The Best Laid Schemes...

...o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley...    Robbie Burns

So everything was going pretty much as expected.  Files were edited, fine tuned, corrections made, photos tweaked.  By Friday afternoon, Ruth was about ready to make the appropriate PDFs and begin uploading the files to the website.  

From there on, things did not go smoothly.  Ruth worked all afternoon trying to get the files to accurately load but there seemed to some kind of glitch in the upload.  When she finally contacted support, it seems their business day was over and it was the weekend.  

We had thought to have the files safely and successfully loaded Friday afternoon, then test the files on Saturday at which point I would have the rest of the information needed to announce the introductory offer.  Instead we are in limbo until Monday morning.  

However, we have the files.  We are ready to offer The Intentional Weaver in print and PDF formats.  I have an offer for those wanting signed print copies drafted and ready to announce.  I just don’t yet have the actual book in the format we want it.  

I’m sure there is some minor issue that needs to be fixed but without the assistance of the websites support team we cannot go any further at this time.  

So.   Stay tuned.   98.555555...

98%

Creating a book isn’t much different from creating a textile.  

There are stages to go through.  

The first seed of the idea.  Contemplating the potential of that seed.  Outlining what the completed book might look like, in broad terms.  Then refining that broad scope into greater detail.  Ultimately doing the work of interpreting the concept into words that you hope will make sense.  

Once you have mostly written the words there is the search for intent being made comprehensible.  There is the polishing for clarity.  Then the search for typos and mistakes of grammar.  

With each examination of the manuscript, you reach a stage of done-ness.  Of being 95% ‘done’.  Done that bit.  Each pass through you feel a little more confident it is readable.  Becoming more ready for the light of day.  And public opinion.  

Then photos are taken, edited, slotted into the text.  Diagrams are drawn and also inserted.  Doing this changes the formatting, so again you sift through the pages.  95% done.  Again. 

One last sweep through to sieve out any obvious errors.  95% done.  Again. 

Now it is time to apply for the ISBN, create the cover.  Contact the website to find out how to submit a file double the size they specify.  Root around the website to work out retail pricing, shipping, estimated delivery.  

Now...98% done?

The last step will be to upload the file, one for the print version, one for the PDF.  

And then, and then, marketing.  Because the job isn’t done until it is sold.  But closer?  98%?

As soon as the file is loaded to http://blurb.ca I will be announcing a special introductory offer.  

Stay tuned.  Because I think we are at 98% completion as of 1530 today.  Just a few more details to sort out.  98%.  

Precipice

Over the past couple of days I have been going through my inbox, deleting some of the +7000 emails that have been living in there.  I would watch the number count grow and think to myself that I really needed to deal with it because a lot of them are 'spam' or lists I'm subscribed to.  Some of them I want to stay subscribed to, many I need to unsub from.  But with all the stress of the past two + years, I just hadn't been able to work up the energy.  Reviewing these emails reminds me of what I was dealing with two years ago and puts things into perspective.

I leave tomorrow for San Jose and one final meeting with my editor, after which it will - hopefully - be all steam ahead.  The week between getting home from Calgary and leaving on this trip was mostly playing catch up - on my bills, on my emails, on my sleep and energy. 

Once again I was reminded that my energy levels are not what they were even two years ago and I have to ration my activities in order to accomplish my goals.

This one, dear reader?   Has been a long time in coming.  I think I worked harder (physically - because 20 projects with before and after samples) on Magic in the Water.  But I was younger then by two decades and had not yet run into the physical ailments my body now deals with.

I have been having a bit of a struggle coming to grips with the new reality.  I keep remembering how much energy I used to have, and no longer can dredge up.  And I mourn.  And I wonder if this - this struggle to remain where I was 20 years ago - is what growing 'old' really means.  Or is it the acceptance of the new reality?  I really hope that wisdom makes the transition easier.

It took me two days to pretty much recover from doing Calgary and I honestly thought I would sail through getting the AVL set up and even have a chunk of that tea towel warp woven before I left.  Um, nope.

However it is threaded and sleyed and ready to tie on and weave as soon as I get home.  (She says, optimistically).

Why didn't I get further along?  Part of it was stress.  Anxiety.  Hope.  Battling impostor syndrome. 

Feeling like I was caught in limbo until this project - this latest Big Project - is completely done and launched into the world.  To sink.  Or swim. 

When I was younger and more driven by critical deadlines and had a lot more adrenaline to draw on, I would have set this project aside until my editor was done her part of the job and roared into the next critical deadline.

But there isn't a 'hard' deadline I need to deal with right now.  And I find myself with a decided lack of energy.  Or panic.

In some ways, I don't even mind.  I don't mind the lack of panic.  I don't mind the lack of frenzy, working on getting workshop handouts ready, yarn into the mail, magazine article deadline to meet.

I do mind not wanting to do much of anything.  But I also know that this is temporary.  That as soon as this project is launched there will be things that need doing.  And I will do them.

In the meantime I'm kind of enjoying (in a perverse way, given my lifetime of adrenaline induced panic) the quiet.

But I also see the light at the end of this particular tunnel.  And I am looking forward to stepping out of this tunnel and into the light.

And see what is next on this amazing, incredible journey.

Stay tuned for my Special Introductory Offer on The Intentional Weaver - as soon as I get home on Dec. 5.

Use it or Lose it

It has been literally months since I dressed the AVL.  Long enough that when I went to do it, I had to really stop and think about what I was doing.  It no longer came naturally to me because when you don't use a skill...you tend to lose that skill.

I had left the warp beamed, ready to thread and only felt able to do the threading over the past two days.  Everything seemed to go smoothly enough with the threading but I tear the loom apart to thread.  In order to get close enough to the heddles, I take out the sandpaper beam, which means taking the auto-cloth advance apart.  Then I remove the beater top and the reed, pull a small stool close (the sort of rust coloured one just visible to the right - the red stool is the one I sit on to weave).

Yesterday I finished threading and decided to leave the rest until this morning.  At which point I completely forgot what I did next.  So I re-installed the sandpaper beam and auto-cloth advance, then put the reed into the beater.

And realized that the sandpaper beam was now more or less in my way. 

Sigh.

Well, I'm not going to take it all out again, especially for what is a relatively narrow warp (24" in the reed).

I will just be careful of my clothing so that I don't rub up against the sandpaper and then carry on.

But once again the lesson of 'use it or lose it' has been learned.  Let's see if I remember it or forget it again.

Peter Collingwood's No Math Centering method

Edited to remove bad ASCII art and hopefully be clearer...

As a brand new weaver I had the good fortune to take a workshop with Peter Collingwood.  He showed us how to centre a warp in the reed without using any math.  I have never forgotten it and use it every time I dress the loom.

Say you want a warp 10" wide and your reed is X length.

Lay a measuring tape along the length of the reed (in this case the reed is laying flat because I'm about to rough sley the warp).  So lay the measuring tape with zero at the left end of the reed.  Pinch the measuring tape at where ever the reed ends.  Let's say 36" just as an example.

With your right hand pinching at the 36" mark (the end of the reed) move your left hand to the 10" mark.  

Now still holding both points of the tape - 10 and 36 - bring your hands together and align the 10" mark and the 36" mark, effectively folding the tape together.

By moving your left hand to the 10" mark, you have subtracted 10" from the length of the tape, and then folding 10" and 36" together, you have divided the remainder of the length of the reed in half.  

Lay this 'half' down onto the reed again and where the tape ends is where you begin to sley the warp.

0-----10-----------------------------36-----------  one hand pinching 10, the other pinching 36

When 10 and 36 are pinched together to the bend in the tape is what you use to measure from the end of the reed to where you begin sleying.

In the photo above, the 10/36 is at the left hand side of the photo (my right side) and the loop is in the 'middle' of the reed.  This is where I will begin sleying.

No math.  Centred.  

Thank you, Peter Collingwood.  A technique I use every time I dress the loom.

No Warp, No Weaving

It is very true - no warp, no weaving.  If you don't have someone to dress your loom for you (and some people actually do have someone to do that for them) then you have to just get on with it and get it done.

Today I felt able to tackle threading the AVL.  Unfortunately my body has gifted me with a new challenge - threading the AVL I kind of drape myself over the beater and that position now causes my right hand to go numb.  Yay for body issues? 

However, my knee is lovely, thank you.  Quite happy to lower myself down onto the low stool I sit on, bend sharply so I can fit into the small space at the front of the loom.  Win one, lose one?

A few people say they don't find threading a loom uncomfortable.  I...am not one of those.  I have never found the position to thread any loom comfortable.  At all.  There is only 'as comfortable as possible'.  Therefore it seemed to me that if I couldn't find a comfortable position, I needed to get really efficient at doing it in order to minimize the time spent doing it.

So, in spite of the hand going numb, I'm half way through this warp.  Not my usual speed, but quickly enough that I did reach the halfway mark before dinner.

Tomorrow I can finish threading, sley and tie on, and then I might actually manage to weave a towel.  Not sure I'll get much farther than that, but at least the loom will be left ready for when I get home from my trip.

Marking Time

"Oh you're a weaver!  You must be sooooo patient!"

Um, no.  No, I'm not.

So when I run into times like these where I'm waiting for the clock to tick, the calendar to turn, I have to remind myself to keep going.  This too shall pass. 

Doesn't mean I'm liking it or taking it with particular good grace, but if I remember to just keep going, that does seem to help.

I found the above fridge magnet at about the year anniversary of my brother's sudden death, when I was dealing with adverse drug effects.  It has stood me in good stead when I broke my ankle (it's temporary, it will heal, you will walk again, weave again, it's temporary, just let your body do what it needs to do, it's temporary).

Then again through chemo, through more adverse drug effects, through by-pass surgery.

I leave in less than a week to go through the final edits of the manuscript.  The foreword has now been written and is being incorporated into the ms.  Three reviewers have received a pdf of the last edit of the ms, knowing that there are still some final tweaks to be made.

The introductory offer is more or less worked out and that should go live early in December.  Unfortunately Canada Post is dealing with rotating strikes, so I'm hoping that they will have a settlement when the books are ready to ship, likely sometime early in February.

This wait is temporary.  It too shall pass...