Oops

 

It happens.  Not often, but I've been a weaver for so long, used my equipment for so many years, sometimes things break.  Usually *when* I'm using them - or trying to.

So it was today.

I'd done my goal of two towels for the day but had finished early enough, and had energy enough left over that I decided to prep the bobbins for tomorrow.  

Several of my bobbins don't fit very well on the shaft of the bobbin winder and so they vibrate during winding.  A lot.  This vibration can eventually cause a stress fracture in the shaft of the bobbin, and if I don't notice it (which I don't, always) the next time I go to use it the vibration during winding can break the bobbin at the stress fracture.

The bobbin was just over half filled when it failed and I am not about to try and salvage the yarn on it.  It is, in fact, already in the garbage.

Am I upset?  No.  The value of the yarn is less than $1 and I don't really *need* it.  If I run out I'll just weave one less towel.  Whatever is left over will get used elsewhere.

I finished emptying the tube I was working from which should be enough to do two more towels.  There is one more tube, about half full, and that should have enough yarn for three towels.  Which means I should get 7 yellow towels.  If I get 8 I'll be very surprised.  Seven towels is actually about 1/3 of the warp so I'll cut off and re-tie and then finish the rest of the warp using some of that 16/2 teal.

The next draft has been generated - a variation on a theme.  

If I can keep on track, I should be able to finish this warp and get the next into the loom before it is time to leave for Olds.  I've heard from a couple of the students so I know they are getting ready, too.

Fingers crossed for good driving weather - there and back.  

Currently reading the latest by Sara Paretsky - book is in the other room.  She is one of several authors that I look for the next in the series and this one just came out recently so I was happy when I got it from the library the other day.  My pile of 'want to read' books is growing again with a number of my favourite authors bringing new titles out - Guy Gavriel Kay, Patricia Briggs just to name two.  Plus I've had new-to-me authors recommended.  Doug is reading one of them and quite enjoying it, so I'll look forward to reading it, too.  It's about 11 hours of driving to Olds - I should be able to get a few hours of reading there and back.  Who knows, maybe while there as well.  No tv in the townhouse, so we both might just binge read for a week.  :)

Daisy Chain

 

the horizontal line in the middle is a reed mark, no doubt made more noticeable by a small tension problem, but should minimize during wet finishing - the warp runs left to right in the photo, not top to bottom

Fancy twill designs can get to be rather large.  I didn't actually realize how this design was going to render because the graphic in the book that I adapted only showed a portion of the repeat.  So it was a bit of a pleasant surprise when I generated the entire draft in Fiberworks and saw this rather large repeat nestled in amongst the different elements of the draft.  I had really liked the little 'starburst' you can see in the centre of the daisy chain, but I hadn't been able to tell that the draft would produce this larger motif until I did the work of getting it into my weaving software.

And life, like weaving, is often like that.  We see small fragments of something, aspects of living or weaving, that we really like, all unaware that once you get involved in the bigger picture, there is something quite lovely waiting for you.

The daisy chain motifs also overlap each other, each chain part of others next to it, and the pattern links up and become bigger than the pieces they are made up of.

Weaving or spinning is frequently seen in the European 'fairy' tale traditions and I think it was because every family did some aspect of preparation in the creation of the fibre into yarn, the yarn into cloth, the wet finishing that made it 'real' cloth.  Everyone knew the steps involved, and how much work and effort was required.  So it was something very known to every person in a village and likely even the bigger towns and hanging a morality tale onto the creation of textiles was meaningful to everyone who heard it.

Because fairy tales are much older than our modern day history.  When the Brothers Grimm* published their book in the 1800s, they didn't write those stories - they had gone round the countryside in what is now Germany - and collected the oral traditions of the people.

(And if you think they are gruesome, let me explain that they expurgated them of the worst of the blood and gore.)

Working with fibres goes far beyond European written history.  Latest archeological finds have been pushing that date further and further back in time so that Elizabeth Wayland Barber's book Women's Work; the first 20,000 years should have more accurately been 'the first 30,000 years'.  And I do believe that it goes further back in time than that.

One of the more recent finds was a bit of cordage that bound a flint to a handle and the thread that did it was so thin and so consistent, it is pretty much impossible to achieve that level of expertise very quickly.  

I believe human involvement in the making of yarn goes much further back in time than we can ever know.

When I chose weaving as a career (because it was not a hobby that turned into something more), I never dreamed of all of the things I would set my hand to for 40+ years.  And still want to do it, even if it is at a slower pace.

Weaving has taught me many things - to be humble, for one.  To keep going until it's obvious continuing in a direction is never going to produce the results I want.  That sometimes things just don't work and it's ok to leave them behind in the dust as you move forward.  That people are, by and large, pretty nice and decent.  And the few that aren't?  Don't need to continue to be a presence in my life.  Just - keep moving forward.

So yesterday I generated the next draft for the warp coming after this one.  My shelves of 2/16 cotton are *almost* empty, but I still have some left.  I have enough natural for two more warps, so I will make a dent in what is left.

But I'm also aware that I have other yarns that are crying out to be used up, so once I've used up the natural 2/16, I think I'll pull out the 2/20 mercerized cotton and start working on those yarns.  What weave structure will I use?  Well, they will make more tea towels so probably in the twill family.  Maybe instead of weaving such large motifs, I'll take a walk through Oelsner, which has multiple 16 shaft twill drafts, all done on a point progression, as does the small booklet The Fanciest Twills of All.  So maybe I'll do some small motifs for a while, as I work on using up some of my even finer cotton and linen yarns.

Time will tell.  

*(from the Wikipedia page)  

The brothers were directly influenced by Brentano and von Arnim, who edited and adapted the folk songs of Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy's Magic Horn or cornucopia).^[15] They began the collection with the purpose of creating a scholarly treatise of traditional stories, and of preserving the stories, as they had been handed from generation to generation—a practice that was threatened by increased industrialization.

21st Century Problems

 

I grew up in the last century (and boy, howdy, do I feel old when I write that!) and discovered science fiction as a genre when I was about 11-12.  I'd read everything in the children's section of the library and asked if I could take books out from the adult section.  Given permission, I wondered where to start, and because I could think of no better way to approach the wealth of reading material in front of me, I began in the As.  And discovered Isaac Asimov's classic I, Robot.

There was also a comic strip in the newspaper called Dick Tracy.  It started out as a fairly standard 'detective' series, but soon the characters were sporting wrist communicators and riding around in single passenger flying machines.

It all seemed very far fetched, but I continued to be fascinated by science fiction and fantasy and the limitless possibilities the authors presented.

In my lifetime we have gone from spirit duplicators, Gestetner stencils and carbon paper to computers and printers in our homes.  We have gone from multiple party telephone lines to phones in our pockets - and in some cases our wrists.  Phones are no longer phones but have dozens of different functions.  Right now my phone is a better camera than the digital camera I bought in 2002.

The internet has broadened our horizons in ways that I did not foresee.  Being able to share photo files, documents and videos, and now on line classes?  Wow.

The hidden benefit to all of this is that people who were isolated can now participate in things like classes, seminars, conferences.  If they have an internet connection.

I spent the better part of 40 years either driving hundreds of miles or getting up at dark o'clock to catch a plane to teach.  And of course in person is in many ways 'better', but you know what?  On line is better than nothing.  And for a lot of people, that's what they had.  Nothing.  They either couldn't afford to travel, or they weren't healthy enough to travel long distances.  They did the best they could with books and magazines,.

As I got older, long distance travel was becoming onerous.  I never did react well to time zone changes, and before I could get anywhere I had to first get to Vancouver, then hop, skip and jump to where ever I was going.  And sometimes my destination was ALSO 'remote' - as in several hours from the airport I was arriving at.  (Yes, I have stories.  Every fibre teacher has stories.)

Add in my allergies and there were far too many occasions when I was teaching 'sick' - or at least compromised.

So I am getting ready to once more travel about 500 miles to teach a class.  While I am going to enjoy being there, the *getting* there won't be much fun.  Plus I'm not sure how I am going to manage 5 intense days of pouring everything I can think of out for the students to drink up.

I am facing the reality that I may be 'retiring' to teach in person, period.  Instead I am putting more effort into on line offerings.  I know they aren't 'ideal', but...they are what I can do (with the support of a great crew at School of Sweet Georgia).

And of course I'll keep posting here.  

In the meantime, my two books are still available at blurb.ca (link at the far bottom, scroll down, way down) and I've been starting to write articles for SOS as well.

Bottom line?  I doubt I'll go to any fibre conferences again, either as an instructor or a participant.  But if you are ever passing through my town, let me know.  I'd love to have coffee and chat.  :)

Behind the Scenes

 

The Olds College program is 5 days of in person instruction and then the students have a year to complete their homework and submit it for marking.

I thoroughly love teaching the level one class because it hits so many of my personal ideas of what is necessary - a deep dive into density (using wool) and then wet finishing for just two.

I add a certain amount of 'extra' material because I consider it essential - position and posture at the loom, working ergonomically, thinking analytically.

In order to give myself 'extra' time to include the 'extra' class material, I do a lot of prep work for the students so that it doesn't have to be done during class.

In addition to winding the value gamp warp ahead of time, arriving a day 'early' to dress the loom so that it is ready to go day 1, I also wind all the skeins of yarn onto cones.  And then I wind the first warp for the class so that they don't have to do that before they can begin dressing their looms.

Once I have all my prep work done, I'll sort through all my bins of samples and other class equipment (water colour boxes, paint brushes, colour wheel, books for reference, samples, etc.) and then I'll review the lesson plan.  Because it's been three years since I last taught this class in person, and I want to refresh my memory on how I'm going to present the material.

Because I don't teach this class in a linear fashion.  In other words, I do not simply open the class manual and teach the material in the order it is presented in there.  One of my focuses is to work efficiently and it is far more efficient to work out of order in terms of the class material.  It also allows people who are more experienced to focus on the areas they may be less experienced in and allot their time based on their energy and ability to focus while they learn new things.

I also bring a van load of equipment with me.  A warping trapeze/valet, small flat bed press, and my own warping board because there are only a few warping boards and many students who need to use one at some point in the first couple of days.

Even very experienced weavers have told me at the end of the class that they hadn't expected to learn much as they did and they wanted to express their thanks.

Because that's the thing.  Weaving isn't difficult, but it's complicated.  And there is a great deal to learn because of all the variables.  Change one thing, and everything can change.  What those changes are and how to work with them is all part of the process.  So I spend a lot of time exploring some of those things and encouraging everyone to figure out what they need to do in order to get the results they desire.

And so I do as much prep work as possible in order to give the students the time to look beyond the actual printed manual so that they know there is so much more to weaving than what is contained between the covers of any book.  Yes, even my own.

In the end?  It all depends - on the fibre/yarn, the weave structure, the density, the loom, the skills of the weaver.  It's not any one of those things, it's ALL of them.

Mastery

 

Yellow arrow shows where the mistake is

Pulling the thread out of the heddle from behind in order to thread into the proper heddle

Mastering a craft doesn't mean you don't make mistakes.

Mastering a craft is partly about recognizing when a mistake has been made, and knowing how to fix it.

Twill block motifs are good and all, but they do tend towards a sameness and I wanted a change so I messed around with a fancy twill for the current warp.

However, fancy twills are harder to thread than twill blocks and sure enough I had a brain cramp and made a mistake.  

The easiest way to find a threading error is to weave the cloth and then look for the mistake.

The error I made was subtle enough that I wove the entire first towel and still couldn't see the mistake.  So I left the loom for a few hours, then came back to take a closer look.  Much like finding a typo.

In the end I had to do a side by side comparison of the shapes woven into the cloth to finally *see* the error, which was about 160 threads from the left selvedge.  I had a choice to make.  Weave the entire warp with that error, hoping it wouldn't be noticeable after wet finishing, or take the time to re-thread those 160 ends.

With 20 yards or so of warp, I decided fixing it was worthwhile.  Then to work out how best to accomplish that.

Rejecting the first idea, for a number of reasons, I figured out what I'd done - or not done - finding my place in the threading draft so I could see where I went wrong in the sequence, then tied in the 'missing' 8 heddles.  Then, one by one, I moved the threads out of their incorrect place to their correct place.  In the bottom photo you might be able to see that my left hand is behind the heddles, pinching the thread between my index and middle finger.  My ring finger is lightly pressed against the target empty heddle and when I put the hook through that heddle and pull the thread through it, the thread comes out of the incorrect heddle from behind.

It took about an hour (the length of the U2 CD I was listening to) to tie the repair heddles and move the threads, one by one, to their proper place.  As I completed each group of threads, I marked them off on the paper copy of the draft, in a different colour from the first go through so that I could keep track of where I was in the rather lengthy threading repeat.

This morning I will resley the warp, tie on, and with any luck at all weave a towel this afternoon.  And hopefully I didn't make any other mistakes while I was correcting the first one!

Next!

 

All set up to begin threading.  I have one more lamp, out of frame on the left because I need to illuminate the area in the heddles in order to see what I'm doing.  On overcast/gloomy days I also have a lamp that will shine on the loom from the back so I can more easily see which bout gets threaded next.  You can just see the stick behind the heddles with the green painter's tape holding each bout.

When I had the AVL, I could tape the draft to the loom frame, but the Megado doesn't have anywhere handy to do that so I found my typing holder (whatever it's called).  Generally I put it on top of the lap top and extend the arm down so that it's more at eye level.  It has a little tray at the bottom where I put my pencil, and as I thread each group I check off what I've done.

Working with 'fancy' twills or other large threading repeats that have long sequences that change a lot, it's just a lot more efficient to go slowly and carefully, double checking each section.

Frequently I work on threading drafts at the end of the day when I'm tired.  Which means sometimes I make mistakes.  So it was with this draft.  I'd made a sequencing error in the first repeat, then repeated that section (mirrored, then rotated), so the error was in every repeat of the motif.

It's a common error and when I realized I'd done it (again!) I immediately got up and went to the desktop to go through the entire draft.  For one thing I wanted to see if correcting it would affect the thread count.  If it did, I might pull out the two inches or so I'd done and adjust the selvedge.

In this case, it didn't.  After correcting the draft, it was still the same number of ends and I printed out the corrected draft, carefully X-ing out the wrong one and tossing it into my paper recycle pile.  But I also marked the corrected draft to the point where I'd stopped threading so I knew where to begin again went I went back to the loom.

When I thread, I remove the beater top, reed and breast beam from the loom.  I use a shorter stool to sit on, which brings me closer to eye level of the heddles.  I refer to my printed draft for each section before I do it, and check each section I've completed off on the draft.

I have task lighting that illuminates the area I need to see - that is, the heddles.  I tend to do groups of 4, 6, or 8 or groups of 5 or 7 if that helps keep the overall draft easier to thread.  With large 'fancy' twills that reverse, sometimes you wind up with a section with an odd number of threads in order to keep the rest in a more logical grouping.

Each section of 4, 6, 8, (or 5, or 7) gets slip knotted together.  This makes sleying easier to do (for me) and I have fewer errors if I keep the groups small enough to also double check my threading.  Because sometimes I have a brain cramp and thread a point in the wrong direction.  I might thread the point /\ instead of \/.  Yes, I've done it, recently.  (Still not perfect!)

I'm going to continue using up my 2/16 stash as much as possible.  I'm down to just a few colours left, but one of those colours is nearly 3 kilos.  So I'll have a lot of that colour coming down the pipeline.

Why am I so focused on getting this yarn out of my life, my studio, my way?  Dunno.  I could do something else.  But in the end it all needs using up, so why not keep going with this one until it's gone?  And, once the 2/16 is finally used up, I will take the 2/20 mercerized cotton out of the boxes it is in and begin working on using *that* yarn.  More tea towels!

Once I get back from Olds I will have to begin working on the filming schedule for the next two classes for SOS.  Felicia wants me to do one on sectional beaming because she feels that tool is best seen in video.  She also wants the lecture I did on lace weaves to be a class, which is nice because I can demo how to do Bronson Lace in pick up.  Something that is much easier understood by seeing it happen, not trying to work out what is happening from the written word.

I bought yarn for the lace class while I was in Vancouver last month.  I bought a thicker yarn than I usually weave with so that it will be easier to see on camera.  I hope.  

Beginning now, my schedule is going to be very full up to and including the guild sales in Nov/Dec.  I'm still not anywhere close to where I was even a year ago in terms of health and energy.  But I'm determined to get these classes in the can (so to speak).  And to keep teaching for as long as I am able.

And that means continuing to avoid covid like the, um, plague.  And any other plagues that arrive in the future.  And that mans continuing to stay home as much as possible.  Avoiding crowds, especially indoors, as much as possible.  Wearing a mask whenever I'm out and about.

Because I have way too much yarn and too many plans to stop now.

Life's Journey

 

Today's post - Life.  Not weaving.  As such.  Ignore if you're only here for weaving content.

I live with cancer.  I was diagnosed with Small B Cell lymphoma in 2011.  In one way it was a 'fortunate' diagnosis insofar as it is 'indolent' (slow growing).  At the time the gold standard treatment was chemotherapy (including Vincristin, derived from mustard gas).

I fared well on it.  In the end instead of getting 8 infusions, I had only 6, and then I was put onto the Rituximab maintenance protocol - the first person in the province.  I was lucky because the oncologist was new to town and the province and he had developed the maintenance protocol, then fought hard to get permission to treat me with it.

He told me at the time that he had been having patients achieve a 6 year remission and I became another one of his patients to also have an extended remission from treatment.

Because you see, Small B Cell lymphoma is not - at this time - curable.  In other words, it will come back.  It may come back sooner.  It may come back later, but it seems to come back at some point in the future.

The next step in treatment was an oral medication and I took that for a year until the adverse effects became untenable.  I went off the drug and was monitored closely to see how the cancer would act.

Getting my system clear of the medication meant I felt better than I had been - until other parts of my body started breaking down.

It's been several years now and I am once again considered to be in remission.  Apparently I am one of very few people with this type of cancer who has managed to NOT require treatment for an extended period of time.  Again.

I am monitored, though, because the assumption is that at some point the cancer will come back again.  So every six months I go into the cancer clinic, get blood drawn, and then go back to find out - am I still in remission?  Or not...

Today is that day.

This six month cycle is one of first relief when I find out that I am still in remission, then stuffing all thoughts and feelings about living with cancer into the back of my mind.  Until covid.  And then I had to keep that awareness of a compromised immune system (B Cells are one of the two cells vaccines target to 'train' to identify covid - and mine don't work - hence my immune system is only half as effective as a healthy persons - at best).  It has been 2 plus years of riding the cancer clinic monitoring appointments while being hyper aware of the fact that I am at high risk of becoming seriously ill up to and including death from covid.

I'm tired.

People tell me my constant harping on covid isn't healthy.  I need to just ignore it and live my life.  What people don't understand is that if I ignore covid my life won't last very much longer.  We are, everyone of us, living on the edge of life and death and catching covid will flick me over that edge.

So I cannot ignore covid.  I don't accept invitations to gatherings because I don't know if the people there will be aware of covid or care if I catch it from them.  Because they may not have been wearing a mask and are asymptomatically infectious.  So I just don't go.

I continue to isolate myself, by and large, from the public.  I wear a mask when I go out.  And I watch the numbers to try and figure out the level of risk in my community.  

Right now the numbers are higher than I feel comfortable with and once again I refused to accept an invitation to a gathering that I would have liked to attend.  But it was a Spring Tea - which means masks off to eat the goodies and drink the tea.

And too many locals have been reporting they have contracted covid the past couple of months.  All vaccinated, all with 'mild' symptoms.  Which is great and I am relieved to hear that they haven't gotten terribly ill.  But with my immune system, now completely trashed after a severe outbreak of shingles?  I declined.  Regretfully, but I declined.

It's time to get dressed and head up to the clinic and find out - am I still in my rare remission?  Or nah?

I will hold this post until I find out.  And be grateful for the sunny day which means I can park at the mall and walk up the hill to the clinic.  A little ritual I go through every six months.  Walking up the hill with trepidation.  Down with relief.  Hopefully.

Later...

Relief.  For another 5.5 months, when the anxiety begins again...