Expert

 

It's been interesting the past few years, to see how society has evolved from trusting scientists to arguing with them.  As if a few searches on You Tube or Google equals an 'expert' level of knowledge about something.

I hesitated for a long time to accept the mantle of 'expert' when it comes to weaving.  It took several years before I added the qualification to my business cards and hang tags. 

It took even longer before I felt I 'owned' the designation.  Because the one thing you learn when you take a deep dive into a subject is how much more there is to learn.  That you don't know it 'all'.  And just how conditional what you know actually is.

I'm now old enough that I don't much care about titles.  None of what I have done was done for the ribbons or my CV/resume.  In fact I stopped tracking my 'accomplishments' back in the 1990s.  when it grew to over 3 pages, I figured no one would read it anyway.  And I was tired of keeping it up to date.

Either people know who I am, or they don't.  And a 10 page resume of all the workshops I've taught, the magazine articles I've had published, the awards I've won, become just one more chore to keep current.

But.

But.

I DO know things.  I know quite a few things - about weaving, making cloth, wet finishing it. designing a cloth to serve a function.

Do I still make mistakes?  Of course I do.  The warp I cut off the loom last had a threading error I didn't spot until I'd already woven six towels.

Yesterday I pressed them and yup, sure enough, it's still there.  It's pretty minimal and won't actually much affect how the towels will function.  But!  They are not 'perfect'.  

Does that make me less of an 'expert'?  Not really.  It just makes me human.  A human with eyesight that is aging at the same rate as the rest of my body.  And frankly after the shingles in my eye?  I'm just grateful I didn't lose the sight in that eye entirely.

All human knowledge hinges on specifics.  My reality is different from someone else's.  I am not the 'only' expert in the field, nor do I pretend to be the 'final' word in anything.

I still learn.  I still make discoveries.  I experiment and sometimes those fail.  But I've still learned something by trying them.  That is, after all, how we learn.  We push the boundaries of current knowledge.

There are times I work to the 'less than ideal' knowing that in the end it isn't going to  make much of a difference to the finished cloth.  'Mastering' the craft means understanding the materials, equipment and processes and when you can bend the 'rules' - and get away with it.

So - choose an expert.  Learn as much as you can from them.  Then choose another expert.   They will have different experiences, learned different lessons.  Ultimately become your own expert.

And if you want to learn from me, I'll be hanging out at the School of Sweet Georgia.  Or you can buy my books.  

Multi-tasking

 

My entire life has been spent working on multiple projects at once.  I've had to develop a high degree of prioritizing, what equipment needs to be available, when, pay attention to my yarn inventory and my product inventory.

Teaching was the same kind of thing but trying to 'herd' different variables.

So here I am, still, shepherding a bunch of different projects.  

I'd love to finish one of them so I can put the stuff that I need for them 'away', but that isn't always possible.

Like today.

I did manage to thread more of the current warp this morning and got to the 2/3s point when it was time to stop for lunch.  

After lunch I had a little bit of time that I might have sat and read or puzzled or just vegged, but I also had a bin of towels that needed to be pressed.  Even though I couldn't get the entire lot done, I could at least make a start.  So I did.  And got to about the 1/3 point before it was time to leave for my errands.

Since I'm isolating at home as much as possible, I tend to collect up all the things that need doing and try to get them all done in one trip.  So I left the house about 1:45, hop, skipped and jumped across town (doing a circle route to save gas), then finally rolled back into the driveway just after 4 pm.

I did take a wee break and had a snack, then went back downstairs to do *something*.  Given the pressing is the most intrusive thing I'm working on (AND I'll need my work table for lesson prep in the next few days) I continued with the pressing.  I'm now about 2/3s done that.

So, nothing 'finished' - just a little bit of progress on both of those fronts.

I tend to use the time when I'm doing something like pressing to think things through, so in the back of my mind I've been honing the teaching aids for the classes.  I'm pretty sure I know what I want to do, and I now have all the supplies I need to do them.  I have replacement ink cartridges (weaving drafts in colour tend to eat up the ink), a fresh box of printer paper, and the sticky tabs I wanted so I can label each draft to make sure I keep them in order and handle them by the tabs which should keep the paper from creasing.

I've also been thinking about all the 2/20 mercerized cotton I have and realizing how much yardage is involved, I will try to make warps with the dyed yarns until they won't 'work' then buy 40 tubes of white and do the same as with the 2/16 - put on white warps and weave off the dyed merc. cotton as weft on the white warp.  In the end there may be some all white towels coming down the pipeline, just so I can use it all up.

Pretty sad when you wind up buying more yarn in order to use up what you have, but I've done it before, and I can do it again!

But right now?  My studio has goat trails through it.  Again.  So I will begin by completing the pressing tomorrow so I can clear the drying rack, bins and the press out of my way.

Counting the Days

 

It is exactly four weeks until we leave for Vancouver.  The trip will be extended with several necessary things happening.

Probably the most important is the steroid injection which should relieve the pain I deal with daily, and which will allow me to record the two classes for SOS without the fog of pain/chemicals.  I'm hoping to get more information about what the future holds in terms of options for continuing care.  Given the state of health care, I'm also hoping to just book my next appointment now so that I don't have the long wait between jabs.

In the meantime I keep plugging along.  Right now I'm waiting for feedback from SOS on the filming schedule and if I can get into the recording studio to set everything up on the 'free' days between the jab and the actual recording.  But of course that will depend on if there is another class being recorded the week prior to mine.

Given I'll be in Vancouver for a couple of 'extra' days we are going to try and visit a couple of people, plus I will offer to sign the books Sweet Georgia Yarns has in stock.  So, if you want a signed copy of my book, stay tuned!

(Pretty sure they would be amenable to selling a copy and holding it for me to sign, because the staff are really super helpful.)  

Sweet Georgia Yarns

Today I have a bunch of errands to run.  Given I tend to isolate as much as possible (because Covid) the things that I need to do myself tend to pile up and then I wind up running all afternoon to get everything done before I crawl back into my burrow.  Until the next errand day.

Tomorrow the local guild executive will meet (in my carport, where we have a nice big table to sit at and there will be home made refreshments) to discuss the coming year.  What we can do, given covid, and how we can provide more services to our membership.  We've basically been staying active in very basic ways but we've had a few people ask about weaving/spinning/felting lessons and it would be good to grow our membership again.  Be nice to have more younger people participate, as well.

Over the past few years we have done our best to make the room more comfortable.  We bought a small room a/c which helps to cool the room down when we get hot days, and last year we bought a room HEPA filter.  The room windows open, and if we are aware and careful, we are hoping to begin offering small groups lessons on a more regular basis.

But it all takes some thought and lots of planning so the meeting tomorrow night to start working on the future.

Just like weaving.  Or life for that matter.

In the meantime, I keep weaving with a goal of two towels per day.  Yesterday I beamed the next warp and began threading.  I doubt I'll get it finished today, but hopefully can get another repeat or two done so that I can finish tomorrow.  Plus I wet finished the towels from the warp that was cut off on Sunday.  So there are an assortment of things that need to be done.  I'll try to push them forward a little today so there is less to do tomorrow.

Far From Ideal

 

I wasn't entirely happy with how the 2/20 warps were weaving off.  I knew when I started on them that I was pushing the boundaries of 'ideal' or 'best' practice, and frankly?  If I'd only been doing one warp I would have simply gritted my teeth and done it, dusted my hands and moved on.

But I don't have just one warp's worth of yarn.  I have what is beginning to feel like a never ending supply of the stuff.

I'm being reminded - daily - of how much play time is involved with very fine yarns (8400 yards per pound or around 5-6 miles...)

As each warp went on - and came off - I was getting more annoyed at myself for continuing a process that I knew was less than ideal and with this one determined to change what I was doing (finally!)

So I set up this warp, with its various different sized tubes, so that the yarn would pull off from the end of the tube instead of the side.

When you pull from the side, the 'ideal' is to have all of the yarn packages be the same weight.  Then as you pull the yarn off of them, they all have the same degree of drag, exerting the same (or similar) amount of tension on the threads.

With some tubes full, some half full, and some of them nearly empty (yes, I'm trying to use up my stash!), the threads were going onto the beam at various rates of tension.

In the past this hadn't been a huge problem because the AVL had a beam with a one yard circumference.  The Megado has a beam of something like 14.5".

It was making a difference.

The AVL also had a much longer distance from breast to back beam which also allowed minor tension issues to resolve over a longer distance.  With the Megado and a shorter footprint, there was less room for the yarn to settle.  That coupled with the much smaller circumference was causing some problems.

I kept going because they weren't being transferred to the cloth, in part because I cut and serge the cloth, then wet finish them.  During wet finishing any tiny difference in tension seemed to be eased out of the cloth itself.

But I wasn't happy with how the yarns behaved in the loom.  The ends that were too tight (relative to the others) tended to 'float' in the shed and I'd hit them with the shuttle in the unclear shed - and sometimes they would break.  The ones that were too loose would sometimes sag and create a shed that wasn't clear and one symptom of this was the weft loops that kept developing.  If I saw them before I wove very far I'd back up and unweave, remove the loop, then continue.

Each thing by itself wasn't really a big deal and nothing I hadn't dealt with before.  But honestly?  I'm old and cranky and not much given to putting up with such things right now.

So today I set the warp up to be pulled from the end of the tube.  It seemed to be 'better' but once I started threading I could feel that again the fuller tubes and the ones that were more empty were beaming on at slightly different tensions.  

I'm hoping that overall the situation has improved and will wait and see how this warp weaves off before I decide if the change was an actual improvement.  Or not.

But the improvement I noted in the beaming may well be sufficient to continue doing it this way.  Fingers crossed it will extend to the weaving, as well.

Just now did about 1/3 of the warp, realized I'd made a threading error, back tracked and found the error and fixed it.  It wasn't very far back and didn't take all that long in the scheme of things, but I am done for today.

Time to make dinner and veg a bit.  Who knows, maybe I'll feel like hemming tonight.  I have 7 more of the first red warp to hem, the 'neutral' towels (18), and today ran the second red warp through so now there are 17 of those that will be ready to hem as soon as I press them.  They are 'steeping' in a plastic tub which will even out the damp/almost too dry parts and make them a lot easier to press.  Manana...

Another Sunday

 

I'm coming down to the wire on the latest warp with just one towel left to weave.

I've been beaming sectionally for a very long time but when you push past the 'ideal' sometimes?  Things don't go smoothly.

So it is with my stash reduction efforts.  I've been setting up my spool rack to pull the yarn from the sides of the tubes, which is great when the tubes are all the same weight, as shown here.

But when they aren't?  The yarns will go onto the beam at different tensions.

I knew that would happen, but generally I can make it work.  With the towels, the tension differential isn't even apparent after wet finishing.  But it's starting to bug me.

Plus!  Plus I am about to go do a recorded class on beaming sectionally and I want to talk about why I use this specific spool rack and how it allows you to pull off the top (or the end) of the yarn package.

When you do that, it doesn't matter how full the tube is because the weight of the yarn package doesn't enter into the equation.

What you DO have to do, though, is apply more tension via the tension box.

So my next warp will be done that way.  I'll set up the warp so that I can take from the end of the tube instead of the side.  I'll work through (remind myself) of what needs to be done when choosing this option and hopefully get to do it once again before it is time to pack the rack up and drive it down to Vancouver for the purpose of doing the taping.

In order to that, however, I need to get this warp off the loom and get the next one on.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to weave I go...

Shoulders of Giants

 

Master Weaver Certificate holders and their monograph topics:

 

1955      Mary Black:  Tartans and Mary Sandin:  Linen

 

1958      Nell Steedsman:  Two Frame weaving

 

1959      Grace McDowell:  Box Loom Weaving

 

1973      Adrienne Whitelaw:  Ceinture Fleché

 

 1975      Mary Andrews:  Fundamentals of Weaving

 

1976      Sandra Feenstra:  Double Weaves and Dini Moes:  The use of Colour in Handweaving

 

1979      Judith Rygiel:  Stitched Double Weave

 

1980      Eileen Shannon:  Point Twill Treadling Variations

 

1986      Jane Evans:  Tied Latvian Weave; Linda Heinrich:  Linen; Noreen Rustad:  Beiderwand

 

1989      Anke Keizer-Bles:  Exploring the Moorman Technique for Clothing and Margaret Berg:  Multiple Tabby Weaves and Twills

 

1990      Sandra Fearon:  Shadow Weave Design

 

1991      Patricia Corbett:  Colour and Texture Variation in Knotted Pile; Ruth-Carrol, ; Gaye Hansen:  Twice warped – Twelve Techniques for the Second Warp Beam; Kay Reiber:  Summer and Winter – a System for All Seasons; Frances Timbers:  The Handkerchief.

 

1992      Valerie DePorto:  Design Dynamics of Multishaft Swedish Lace

 

1993      June Bell: Finnweave; and Mabel Verigin:  The Forgotten Weaves

 

1994      Margaret Hahn:  Opphamta

 

1995      Christine Hill:  Wool – Fleece, Fibre and Fabric; and Evelyn Oldroyd:  The Wonder of Weaving Silk

 

1997      Laura Fry – Transformations:  Fulling Handwoven Fabrics

 

1998      Carol Oberg:  Brain-based Learning in the Weaving Studio – process of regeneration

 

2001    Ruth Jarvis:  Ramie

 

2003*     Helene Ruel:  La Magie de l’Ikat (The Magic of Ikat)

 

 Today I learned that one of my mentors has died.  Eileen Shannon was a big encourager and supporter and part of a 'study group' that was working their way through the Guild of Canadian Weavers master weaver program.  They invited me to join them and encouraged me to work on the program as well.

I am grateful to Eileen (and Linda Heinrich, Noreen Rustad and Jean George) for including me in their group.  I learned so much from them, and still have Eileen's voice in my head 'What have you learned since we last met?' was her pretty standard greeting.  She normalized making mistakes as part of the learning process.  A mistake was never the end but the beginning of learning as far as she was concerned.

I lost touch with her a few years ago when she moved to Vancouver Island, and was very sorry to hear that she died the end of July.

*I'm no longer a member of GCW and not aware of any master weavers since Helene Ruel in 2003.  If you are self motivated, able to work on your own, want to test your knowledge and skills, the GCW still runs the program.  The test booklet is available and makes a good study guide along with Mary Black's book if you want to push the boundaries of your knowledge and increase your horizons.  It's not terribly expensive compared to other programs and you can work at your own pace.  Which is, in part, why it took me nearly 20 years to finish!  But I did.

A Pause for Reflection

 

I posted this photo of myself to FB a couple of years ago.  It reflected where I was at that moment in time.

An elderly (yes! elderly!!!) white woman, in want of a hair cut (covid!), feeling tired, dealing with...too much and barely hanging on by a thread.

Since that time things have gotten even 'worse' with a severe shingles outbreak and continuing deterioration of my body.

My spirit is wrestling with my physical and that can be exhausting at times.  Because there are things I would still like to do, things I would like to accomplish, so many things!  And my body has finally put it's foot down (how appropriate given the pain I feel on a daily basis is in my right foot/leg/hip) and is loudly saying NO!  

Talking to others in my age bracket, we are all dealing with the same (ok, I'll use it) shit.

We are looking at a life that has been long and fulfilling in so many ways.  An accumulation of stuff to the point where it has become overwhelming and trying to re-home as much of it as we can.

But, it's *our* stuff, not someone else's.  It's *our* 'treasure' (my precioussssssss) not someone else's.  It's *our* memories of *our* life, not someone else's.

In the end I opted to not even open some of the binders I pulled off the shelves, just tossed them.  Paper into paper recycling (newsletters), plastic into plastic recycling, metal into metal recycling.  

Some things, like the hundreds and hundreds of slides went straight into the garbage.  

The sample collections - now consisting of 1.5 'large' boxes will be brought to Vancouver when we go down the end of September and handed over to two younger weavers.  If they keep them or not will not be any part of my life once they are handed over.  They may find them dated (they are) and not of much use (they may not be) and perhaps they will pass on or toss.  I don't know.  Once they leave my hands, I don't care what they do with them.

In the end, I managed to clear several shelves of a significant amount of feet of shelving space, enough that I *might* be able to shelve all the books I routinely use that currently don't fit in my library.  But that is to be determined.  Just moving the binders I want to keep to my library in the studio (from my office) took up one of the now empty shelves there.

My emotional attachment to these years of information collecting was high and it pained me to even consider throwing things away.  But I had to be realistic.  How much value was in those binders?  How out of date was it?  Who on earth would want it?

I can now see my desk again because I managed to clear enough space off my office shelves to make a home for the shipping stuff (customs forms, padded envelopes, shipping labels, shipping tape).  

So I feel like I've accomplished a lot, even though it doesn't actually look like much.  Most of the work was in snipping the emotional attachment to my 'precious' books/binders/collected information.  Things that, in many cases, I had not opened in decades.  If they were that unused, how useful to me were they?  Obviously, not much!

And in the doing?  I found things that I had 'lost', which I DO still want/need and will use - in my next class for SOS, in fact.

So there is that.

In the meantime, I keep weaving, because I can.  For now.  I'm in my 70s, with a body that is breaking down.  Who knows how long I will be able to do that?