of my production and deadlines.

Doug is at the annex painting the booth shelves.  Once that's done I think we will be as ready as we can be in terms of booth display - then it will be time to start packing up the inventory so that it will be ready to be loaded into the van.  I'm thinking we need to cut back at least one show next year.  We'll see how the smaller shows go - if they are worth doing or not.

Being in business is a constant exercise in weighing options, trying to find a balance between income and outgo...

Currently reading Bones of Paris by L. R. King - not a Mary Russell story but....

Winding Down

With less than 12 days until I leave for the Eastern Great Lakes conference, followed closely (every following weekend until the end of November) by retail sales, I realized I need to dial back my production and take some time to rest.

I have been pushing, not hard but steadily, since the end of May and I'm tired.  I am also becoming more and more aware that I am no longer in my 30's (much as my inner spirit insists) but in my 60's.  It takes longer for me to recover from big pushes and the next 8 weeks are going to be one gigantic road trip.  One trip is tiring, the schedule I have coming up is going to be....exhausting.

So my plan (because you know I always have one!) is to finish the mat warp currently in the loom, weave the peach mat warp I wound yesterday, then switch to the AVL and see how much of that 20 yards I can get woven before I leave on the 8th of October.

In between there are administrivia tasks that need doing - bring my ledger up to date, remitting my GST forms, getting a massage (absolutely necessary!), a phone call re: another possible webinar next year - and those are just the things I can think of off the top of my head.  I'm sure others will reveal themselves as the days go by.

During the trips I will have my iPad so I can work on notes for the possible Next Big Project because after moaning about no teaching dates for next year, a number have come in and now my schedule is full enough that I am not going to be able to take much time off in order to do prep work for those workshops, guild programs, webinars.

I know that I could actually weave more than what I've outlined, but it isn't just the weaving there is all the finishing to do, too.  Last night during a meeting I attended I did manage to hem 6 place mats.  But there are 5 times that number still to do, plus the mats I've woven since Doug pressed the ones ready for hemming.

There are still 4 dozen painted warp scarves that have to be wet finished, trimmed, tagged and priced.  There are a dozen rayon chenille scarves, ditto.  Additional inventory for the Langley guild sale to ready and deliver during one of the road trips, then be picked back up again once their sale is over.

So rather than continue to push, push, push, I am going to limit myself to the above 3 warps and only (and I do mean only!) if those all get done with plenty of time left will I even contemplate trying to weave one more warp.  She says now....

Sneaking up on Tidy

north wall

west wall

Today a friend came and helped me sneak up on 'tidy'.

Quite frankly, even though she knows me, knows the chaos I live in and the length and breadth of my stash, even she was somewhat staggered at just exactly how much yarn was living in all those boxes and bins.

In four hours, she only managed to deal with two types of yarn - the 2/8 cotton and the 2/16 cotton.  And make a token stab at the shelves with a mixture of bamboo and linen and miscellaneous stuff.

But those two yarns are the ones I use most often and being able to see them - and therefore find them?  Priceless!

I hesitate to point out the number of boxes of wool, rayon/bamboo and rayon chenille I have yet to deal with, but please - let me live in the fantasy of a well organized (nearly) studio for a day or two?

Currently reading The Beast by Faye Kellerman

Backup Plans

obligatory weaving content

I'm a planner and I really get very uncomfortable when I can't get answers, don't know what might happen - or might not.  A friend says I must be up to Plan M by now....

This is all to say that the uncertainty of my future was reaching extremely uncomfortable levels - not knowing if I should even attempt to book teaching events, if I would have to suddenly cancel all my commitments.

So one of the burning questions - indeed, the burning question I had for the oncologist today was - when can I expect to need to set aside 6-8 months of my life again to concentrate on treatment?

He was very honest and said that conservatively I can expect an 18 month remission from the last Rituximab (the end of May, 2013), that once it comes back - because it is indolent (i.e. slow growing) - that treatment would likely begin 2 to 3 years once 'relapse' has occurred.

So, conservatively, I can expect to have the next 4 years fairly 'free' from worry in terms of booking teaching events.

This is a huge load off my mind.  I make a fairly large percentage of my income from teaching and not knowing what to expect was leaving me feeling like I ought not book anything.  Knowing something of what lies ahead, I feel confident that I can make those bookings and follow through on them.  

But that isn't all.  I returned home from my appointment at the clinic to an email confirming a date for the Next Big Project.  It is far enough away that I can make it through the current show season, do my teaching commitments in the months ahead and still have time to do all the preparations that need to be done in order to be ready.

I haz a happy.

Multi-tasking

With the pressure of deadlines ramping up, I'm multi-tasking.  I would wish for a clone except she'd probably start doing even more stuff.

Just finished cutting the place mat warp off the loom and started cutting them apart to serge.  Doug will go pressing later this week so I'm trying to get stuff ready to be wet finished.

The warp is beamed on the AVL so I need to thread that.  I'm going to use the same threading as the last warp but this time I'm going to do it properly (she says, optimistically).

Another warp is being wound on the warping board also for place mats.  Again, trying to use up some of my never-ending stash.

And I started thinking about the title 'master' weaver.  It's not one I wear comfortably, partly because the perception is that if you have mastered something, everything you produce is 'perfect'.

Not in my studio....

The fact is that I am far from perfect.  Where the 'mastery' of a craft comes in, in my opinion, is in the knowledge of one's materials - their limitations and how to push them - coax, might be a better word - to perform beyond those limitations.

Mastery is also in knowing how your equipment and tools work and their limitations.  And how to push/coax them to perform beyond those limitations.

Mastery is knowing when less-than-perfect is good enough - and when it isn't.

Mastery is being confident that whatever happens, you can figure out what to do about it - which might, at times, mean tossing the whole project into the recycle bin.

Mastery is having a full tool box full of tips and tricks, knowing when to employ them - and being willing to acquire more.

While I do feel that I have mastered certain aspects of my craft, I certainly do not know everything there is to know about weaving.  I look forward to continuing to learn, even if that means learning how little I know.  It is what excites me about weaving every day - learning something new, something that I did not know before.

In the meantime the Deadline Dragon continues to huff down the back of my neck....time to get back to the studio.

Time Management

next (last, for now) rayon chenille warp, empty AVL in background

When I chose to become a professional/production weaver I had to make some choices.  One of those choices was in the type of product I would make.  Even though I am mostly interested in weaving, intellectually, in terms of weave structure, quite often exploring that aspect of weaving can be quite time consuming.  Because exploring in that area is, for me, searching beyond my comfort zone, my foundation of knowledge, an effort to increase my knowledge.  And that pursuit is fraught with 'errors'.  It is not a pursuit that lends itself to product for upcoming sales.  Or at least, not right away.  Product development happens during the spring, not the weeks leading up to the shows...

Therefore, when I am in full blown getting-ready-for-sale-season, I am not pursuing my love of weaving by wandering down unexplored avenues.  I am trying very hard to get as much product ready for the sales as I possibly can.  I have no time to baby recalcitrant warp threads, use more labour intensive techniques, slide around on the slippery slope of the learning curve, etc.

I need to slam warps into and get them out of the loom as cloth just as efficiently as I can.

With just two weeks before I leave for the Eastern Great Lakes conference, I am feeling the pressure of deadlines enormously.  I have very little patience.  I am...testy.

I have made a significant financial outlay for the up coming sale season.  I have put very many of my 'eggs' into one basket - that of a 4 week time frame during which I need to earn enough money to last me all through most of next year.  It's not a very secure feeling.

After the rather disastrous day yesterday where I cut not one but two rayon chenille warps off the loom and consigned them to the recycle bin, I decided I would only weave two more rc warps (hopefully with no adventures during them) and then turn my attention back to place mats.

The disadvantage with having all my inventory elsewhere is that I can't just run around the corner and see how my inventory is looking.  Mind you with everything jammed onto the shelves it was hard to see exactly what I had, anyway!

But I do remember that I also need more place mats.

If I can get 4 more scarves woven (two are now done), that will give me about a dozen and a half of those, not a large selection, but at least enough to be starting the season with.

The advantage to switching to place mats is that they are very fast to weave, I can bring bins of them with me to Seattle to hem - I can even bring unhemmed ones to Vancouver/Calgary along with my small flat bed press and during down time find a quiet corner and hem.  Then press them in the hotel room to add to inventory as needed.

Once the show season is over I can go back to the rayon chenille and weave them in a more leisurely fashion.  I have used enough of the yarn to see that the shelves do have a tiny bit more space on them, but I'm still far from done with rayon chenille.

As for the AVL?  Doug is winding a 'fast' towel warp onto it.  They won't be terribly fancy, but once again I will be able to use up some of my never-ending (seemingly!) stash and have some tea towels for sale and hostess gifts.  Not sure when I'll find time to weave on it, but at least it won't be nekkid.