Showing Up

I'm over half way through this bin of rayon chenille scarves, but still hours of work to do yet. 

Today Doug is working on installing a new light in the laundry room and, for safety's sake, the computer that runs my loom needed to be shut down.  Ergo, I could not weave.

While it was enormously tempting to take the afternoon 'off', things don't get done, so instead of weaving I'm back to fringe twisting.  My goal is to finish the fringe twisting and, if possible, get all of the scarves wet finished before I leave.

In a recent conversation with another fibre person, she commented about people running 15 things off the side of their desk.  Well, I do that, but I also use my dining room table...which is why there is a clear plastic cover over the hand woven table cloth that graces my table but largely remains invisible due to heaps of stuff all over it.  

Being self employed means showing up, even when you don't much feel like it.  I'd much rather be thinking about our upcoming holiday - the first in several years.  Frequently my trips are for 'business' and sometimes I can sneak in a few days here or there that might qualify as a 'holiday' - insofar as I'm not actually making any money during those days.  So, a holiday.  Of sorts.

All too often I work at least a little bit, every day.  Including 'holidays'.  Yes I have been known to weave on Christmas Day.  Thanksgiving.  There is always some aspect of being self employed that can be tucked into a day - ledger entries, project planning, writing (like this blog - although that is more unpaid labour), research, writing.

Now I will be adding conference planning.  More unpaid labour.  But that is part of returning to the weaving community some of the benefit I have had, being part of that community.

But if I don't show up and do it - well, nothing happens.

Dreams are well and good.  They are a pathway.  A goal.  But the only way to get there is to walk the walk.  Show up.  Do the work.

Deadline: Critical

Someone asked me recently how I keep track of what needs doing when.  As usual, there's not really an easy - or short - answer to that.

I keep calendars where I note events coming up.  Since I parse that information best by seeing it in print, I have several 'paper' calendars, plus one erasable one.  The erasable one has my business/studio events and the paper ones are mostly personal.

The studio ones get entered at the beginning of the year because those events are usually repeats, then when inquiries come in about teaching I can quickly and easily reference that calendar to see what I am already committed to and whether or not another event can be fitted in around those annual events.

These things are my priority and I have a pretty good idea of what needs to happen to meet those deadlines, partly because I know how much prep time is needed for teaching, and how long it takes me to make textiles for the craft fairs that I do.  

Articles for publication can usually be fit in here and there when I have the time and inclination to do those.

My biggest commitment of time and energy is, of course, the craft fair season.  As I scale back we are now down to three shows a year, two locally and one in Vancouver (plus the annual guild sale, but that's not a 'major' show for me, more an opportunity to put end of season stuff on 'sale').

So, even though I actually wove the above bin of scarves oh, last December?  Around the time mom got sick and went into hospital/hospice, they weren't needed until, well, now.

They don't need pressing, so they could be fringe twisted and wet finished much closer to the sale date.  

BUT - I am going to be out of town more than I am home for the next six weeks or so.  Which means I need to start getting the fringe twisting done now.  I may not get all of it done before my first trip, but I should be able to make a good dent in the pile.

Nothing like a deadline going critical to light a fire under me!!!

Planning Well in Advance

Fighting a low grade headache today made thinking challenging.  I realized I needed to see the shape of the conference so first I printed out a calendar (white sheet at the top) but the squares were just too small.

Sometimes it pays to be a pack rat, and I found a large roll of (very sun faded) paper and drew out the days of the conference, which events would be happening on those days, and then wrote in which facility we would be using for each event.  

It's only the broad strokes, and there is still more to be done in terms of contacting some facilities, but I need to book the one hotel now, so mostly I was looking for what rooms we would need at that hotel.

Even though the conference is nearly two years away, this is a small town and facilities get booked a few years in advance so we need to do this now.

Once I have the facilities dealt with I can go on holiday with a clear conscience and not think too much about any of this until after the craft fair season.

In the meantime workshop and seminar topic proposals are coming in so hopefully we will wind up with something for everyone.

We did not send out an open call for instructors/leaders.  We have, as I say, limited facilities to work with so an invitation was sent out to specific teachers.  I've asked for proposals by the end of September and when I get home from Circle Craft, I should have everything I need to start slotting people into appropriate rooms, which will let me know how many people can be accommodated.

Our conference team is small, so if I can do these sorts of things early, I won't be scrambling later!

Options

After talking at length with someone this morning about efficiency (more on that in the future) I went to the loom, finishing one colour (below - very subtle) and starting the next.  The weft for the new stretch of cloth is 100% natural green, which will develop into a deep sort of sage green after wet finishing.  Knowing that the higher contrast between the warp and weft would be much stronger visually, I quickly changed the treadling/tie up to something much bolder, more graphic in appearance.

And as I did that bit of work, I thought about how the computer assisted dobby doesn't do anything that can't be done on a 'standard' floor loom.  It just allows me to do it a whole bunch faster.

I still have to know what I want and how to get it.  I have to understand the weave structure I am working with and how changing the tie up and treadling sequence is going to change the effect of the interlacements/design.

But instead of crawling around under the loom, physically untying and tying string/cord, a few keystrokes achieves the same thing.  And instead of an hour or more, I was back weaving in less than 20 minutes - probably closer to 15.

When I decided to buy the AVL in 1981 there were very few 16 shaft looms around, never mind a dobby.  But my goal, right from the beginning, has been to earn an income from textiles, one way or another.  With that goal in mind I wanted to work efficiently.  One of the first 'production' pieces of equipment I purchased was an electric bobbin winder.  The reason?  It was taking me longer to hand wind a bobbin than it was to weave it off.  I knew I'd starve at that rate, so since I was attending Convergence in 1978 at Fort Collins, CO, I saved up my money and bought an electric bobbin winder.

I still have that winder.  Well, to certain values of same!  The motor has been replaced along with the foot pedal.  I use it for winding bobbins, the AVL pirns for the fly shuttle when I need to use those (I also have an industrial pirn winder with industrial fly shuttle and pirns which I much prefer to use but can't always, depending on the yarn) and sometimes spools for sectional beaming.

Thing is, there are options.  We can each approach the craft at whatever level we want.  Some prefer a slower, more meditative practice (although for me weaving has always been a working meditation - I just do it a wee bit faster than most).  Some prefer to follow directions.  Some like to experiment, some to take a more research oriented, experimental approach.  Some like to make a lot of things because we like to eat.  So to speak.

All of these approaches are completely and totally valid for that person.  We each get to choose.  There are options and we get to decide our path, our processes.

It's one of the things I really love about the practice of making textiles, be that on an inkle loom, tapestry, 'standard' floor loom or other textile practices like bobbin lace (really just another kind of weaving), knitting, crocheting, felting.  Etc.

Most fibre craftspeople do more than one craft.  That was one of the reasons we chose Confluences for the theme of our conference here in '19.  We are looking forward to the confluence of many different textile practitioners and how they combine different fibre crafts.  Yay for options!

A Day 'Off'

I have been working hard for a few weeks now, weaving pretty much every day, at least two sessions, three if I can.  

Today I gave myself a day 'off'.  

The picture shows some of my hand spun, most of it spun this summer in the evenings at the guild, then plyed.  I use it for knitting.  Spinning and knitting are my hobbies.  I don't sell either - rather I make scarves and shawls and donate them to causes that are raising money.  Or they get given as gifts.  My poor southern friends, freezing in the chilliness that is Alberta in June each got one.

Right now my spinning stash overflows into my dining room and I want to put it all away while I am busy in the autumn and will have very little time to actually do any spinning.  So today I dug into the plying, finishing the blue I'd begun yesterday, plus doing five spools of a rich red.  I have five more spools of a slightly different singles red to ply and I think I will use the same extremely fine tram silk to ply that as well as the one in the photo above, which is actually more red and less rust.  I doubt I will get the bin of rust rolags spun up before I go away, but I might.

Mostly I'm tired of looking at that heap of spinning fibre and just want to clear some of the clutter out of my living space.  So the bags of fibre will go back down to the studio until I'm ready to make more rolags and begin spinning again.  Hopefully when I get my Questionable Origins e-spinner.  

Currently reading L. E. Modesitt, The One-Eyed Man.  I've not read him before and am only in the first few pages, so I will see if I go looking for one of his series.  Because I'm running 'low' on fav authors!

Satisfying

It has been about exactly 2.5 years since the by-pass surgery, so a little over 3.5 years since I started to notice that things were starting to deteriorate.  I was warned that recovery from such surgery could be 2-3 years before getting back to 'normal' - whatever that might be, given I'm also that much older now and lost so much fitness during the lead up to, then the recuperation from, the surgery.

I have been trying my best to regain as much of what I 'lost' as possible, which was a bit of a struggle given the renovations which disrupted not just the outside, but the inside, including my studio.  Which still isn't quite back to 'normal' with a few more small jobs needing doing.  But those are inside so Doug has been concentrating on getting the outside as finished as any house ever gets.

The AVL sat, neglected, while I dealt with regaining my fitness, dealing with travel to teach, dealing with mom and the aftermath of that, then more teaching, also trying to write a book (currently on hold).  But since coming home from ANWG in Victoria, I have managed to complete the conference cloth (aka the Neverending Warp) and put this warp for table runners onto the loom.

The conference warp was woven as tea towel 'blanks', each one taking about 30 minutes to weave.  I tried to do three a day to build up my weaving chops on the AVL - which takes more effort, physically.

This warp however is continuous while I use up the Fox Fiber naturally coloured cotton, so I am doing 45 minutes, finishing on a repeat.  

Weaving on the AVL for 45 minutes at a time is aerobic for me.  Recently I did a rough and ready calculation, and I seem to be weaving about 36 picks per minute including bobbin changing, tail clipping, drink sipping (hydrate!), etc.  So my weaving rhythm on this loom with this yarn appears to be in the 40-44 picks per minute range.  

And yes, I work up a sweat doing it.  The beater is heavy and pushing that thing back and forth on average about 40 times per minute?  It's aerobic.  I may not be jogging or on the elliptical or treadmill, but if your heart rate increases and you break a sweat?  That qualifies for aerobic.

Most of all, it feels incredibly satisfying to see the cloth roll onto the storage roller, the yarn getting used up, and feeling like I'm pretty much as good as I'm going to get, given my age and overall health.

Satisfying.  

Oops

I was supposed to have four threads left over when I'd done threading this warp.  Hmm.  Six.  

SIGH.  Still Not Perfect!

With 764 or so ends in the warp, a fairly straight forward but 'fancy' 16 shaft twill, I have no idea where the error is.  So I have sleyed and tied on and am now trying to find the mistake.  And it's hiding.

In the process, I discovered that the computer that runs the loom has suddenly disappeared ALL of my weaving files - except for the warp I just finished weaving.

There are days when I'd really like to hide in a blanket fort with a colouring book.  This is one of them...

Edited to add:

I spy with my little eye...two empty heddles just to the right of the red thread.  The solution is 'easy' - add two spools of the warp thread, enter them into the empty heddles, which is where they belong, obviously, move the rest of the threads 'over', re-tie and continue.  

After lunch.