Studio Fair

So this is as far as we got before I caved.  Until the overhead lights are off we can't set our own lighting and it's hard to know just how it will look with the nasty hall lights killing the colours.

What I didn't quite catch in the photo was....see the catering guy in the white shirt and black pants to the far left?

As he walked by the booth he 'fondled' the scarves on the display rack.  :)

So I guess something is working?  Textiles do have to be felt.

To my friends doing shows this season - best wishes to you all for smooth travel, easy set up and lots of sales.

Not Quite Over

Apparently 2013 wasn't quite over after all....

Since my post saying that all production from that day onward would be for 2014, I have finished the blue/green tea towel warp, including hemming most of the 17 towels from that warp, wound a white place mat warp, wove it off, cut and serged ready for wet finishing (sitting on the chair in the foreground) and wound a green place mat warp which will go onto the loom after lunch.

Doug will go pressing this afternoon to catch up on what I've hemmed and the plan is to finish the green mats, wet finish both the white and the green so I can bring them along on the trip, hemming and pressing as I go.  My little flat bed press will fit into the van and I can press in the hotel room in Vancouver as the room we have is a mini-suite with kitchenette.

The weather report has been revised and they are now saying sunny and dry for Monday so I'm hoping they are correct.  So much nicer to drive 450 miles when it isn't raining or - worse - snowing, especially this time of year when so many people still don't have winter tread on their vehicles.

Defining Success

One of the things that self-employed people must do on a regular basis is define 'success'.

Is this show successful enough to continue doing, or do I drop it?  Is this line of scarves selling, or do I need to stop making it?  Bottom line, am I making enough money to keep on doing what I'm doing or do I need to change my focus?

So with no little regret, I will no longer be doing the Seattle Weaver's Guild show in October.  Sales there have been dwindling, for a number of reasons, for the past few years.  I will miss very much visiting with the people I've gotten to know there, but c'est la vie.

There are all sorts of ways to define success.  I remember once at a party talking to someone who was not an artist, who was moaning about how he could reduce the amount of tax he was paying to the government.

After listening to him complain (or was that brag?) for several minutes I finally interrupted and said that I was hoping to one day earn enough money that I would have to pay taxes.

Taxes are the contribution citizens of a country make in order to keep said country running smoothly and - I most fervently hope - compassionately.

I have benefited from some of the services to low income people in the past and feel honoured to be a fully participating citizen of this country.  Yes, including paying taxes.

While I would like to be more financially solvent, by choosing to be a self-employed weaver I have had a life that I could not have dreamed of - travelled to places, met people and had experiences that never would have happened if I'd stayed in an office type job.

So in many ways I can say that my career has succeeded in bringing me a lot of satisfaction.  I have learned many lessons, some of them painful, some of them pleasant.  But financially?  In any other trade/profession, someone who has devoted this many years to perfecting her skills and knowledge would be making a whole lot more money.

But I didn't go into this for the money.  I wanted a life filled with creativity.  I wanted to be able to set my own goals and schedule, including saying no to other's expectations - which is probably the hardest thing to learn.

How I define success changes from month to month, day to day, sometimes moment to moment.  It's my life.  And life is a process.  Any definition of success must take that into account.  

Advance Notice

One of the things I have been doing lately is helping disperse the weaving, spinning, bobbin lace etc. stash of a friend currently in hospice.

I have volunteered to auction off some items that don't have a ready market here but that I am pretty sure will be wanted by weavers from afar.

Once I return from my shows - around the end of November, beginning of December, I will be setting up an auction on eBay for these items.

Pattern and Loom by John Becker (including the supplemental booklet) will be one of the items.  The book(s) are in very good condition - one small tear on the dust jacket, no bent pages, no signs of foxing.

Along with the Becker book set there will be a rug and a macro-gauze by Peter Collingwood.  As soon as I am able I will get photos of these for the auction.  There are a number of other OP books that may be of interest to weavers but I just haven't got time to go through them right at the moment.

In addition I will be auctioning off the guild Peter Collingwood rug.

If any of these items appeal, you might want to start saving your pennies.  :)

Currently reading Kill Call by Stephen Booth

Road Tripping

I should have taken a photo of the van yesterday after we picked up a load of (mostly) spinning equipment en route south.  My friend loved spinning and weaving, and after a lifetime of collecting the tools she felt she needed, she had a house filled to bursting with equipment and materials.  Sadly she has no family who is interested in it, so friends are helping her son find new homes for as much of it as possible.

We stopped at another friends to drop off some smaller items and she said that once Noreen and I are done with Jean's, we can start on hers...

Meanwhile, Noreen and I are determined to keep this disbursement in mind and try to keep our own collections at least reasonable, if not simplified!

Too often I hear of elderly weavers whose families have no idea about weaving equipment and wind up loading everything into a truck and taking it to the dump!

Weavers and spinners need to have a studio executrix to assist their families in re-distributing their stashes.

What arrangements have YOU made about your weaving/spinning stuff?

And if someone in western Canada wants or needs a large warping mill, I know one looking for a home....

Pack Up Frenzy

The big advantage to being the last one to pack out is that we miss the frenzy of people trying to get a space to park at the curb....

That isn't our booth but our neighbour's.  When I took this photo we were still getting stuff loaded into boxes and knocking the booth structure down.  By the time I left Doug loading the van up (I came home to wash dishes so we'd have clean to eat dinner) he was the last one left at the curb.

Even so, from the time the show closed at 4 until the time I left the campus it was just 1 hour and 20 minutes.  We have been doing this for so long that in spite of having a ton of stuff to pack up, we're pretty efficient.  :)

Looming 'Disasters'

See the mistake?  No?  Well, neither did I until after I had woven 12 yards in two different weave structures.  (Yellow line shows where I fixed the problem.)

Even after fixing the sleying oopsie, the cloth doesn't look a whole lot different.  I am hoping it will remain just as invisible after wet finishing, which is when these sorts of mistakes usually leap out at the eye.

It was only when I had the 'right' shed open to insert a new weft that I noticed there was a problem.  If I had never had that combination happen it never would have been discovered.

Just goes to show, no matter how skilled, how experienced you might be, you still make mistakes....


On another note, the first day of the UNBC Artisans of the North sale went fairly well.  It was a good thing I made lots of place mats as they sold like mad.  So much so I don't have enough for the rest of the sales and now I'm thinking that on those 3 days I have at home (plus the 3 days of Studio Fair) I might just have to stay home and weave as many more as I can fit into the time available.


And on another note entirely (pun intended!) one of the things I inherited from my brother was a bunch of cassette tapes, compilations one of his friends had made in the late 70's early 80's.  I've been weaving to the music of my young adulthood, feeling my brother very near.  I'm sure he'd be rather surprised at the level of enjoyment I'm getting from these tapes, obsolete as the technology - and the music in some cases - is.  In spite of 6 years difference in our ages (he was younger than me) we shared much the same taste in music and it was actually a bit of a surprise to discover that.  And that there were very few duplicates when I combined his CD  collection with mine.

Music is a big component of my working time in the studio.  To double my CD collection was a bonus - although I'd rather have my brother.  My vote didn't count on that score, though....