One Down, Two...

The first show of my craft fair season is done and dusted.  I have a few days 'off' to try and tame this cold - because man, I feel miserable!  Thank goodness Doug doesn't mind selling.  I pretty much sat in the background and let him deal with it.

The photo is of a traditional design called Snails' Trails and Cat's Paws.  All of these are gone now, but I'm revisiting the design in some soft muted blue/greens.  I intend to get them done as soon as I get home from Vancouver, mid-November.  If I can get them down quickly enough they will go into my 'shop'  on the Circle Craft website.

My shop is 'closed' for business right now, but as soon as I can get unpacked from the Circcle Craft Christmas Market, it will be open.  There will mostly be tea towels, mainly because that is what I have the most of, in terms of inventory.  I may list rayon chenille scarves, too.  Mostly it will depend if I can get photos that are remotely close to the colours in the scarves.

Tomorrow I am going to stay home.  I may (or may not) wind place mat warps.  I doubt I will feel up to weaving on the AVL, although I had hoped to finish the blue weft tea towels, maybe even start on the green cottolin weft. 

But all of that will have to wait and see how tired and miserable this cold is making me.

Soaring

Here I am at the loom having just caught the shuttle.  Notice I have 'caught' it between my index and middle finger and am using my thumb to brake the bobbin and apply a slight amount of tension to the weft to ensure that it seats well around the outside end, creating a secure and consistent selvedge.

Before the industrial revolution there were so many people involved in the production of textiles everyone pretty much knew what went into getting the fibre from the crop onto one's back.  But now the vast majority of textiles are produced in factories, far away from the eye of those people who rely on textiles.  In other words - pretty much all of us, one way or another.

As hand weavers we keep the craft of textiles alive.  As such I hold no secrets.  I am quite happy to share what I know.  If I get paid for it (such as by teaching workshops or publishing my hints/tips), even better.  Because I am in this as a profession, not as a hobby.

Weaving has never been a hobby for me.  Spinning, knitting, bobbin lace - all hobbies.  But not weaving.

I tell people that while I don't take myself very seriously, I take my craft very seriously indeed.  And over the years I've learned - quite a lot, actually.

I have taken workshops from as many people as I could, bought numerous books, reading many of them cover to cover.  And I've tried things.  Many things.  Failed too many times to count.  If you consider learning a failure.  Because sometimes the most valuable lesson of all is that you won't do that again!

As I was weaving this morning - after too many weeks away from the loom - I hit my stride - my zone.  And I thought about how, even when only surface attention is required, I am constantly monitoring what is happening.  Paying subliminal attention to the loom, to the shuttle, to the weft.  That even though it may look as though I am mindless, I am anything but.  Rather, I am actually pretty engaged in what is going on.  And when something happens that isn't consistent - the weft 'catches' in the shuttle, for example, I can immediately adjust and 'fix' that.

I rarely teach beginning weaving classes any more.  I'd much rather students get their introduction to weaving elsewhere and then come to me once they have learned some of the vocabulary, some of the concepts, some of the principles.  And then I can refine what they are doing.  Tweak their skills.  Advise on their equipment choices, their ergonomics.

At this point in my career, I find this enormously satisfying.  To see new-ish weavers take wing and soar.

And all the while I think about all the giants who allowed me to stand on their shoulders.  And I give my thanks to them for helping make me the weaver I am today.

Here is a link to the video clips I have loaded to You Tube.  And of course you can still get The Efficient Weaver from shops that carry Interweave Press products, or from their website

Satisfied

Yesterday Doug loaded the van with most of the stuff for the coming craft fairs.  There are still a few things left to go in, including the cart we use to transfer all the boxes from van to booth location.

This weekend will be the Artisans of the North at the University.  We once again have a spot in the Doug Little room which is just off the Winter Garden (and Tim Horton's - but I digress).

I'm low on shawls, although I think this one is still available.  It's been a while since I sorted through the stacks and stacks of textiles.  But I know I have very few shawls left.  Never did make it to putting a shawl warp on.

Because it isn't just the weaving of them.  There there's the fringe twisting.  Then the wet finishing.  Then trimming the fuzzy bits off the ends of the fringe to make them look tidy.  Then tagging.

And I just didn't have the time or energy it would take to even think about getting more finished in time.  So, I didn't even try.

Instead I put another tea towel warp onto the AVL while getting a couple more white place mat warps woven.  Yesterday I finished hemming the mats and now I'm working on the table runners I got woven over the summer.  

So even though I'm disappointed I couldn't manage more shawls I am satisfied I did the best I could given how this year started - with mom dying and all that that entailed to get her life wrapped up, then teaching, then all the dental work I needed.  But the dental work is now finished (until next time) and once my mouth settles down I should be able to chew on both sides of my mouth.  Which should help my TMJ - chewing only on one side of my mouth was causing issues with stressing my jaw.

And on and on it goes. 

As Bette Davis supposedly said - getting old is not for sissies!

If I have the time and energy once we return from Vancouver I will update my on line shop via the Circle Craft website and have a 'sale' before Christmas.  Stay tuned.

Currently reading Glass Houses by Louise Penny

Hurry Up and Wait

Another airport, another wait.

While I love being there, the getting there and back, not so much.

The workshop, purportedly on Lace weaves, went rogue very quickly.  I deny any responsibility for that.  They just kept asking really good questions.  When someone in a class asks a good question and the rest of the class also wants to know the answer?   I will go down that rabbit hole.

So we wound up talking about Fibre characteristics, ergonomics, tension, beat, shuttle handling.

Best of all?   They laughed at my jokes.

What's not to love?  

Well, the travelling.  That is not so loveable.  But it's a lot easier to move me to them than to have all them come to me.

Time to board the last flight home.  My own bed.  Sigh....

Form/Function

Yesterday I had the pleasure of addressing a group of weavers, talking about lace weaves.  As part of that I talked anout my 'messy' train of thought as I build a cloth, and that I am primarily a form follows function weaver. 

After the presentation one weaver came up to say that she worked for a group of engineers and that they were always saying "form/function, form/function".  

She said she now understood how that applied to weaving. 

Be still my heart.  ;)

TN Interlude

This trip has been a lovely Interlude before the craft fair season begins with a bang in, oh, 10 days?   Really it begins pretty much the minute I step foot back in my house next Monday evening.  Then it is four weeks of scramble, plus a slew of appointments stuck in between trying to pack, set up, make nice, hope to sell enough to pay off my debt and have some left over to get me through the winter.  

The downside of easing back on the teaching is...less income.  

So, once the sales are over I will need to stare that manuscript down and get it finished.  I'm still a minimum of six months away from completion of the manuscript, plus all the rest of what needs to happen to it after that.  Bottom line?   A bunch more money going out before it will (hopefully) bring some money in. 

And the cycle takes another turn...

Asking Why

Sometimes I do things just because I want to know what happens if I do this?  Or if I change this, how will it affect that?

Over the past while I have been working with a spinner and looking at things like twist energy.  Today we wet finished the three scarves I wove with handspun singles.  And the corners of this scarf curled.  We have had a good chin wag about how the yarns were the same and how they are different. We have come to a conclusion.  We are pretty confident in why it happened but more experimentation will be required to prove or disprove our evaluation.  In the meantime, it was an interesting exercise.  Proving once again that you never stop learning if you just keep asking "what if?"