Proto-cloth

 

The pile of yarn grows on my dining room table.

Doug has kindly agreed to turn all those skeins into cones, which will make working with that yarn easier.

In the meantime, I am steadily picking away at the warp on the Megado.

As my health has diminished, my mental faculties have also dulled.  I hate to admit it, but I can no longer multi-task like a boss.  So instead of doing much with the above yarn, I have been weaving towels, trying to clear that warp off the loom and out of my head.  Once I've done that I can begin crunching numbers and working out what needs to happen with this yarn.

The yarn is all for sampling for the Next Big Project.  I have worked with some of the yarn before (the Briggs & Little) so really all I need to do with that is weave it for the wet finishing demos.

The rest is new to me.  The cotton is fairly well known, in part because I've woven with cotton in various formats for many years.  But it is thicker than I usually use and a new brand.  On the face of it, it looks like a really nice quality of cotton.  I had assumed it was mercerized, but upon closer examination, it just seems to be a really good quality of unmercerized cotton.  It has a nice degree of twist and a bit of lustre, which is why at first glance I assumed mercerized.

I have worked with a two ply of cotton and linen before, but again, a different brand.  This yarn also looks like a really nice yarn to weave with.

The white skeins are a wool and silk blend, firmly twisted and the silk is giving the yarn a firmer hand, which would be nice for knitting and should also work well for weaving.  Only wet finishing will determine the best approach.

And so before I go full bore preparing for the NBP, I need to weave some samples and get them into the water and process them some.

All of that is going to require more brain power than I can muster while I am also working on another warp, so hence the drive to get the towel warp off.  Then I can properly focus on the NBP.

These yarns are not the only yarns I will be using for the NBP.  They are just the ones I am not entirely familiar with, or didn't have in my stash and needed to acquire.  I will also be diving into my stash for other yarns.

There are memes around showing a graphic of an iceberg with about 1/10th of the berg visible above the water line and a whole bunch of berg invisible below.  Weaving is a lot like that.  The finished cloth is the culmination of effort that is not visible - unless you already know what goes into the creation of a cloth.

So it is with Big Projects.  Lots of preparation that goes into each one, more than the vast majority of the population will ever understand - unless they have done something similar.

With energy waning, I cannot do such projects by myself anymore.  I am delighted to be working with a team.  My big concern right now is the covid fourth wave.  Will BC get it suppressed in time for my deadline?  

Dunno.  So I work towards the best, preparing myself mentally for everything to come crashing to a halt again.  

Time will tell.

Thinking, Thinking

 

I return to this graphic (our plans vs reality) a lot as a reminder that I need to have the plan but also need to be flexible enough to make my way through whatever obstacles I encounter along the way.

So I continue to pick away at what I'm working on while allowing my back burner to simmer, cooking, hopefully bringing any issues I need to anticipate to the surface so I can make plans for them and not be thrown off my path when they try to knock me off my carefully constructed plan.

A friend and I have discussed 'executive functioning skills' a few times and I really wonder if that is what weaving is all about.  Figuring out what you want - in life, in weaving (knitting, whatever) and then making a plan but preparing for distractions and even (god forfend) the occasional disaster.  I need to read up on 'executive functioning skills' and find out more about them.

The warp currently on the loom is a prime example.

The weaving draft was simple enough and I'd worked with it several times already so it was familiar.  But when I got to the 'end' of my ends, I had two left over.  That had never happened with the previous warps, so I *knew* I'd made a mistake somewhere.  

Instead of going back and checking thread by thread, I continued and started to sley the warp.  And very quickly discovered the problem.  Very near the beginning I had somehow managed to leave two heddles empty.  Oh they were there - just...no end in them.

The fix was easy enough.  I grabbed two spools off the spool rack and simply threaded them in where they were supposed to be, then continued sleying.

But it means I am dealing with a couple of spools hanging off the warping valet (bar mounted to ceiling at the back of the loom).  The bar is high enough that I can easily let down enough length to weave a towel, so my routine now includes, weave a towel, adjust the hanging spools, take a break, weave a towel, let down the spools.

It also means I have two 'extra' threads at the left selvedge.  I could have tossed them off the back beam, but then I would have had to deal with those loose ends and frankly no one will ever notice.  

Today I will finish the last of the tow linen - and it looks like I will have just exactly enough to weave two more towels.   Whatever is left over will get stripped and tossed.  

The rest of the warp will get woven off with a hemp yarn that I suddenly remembered yesterday while I was weaving, thinking about the yarn I had intended to use - cottolin.  But I wasn't liking that option much and was casting my mind around for something else.  I could have used 2/8 cotton, that would have been fine.  But this warp is a good one to use up some of that hemp, so that's what I'll use.

Yesterday as part of my 'end of the day' I wound off one cone of the hemp onto bobbins and got it into a humidor.  When I finish emptying the bobbins with the tow linen, I'll wind more of the hemp and get it steeping too.  Hemp is so similar to linen that I tend to treat it exactly the same and getting the moisture content  higher in the fibre will make it more co-operative and it will weave off easily.  Since I don't like 'fighting' with my equipment or yarns, it's easy enough to do.

Plastic tub with a small amount of water in it, another smaller tub floating on the water, bobbins are wound and stacked inside the small tub and the lid covers it.  The yarn can ten absorb moisture out of the higher humidity air inside the humidor.  High density yarn such as linen and hemp have the bobbins wound just about level with the bobbin flanges.  Any fuller than that the bobbin begins to weigh enough that the selvedges can become stressed and either pull in too much or even break.  Depends on the yarn, but it's just easier to fill them less full than chance breaking selvedges...

Posterity

 

I don't like photos of myself.  Especially as I have aged - and expanded, shall we say.  It's hard for me to view photos but especially hard to see video of myself.

So most of my video clips on You Tube show very little of me and focus on my hands.

Doing the DVDs for Handwoven/Interweave (now Long Thread Media) were very difficult.  I was having health issues and quite frankly, felt like crap the entire time.  (Turned out I was having cardiac issues and hypoxia and less than a year later I'd be having triple by-pass surgery.  Which 'fixed' that problem, but other health issues linger.)

Offering to do Zoom lectures took a great deal of my mental energy and I really dislike seeing myself on screen, usually with the camera looking up my nose.  If I lift the laptop up higher I can't see the keyboard.  So I try to not think too much about camera angles and just get on with it.

Over the years I have tried to go with the technology.  Developed Workshops in a Box, producing CDs with information I deemed essential.  And watched the technology change so rapidly much of the effort became 'antiquated' very quickly.  

So I went back to writing.  Books seem to have longevity other methods of communication lack.  

I look at my library and see books written in the late 1800s, information from the 1700s re-interpreted for modern audiences, others written in the 1900s and now the 21st century.

As I age, I wonder what impact I will have made on the weaving community.  How I might have done things 'better'.  Reached more people.

Then chide myself for an over blown ego.

Yesterday I renewed my medications by phone - because covid.  Doctors are not seeing people unless there is something that needs to be seen in person.  For people like myself with chronic issues with nothing much changing, there is no need to go in person so I'm glad to be able to just phone in.

But we chatted a bit about changes and what I was doing personally to try and reduce the effects of my biggest issue.  He sounded tired and stressed, and I worry about the effect the pandemic is having, not just on me but health care workers and people with developing health issues they hesitate to go get checked because the health system is so over run right now.

We know about the bubonic plagues of the middle ages.  Reports of the disease ravaging entire countries, laying waste to entire villages, still exist.

I wonder how reports of this pandemic will be seen in the future.

As you can see, I think.  A lot.  Sometimes it's good thinking.  Sometimes, not so much.

So I return to the studio and work on my Next Big Project.  There will be more yarn arriving for more sampling.  In the end, will what I do actually matter?  Who knows.  I just feel like I have to keep on keeping on.  Keep trying.  Keep encouraging people to learn more.  Explore more.  Fail more.  And then learn from those failures so they can improve and grow.

There is nothing I can do about posterity.  All I can do is keep going.  The future will determine if what I do lives on.  Or not.  

Investing

 

Yesterday the box of yarn I ordered arrived.  About $200 worth.  Yes, that little pile of yarn is close to $200.  

What will I make with it?

A better weaver.  One who has never woven with any of these particular yarns before, and therefore needs to understand how they will behave, both in the preparation and in the loom.

The white skeins are a blend of BFL and silk, the three cones in the middle are a fairly thick cotton and the smaller cone by itself at the bottom is a yarn made of two plys, one linen, one cotton.  

The BFL/silk combo is a bit stiffer than expected, but that will simply make it a good candidate for warp in weaving.  Until I can get a sample woven, I won't really know its true nature because it will likely develop into something quite nice after wet finishing.  The density is high, the twists per inch are fairly high, it doesn't seem to have a whole lot of elasticity, so I'm expecting to enjoy this yarn.  We will see.

The 100% cotton is mercerized and - as I say - thick, at 3/2.  It should weave up into nice table textiles - place mats, table runners.  Maybe small curtains.  Cotton performs well in sunshine, standing up to sun degradation reasonably well (although the dye may fade).

The cotton/linen 2 ply?  Well, that is a very interesting yarn.  It is somewhat finer than the cotton and I expect I might try a 2/8 cotton and use it for weft on that as well as a small sample on the 3/2.

Once my sampling is done, I'll create some small items and test my conclusions.

What do I expect at the end?  Will there be something useable?  Perhaps.  But I'll have expanded my knowledge.  And if someone asks me about how to handle these yarns?  I'll have answers with some knowledge to back my opinions, not just give them my best guess.

Not 'Perfect'

 

Started weaving on the current warp this morning and while I would not claim these towels are 'perfect' they actually turned out quite close to how I thought they might.

In the end, they are a bit darker than I expected, partly because the linen is more of a brown than the 'usual' beige of a good quality linen.   But this isn't 'best' quality, it is very much tow.  It is a bit slubby, quite a bit hairy, lots of chaff in it, feels coarse to the hand, and closer in colour to the dark grey cotton in the warp.

But in the end, I'm pleased with the results.  There is just enough difference in the colour of the linen to the rest of the warp that the weave structure shows up.  Having used this yarn previously I know it will break in nicely and make good all purpose towels as they are used.  Like a good wine, they will improve with age. 

Also in the 'not perfect' file?  I made several errors while threading.  Somehow I missed two heddles entirely, and one point progression was the wrong way...I threaded /\ instead of V and those six threads had to be pulled out and threaded properly.

But once I got going the linen, which had been wound two days ago and put into a humidor, wove off quite well with just a couple of times having the weft wrap around the spindle of the shuttle and jerking to a stop.  

The linen is a bit thinner overall than the cotton and the ppi is a bit higher.  The twill angle in the loom is somewhat lower than 45 degrees, maybe 42?  It's not enough to make much of a difference in the appearance of the design, though, plus that will shorten the length somewhat, which is fine, as well.  The cotton towels had turned out a bit on the long side for tea towels but since they were also thicker, hand towels can be longer.  These will be more 'proper' tea towels.  But!  They will also serve as hand towels.

The colours were threaded randomly, plus the four variegated yarns add some extra striping where the colours 'pool' in the warp.  As I weave, that pooling will happen fairly randomly.

But over all, I'm pleased enough.

Currently reading Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Pushing Boundaries

 

Yesterday I got some studio clean up done and beamed the above warp.  Colours are not competely accurate on my monitor - the values are actually somewhat darker.  And I ran out of two of the variegated spools and didn't have more so had to substitute a different colourway which looks different, but oh well.  They will still be towels that will dry stuff.

The weft will be a hairy tow linen which also has a fair bit of chaff in it but I have used this linen before and after several times through the laundry, the cloth broke in nicely and I quite like the quality of cloth that developed.  Of course this warp is 2/8 cotton, not 2/16, so it will not be identical, but close enough that the towels should behave nicely.

This will be the 'last' in the current series.  I'm not sure there is enough of the tow linen to weave off the warp, so the back up weft will be something else from my stash.  I have some cottolin from Brassard - four tubes of it, which should be plenty with some left over. 

But overall, I'm pleased with how the warp looks on the beam.

The colours are a dull olive green, a dark grey with a red undertone - slate, I think Brassard named it -  lavender and one strand of a blue.  There are four ends of a variegated deep rose through to pale with a kind of purply blue.  I subbed a variegated with more blue than rose in it.  I'm calling it a design element to have one edge of the towel be not identical to the other.  People will judge the towels for the way they are and like them - or not.

This is not a colourway I would have actually worked with 20 years ago.  The colours are not 'mine' - too dull for my taste.  But I think they look good together and should look nice in a setting that has a lot of neutral colours - stone, granite, wood.

In many ways my career has been all about pushing boundaries.  Boundaries set by society, parents, friends (in some cases).  Elements of the weaving community.  When I decided to do the Guild of Canadian master weavers program, it was partly to satisfy my own desire to learn more, but also?  To indicate to the weaving community at large that I had been tested and found acceptable.  That I actually knew something about weaving.  Because I wanted to teach and the test program was a way I could get some kind of credential that others would accept because they could easily access the testing materials and see what I had to do to pass the program.

Doing a course is as individual as each person.  Not everyone wants to 'prove' anything to other people.  Sometimes it is purely for personal growth.  Sometimes it is a good reminder - especially on 'bad' days - that something has been achieved.  My final Master certificate hangs on my wall for that reason.

There are many ways to learn in the 21st century, and after the pandemic there will continue to be ways to learn on line for those who cannot easily access in person classes.  On line may not be as good as in person, for many reasons, but if you have difficulty travelling, don't have the budget to attend a school, learn easily from viewing video, on line can be a good way to move forward in your craft practice.

The pandemic forced me to examine where I am in my life (retired, for certain values of) and to figure out how I could continue to teach.  The study groups have been one way for me to continue serving my community.  But the production values are not great.  It irritates me that the lip sync is so often out of kilter via Zoom.  Sort of like a typo in the written word - it hits me bang in the eye and annoys me.

But that is what I currently have, so I continue with the scheduled lectures.  Just another boundary to push against.

No one knows what the future holds.  I try to focus on what I can do now, today.  And try not to worry too much about tomorrow, all while making plans and doing the prep work for the Next Big Project.

Firming Up

 

Ah, the bumblebee, that insect that isn't supposed to be able to fly - and yet, somehow does...

So, after many months of studiously working at reducing my stash, I will today order some yarn.  Seems I will need to do some sampling for the New Big Project.  

Sampling new-to-me yarn means that I am developing something new, in partnership with...well, someone else that I will not reveal right now because many a slip between cup and lip.

The Big Project is embryonic at the minute, but an email last night firmed up some things.  We now have a firm date for the co-operative part of the Project to begin.  Because I am not going it alone with this but working with a team.  A really lovely team to collaborate with and I'm quite excited to be here, now, able to move forward with like minded people.  Especially with experienced people who have the technology skills I don't have (and don't actually want to acquire at this point in my life - I'm a weaver, Captain, not a technology geek!)  

But it means new yarns.  

Which is not a hardship, far from it!  Just that I need to buy more yarn in order to do my research.  And by research, I mean weaving samples. 

I need to understand the nature of some of their yarns so I can work with them appropriately.

Even if the project falls through for some reason (see lip/cup reference above) I won't feel that I have wasted my time (or money).  Because I will have expanded my horizons/knowledge working with new-to-me yarns.

So this morning I will be going to their their website checking to see what they have and placing my order.  While the end of September seems like a long way away (it isn't!) there is much to be done.  Not to mention other obligations.

I am old enough, and produced enough Big Projects on my own that I have a pretty good idea of what needs to happen in the next 8 weeks.  And of course there is still wildfire season and covid that may interfere with our plans.  

But there is no point freezing and doing nothing.  Being prepared means doing the work now so that when the time comes, it will be full speed ahead.

As for announcing the New Big Project?  That will happen when it is appropriate.  When launch date has been set.  When it is time to begin the marketing.  In the meantime, I will share my excitement and enthusiasm for this project here.  Because the intention for this Big Project is that it will be on-going and involve many of my favourite things.

But I'm not working solo, I'm working with a team, and therefore I will not spill the beans before the time comes.  Just know that plans are being made, good stuff is being worked on (and by good, I mean stuff that *I* think is good) and hopefully 2022 will see some great things coming.