One Last Thing

 

As the final touch on most of my scarves, I like to trim the little fuzzy bits off the ends of the fringe.  During wet finishing, some yarns tend to 'melt' and get quite untidy looking.  I've tried various places in the studio to do this job and it's just one of those tiring and exasperating things that I find necessary but difficult.

However, today I tried something a little different.  With the new loom and more space in the studio to move around (usually) it occurred to me that I could place the scarves draped over the back beam of the Megado and sit on the small stool I use when I'm beaming warps onto the loom.  The added advantage was that my supplemental lighting was already in place for beaming so I could illuminate my work area and I could sit quite comfortably while I did the task.

My plastic bins fit nicely under the beam and caught all the fuzzy bits as they were clipped off and it didn't take long before all six scarves were done.  Now that I've worked this out, I think that last final touch will be a lot easier to do and I won't procrastinate so much about doing it.

At any rate, I'm quite pleased with how these scarves are turning out.  The different rayon yarns are giving a range of different weights and touch.  I've managed to clear several cones of enough yarn that there is too little to weave with, so those have been put into my knitting stash.

But I also have quite a large inventory of scarves, so I've been thinking about the dribs and drabs of 2/16 coloured cotton.  I've just now ordered 16 pounds of natural white and that should be more than enough to use up the fine linen I was gifted, plus the 2/16 coloured cottons.  I have a LOT of a mid-range turquoise and may grow tired of seeing that colour long before I use it up, but at least I can make a dent in it.

The goal is to continue to use up as much as I can and I'm very near clearing those shelves off.  It will feel like progress when I do!

I'm still thinking about the 2/20 mercerized cotton.  There isn't really enough to do a mix of colours so I may be playing with small stripes again.  But first I want to see some real progress on cleaning some of my shelves off.

Little by little.  Progress, even a tiny amount, is still progress.  Winding up with some nice scarves is kind of the cherry on the top.  My goal at this point is to bring some into the guild sale next Saturday.  So I'm going to try and finish the current warp (three more scarves to weave), get them all fringe twisted and wet finished.  I'll have to stay focused.

November Blues

 

before hard press

after hard pressing

I really love the magical transformation that happens when my woven webs get wet finished.  This scarf came off the loom quite stiff and dull looking.  It was only as the hard pressing continued that it began to shine and develop drape.  From feeling a bit coarse, it now feels quite silky and lovely against the skin.

It never ceases to amaze me that the true nature of the cloth develops when it hits the water and in some cases gets compressed.

They were a little bit more damp than I prefer, so I may run them through the press again a couple of times tomorrow when they are fully dry.

The compression does several things - the obvious one is the development of the shine, of course.  But it also increases the stability of the cloth as the warp and weft threads lock together under the compression.  It makes the cloth thinner, which can be an advantage if one is planning on sewing with the cloth, or hemming it.

I only did 6 scarves today.  There are two more to fringe twist and I may do those tomorrow and then do another batch on Monday.  In the meantime I need to trim the fringes and get the care/price tags on these six.  Three scarves sold at the guild sale today and these ones are quite different from the ones at the sale already.  Plus, they won't sell in my basement!  :D

The 3rd dose of the vaccine I had on Friday didn't knock me flat, but it did make me feel very tired.  I'm not sure I'll weave tomorrow, although I would like to get the current scarf complete so I can cut those three off and work on the fringe twisting.  We still have two more weekends of the guild room sale, plus one Saturday at the arts complex in a pop up sale.  It would be nice to have some new designs to present.

It looks like where we are is not going to be horribly affected by the parade of atmospheric rivers making landfall over the next few days.  But times are going to continue to be difficult for many BC people between the pandemic, plus the climate emergencies - flooding, landslides, roads washed out, etc.

We have no where to go so we are sitting at home as much as possible.  I have a hair cut booked for Thursday and will be happy to get shorn, but that's really all that is on my calendar for the coming week.  I'm hoping to finish the current warp and get the next one into the loom.  Hopefully I'm over the 'worst' of the vaccine response and will be able to steam ahead.

Stay safe everyone.  Pay attention to alerts re: driving and stay home if you can.

Flaws

 "flawless" doesn't mean "no errors were made at any point in the creation of this thing" it means "no errors are readily apparent upon inspection or use of this thing", the mistakes no one knows you made that don't effect the final outcome literally DO NOT MATTER

Someone on Twitter did a thread on flaws/mistakes and the above was just one of the tweets she wrote about being 'not perfect'. Her twitter handle is Anna Phylaxis and her thread summed up pretty much everything I think about when I think about 'perfection'.

The current warp on the loom is a perfect example of something that is filled with flaws/errors of judgement/mistakes, but to all intents and purposes, the resulting scarves are just fine.

So first big mistake on my part: in the process of using up my stash, purposefully NOT buying more yarn, I am combining tubes of yarn that have different amounts of yarn on them on the spool rack for sectional beaming.

The heavier tubes provide more drag, therefore more tension, than the ones that are nearer to empty. The end result is that those ends are tighter than the rest of the warp.

However, I'm getting a clear enough shed, and nothing has broken as a result of the different degrees of tension/length on those ends. And, once the scarves are cut off the loom and cut apart, the tension difference is minimal. I fully expect that wet finishing will take care of the little bit of difference there is. And if not, it should not be particularly noticeable - and, if noticeable, not detrimental to 99.9% of the people who will pick up these scarves and try them on.

Next? One of the ends broke as I was beaming the 3rd section (of 12). I could not determine which one had broken and rather than waste time and effort looking for it, decided I would simply adjust the width of the selvedge threading. Which I did before I began threading when I realized that my senses had not been deceiving me, a thread really had broken. Instead of 30 ends in the bout, there were 29. So, yes, quick edit to the threading, correct the first inch and off I went.

When I cut the first 3 scarves off the loom, the difference in tension could be easily felt and in some cases seen in the loom, but cutting and re-lashing evened out some of the issues, enough that I felt confident enough to carry on, in spite of the fact that 10 of the 12 sections are missing a green end in the colour combination of green, navy, brighter blue, two shades of a light lavender.

Weaving the first scarf I mis-fired the shuttle and broke an end. Instead of fussing about it, I simply tied a length to the original thread, got it through the correct heddle and pinned it to the cloth. I will fix it now that it is off the loom - as in needle weave the broken end into the cloth and ignore the knot. Because the weft is textured and I very much doubt anyone will be aware of the knot in the scarf.

Am I going to throw these scarves away? Mark them down as 'seconds'? 'Flawed'? No. No, I am not. I have accommodated the errors and fixed the ones that could be fixed. None of them will affect the function of the textile.

Mastery does NOT mean 'no mistakes'. It means you know how to fix or disguise them so that they don't matter. You know how far to push your materials or equipment. You know how to bend the rules properly - so that you can achieve things such that anything NOT ideal, doesn't matter.

Teachers Appearing

 

Seems like a snowflake is appropriate for today's post.

So, I've been thinking a lot about teaching.  How one presents material.  How students process material.  Thinking about the teachers I've had - some of them really fabulous, some of them, not so much, most just kind of in the middle.

I have to say I was very lucky to have mostly really good teachers.  My first three teachers were all female and grade 1 and 2 were excellent.  Grade 3, was enthusiastic and mostly encouraging.  Grade 4 was a bit more challenging but a nice man and when things were not going well he would decide we'd done enough work for the day open the piano and we would sing (he was also one of the music teachers and led the school choir).  I liked him well enough but was mostly bored, for reasons.

Grade 5 the teacher tended to be a lot stricter with the boys and give some of the girls lots of leeway and I didn't like his favouritism.  I was also sick a lot that year and missed some crucial lessons and never really caught up.  It was not a good year for a lot of reasons.

But Grade 6.  Oh my, what a wonderful teacher I had for grade 6!  He was Welsh and not afraid to examine things like the White Man's Burden and challenge the students to look at the inherent racism involved in that little slogan.  He challenged us to think for ourselves, but always in a most gentle way.  I'm sure we were a challenge with more than 40 students in the classroom, but I never felt he was ignoring anyone.  Having Mr. Rae for my teacher in grade 6 taught me more than just what was in the curriculum - he also shone a light on how to think for myself.  And he didn't coddle the girls, or the boys.  He just seemed to open doors to learning.  

As I moved into junior and senior high school, I had a lot more teachers because now teachers taught specific subjects and we moved from class to class, with changes in who might be in the various classes.  I learned a lot more about a larger pool of human beings as I needed to interact with more people, but on a more superficial level.

Some of my teachers were fabulous.  Some, not so much.  And again, most somewhere in the middle.  And I learned more than just the curriculum as I dealt with very different personalities.

I also learned a lot about teaching and what I connected to with the teachers, and what put me off.  Some I just sat back and did what I needed to do to pass.  Others were a struggle.  But some?  Some lifted me out of my blue collar working poor life and showed me another way of being.  That poor didn't mean stupid - or ignorant.  And I will always be thankful to the teachers who not only allowed me to read whatever I wanted when my work in class was done.  I am pretty sure my grade 7 teacher was well aware that when I sat way back in my desk I had a book tucked into my desk that I was quietly reading.  He also never objected when I asked permission to go to the school library, just round the corner.  I would come back with a new book to read, like a cat who got the cream.

So when I started to teach, I confess I was not a trained teacher, but I had a pretty good idea of how to string information together to show someone how to do something.  I also wrote reasonably well, and could generate class handouts.  Drawing has never been my strong suit but I can usually manage a few simple line drawings.

The more I taught, the more I understood what people needed to have presented to them.  The more I failed to connect, the harder I worked to find a different way of presenting the information.

I drew on my experience of being a student in school, pulling on my memories of what excited me about learning something and how my really good teachers presented information.

So, clear explanations.  A little self-deprecating humour.  Asking questions, to help people think about the course content.  Can they connect the dots?  Giving people time to process before loading them up with yet more information.

I came to realize the perhaps the biggest gift I could give to a student was to encourage them to think.  Then when they made a comment, ask them more questions.  How?  Why?  What?  Push them to think processes through to conclusions.  And never say that my way was the only way or the best way.  

Give them agency over their own learning, and their own practice.

The more I learned the more I understood just how vast the knowledge of weaving (or spinning, etc.) truly is.  

The more I interacted with other weavers/spinners I liked and respected, the more I grew to appreciate their journey of learning - how had they come to that point in their lives?  

For the longest time I thought about the saying that when the student is ready, the teacher would appear.  As a student I found this to be true.  It was only when I was more firmly rooted in teaching that I realized the teacher was always there.  It took me (the student) to recognize them and open my heart and mind to what they had to teach me.

Today I got another scarf done (finished one, began the next).  Since I'm only needing surface attention at the minute, and no pressing deadlines, my thoughts have been wandering down different highways and byways, and it's been interesting to note which stones are turned over and examined.  And which pathway beckons.  It's been kind of fun having a good wander around in my own mind.  Asking questions of myself, mostly.  But also thinking about students and the classes that are set to launch in January/February.  I'm sure I will learn lots from the new crop of students I am hoping will discover me.  

Two Faces

 

It might be a little hard to tell in this photo, but the current scarf is showing off the distinct differences in the faces of the cloth.

There are fewer shafts being raised than left down for each pick, which means there is more warp showing on the underside and more weft on the top.  When you combine that with high contrast between the warp and weft, with a smooth yarn, the weave structure shows up a lot more.

I hesitated a bit before trying this colour, but in the end I'm pleased with it.  There is some purpleish yarn in the warp about the same shade and wasn't sure how that would look.  Sometimes you just have to weave it.

This is scarf number four of this warp.  I'm using a smooth 2/8 Tencel in this shade, then an egg plant purple, and then a dark green which is also in the warp.  The effect will be more subtle for both of those since the hues and value of the next two wefts is more in line with the warp.  The pinkish/purple stripes in the warp will likely show up more.

The last three scarves will be done in a finer slightly slubby rayon.  I haven't checked the bin yet, but pretty sure I have three candidates that will work as weft.

And I've decided on the next warp in this series - 1/3 green, 2/3 black.  Because I have that and plenty of it.  The choices are getting a little harder as my options reduce, both in candidates for warp, and for weft.

Today we have had some 'weather' and I have been happy to stay home.  Tomorrow isn't going to be much better so the plan is a repeat of today - weave two sessions, potter around the house.  Plus a 'new' library book just came home from the library.  It might be a good idea to sit and have a pot of tea and a long read.  

The Little Things

 

In my self-challenge to use up stash, I'm working with a bunch of different rayon yarns.  The photo I posted yesterday was of a weft yarn that was a flake, but not a very smooth yarn, overall.  As such, the fuzzy surface of the yarn tended to obscure the weave structure.

This morning I changed to a different rayon flake.   This brand is a bit thinner but also a lot smoother.  As I wove I could more clearly see the design beginning to reveal itself.  The weft is a very dark, nearly black, navy blue and that coupled with the navy blue and forest green in the warp creates a background where the lighter value warp colours begin to show through, not unlike an oil slick on rain puddles.  I'm quite liking it.  Enough to do another one with this yarn?  Probably, but I will change the treadling so that it isn't identical.  OTOH, I still have buckets of other yarns I could also be using, so time will tell.

Over the years I have challenged myself, pushed hard to make my horizons more flexible, expand my knowledge.  When I chose to 'retire' I assumed I would jump back into more exploration, dig deeper into a bolder approach to weaving.  Hone my design skills by making bold decisions, leap off tall cliffs into deep ends of pools.

Instead I find myself enjoying the little things.  The subtle things.  Like a film of oil slick on a puddle of water.  These quiet little discoveries will never rock anyone's boat, but they are bringing me great satisfaction when they come, quietly, tiny gifts in a season that has been fraught with so many other things demanding my time and attention.  My grief over the state of the world.  My disappointment in so many people who just don't seem to much care about others.

My focus on stash reduction still challenges me, but in small ways, not grand ones.  Trying to figure out how to use up as much of my yarn as possible, largely so that my friends don't wind up cleaning up my 'mess' has begun to feel a lot more important that any deep dive I could do into a weave structure.  There are plenty of others doing the excavating, but only me using up my stash!

In the end, everyone needs to find their comfort zone.  At times I have found my comfort in stretching my weaving chops further, deeper, bending 'rules' until just before they broke - if I was lucky - or up until they did break - if I wasn't.  

But I always learned something.  

Over the past years there is one lesson that I have learned over and over again.  I am not perfect.  I will make mistakes.  I will have 'failures'.  But those failures matter little in the scheme of life.

This morning I saw a video from Tik Tok.  I don't belong to that platform but sometimes see videos shared to Twitter.  This one was someone talking about mistakes in textiles.  She talked about an example of sprang dating from something like the 1200s where the creator had made a simple mistake and not entirely centred the motif in the cloth.  And that every reproduction that has been created reproduces that error.  The person who originally made that piece of textile had no idea that their error would live on in perpetuity.  And that maybe we should all just ease up on ourselves a little when we are not perfect.  The illustration provided reminded me once again that no, indeed, I am not perfect.  And it's fine.  Another person talked about the fact that when we make a mistake we don't actually need to learn anything from making it.  And in return I shared that just yesterday I broke a warp thread.  What I learned from that was that I can still flub a shuttle throw.  Fix it and carry on.

And ultimately if that scarf survives for 1000 years?  That mistake will still be there and no one will actually much care.

Do what brings you joy, even if the result isn't 'perfect'.

One by One

 

I have great hopes of this design because it looks quite different depending on the angle at which the cloth is viewed.  

The warp is 2/16 bamboo (Brassard) and the weft various rayon yarns from my stash.  Because yes, I'm still working on using up my stash!

The weft is textured - a rough kind of 'flake' - and overall thicker than the warp threads.  As such the weft tends to dominate the warp when viewed from face on.  But walking away from the loom I could see that as the angle of viewing changed, so did the appearance of the cloth.  So I am hopeful that once wet finished this will be quite a subtle but interesting cloth.

That is not say this warp has been without incident!  Rather it has been a bit challenging as I made a few oopsies in the processes.  Operator error, combined with pushing the yarn to it's limit led to some interesting two-step shuffles as I put the warp into the loom and got it ready to start weaving.  And then broke a warp end due to a shuttle 'mis-fire'.  Again - operator error.

But this morning I finished scarf #1 and began #2.

I've sorted through my stash.  Again.  Picked several yarns as being good candidates for using on this warp.  And now it is just to sit down and do the weaving.

The warp has some tension 'issues'.  I had already decided to cut off and lash on after each group of three scarves, so that will help even out the tension problems.  But nothing that seems to be proving catastrophic.  So far.

In the meantime I've reviewed what I'm doing and decided on the next warp in this series.  And targeted an array of different wefts that can be used on that one.  It would be nice to use up all of something, but then I'd have a big stack of one colour combination, which isn't great for selling.  Having a variety of different colours, woven on different coloured warps, will give people a much bigger choice.

We still have three more weekends of the guild room sale, then the pop up sale at the art centre.  For that I'm thinking of getting the silk/rayon scarves tagged/priced and  place them on consignment with that facility, plus whatever I put into the guild pop up sale there.  Beyond that, I'm not pushing to get these scarves done, but if they are, they can go into the sale(s), too.

But before that can happen, I need to weave, fringe twist and wet finish them.

So - back to the loom.