Fwipping Along

 

Since I am in the mindset of 'getting rid of stuff', and I am about to launch a ginormous book auction for the guild, I sorted through my bobbin lace books and decided I could actually live without some of mine, as well as the ones I 'inherited' from a past weaving/lace making friend.

I've just gone through the books and will be endeavouring to decipher eBay auctions (again), maybe tomorrow.

In the meantime, I have the following bobbin lace books for sale.  These are the auction upset prices.  If I need to mail them, add $22 to the auction price.

All of the books (both mine and Jean's) are from non-smoking households.  Some have minor wear and tear but most are in 'good' condition.

Bobbin Lace Books

Barber, Jacqui.  Tradition into Creation.  Soft cover $20

Brooke, Margaret. Lace in the Making $10

Collier, Ann.  Lace Fans.  Soft cover $20

Collier, Ann. Lace for Dolls and Dolls’ Houses $20

Cook, Bridget and Geraldine Stott.  The Book of Bobbin Lace Stitches $30

SOLD Dyer, Anne.  Copper Wire Lace.  Soft cover $20 SOLD

Earnshaw, Pat.  Bobbin and Needle Laces; Identification and care.  Hard back.  $30

Earnshaw, Pat.  Threads of Lace; from source to sink.  Soft back.  $20

Eveleth, Lolita.  Chart for lace Identification and the Meshes of Handmade Lace $10

Maidment. Margaret. A Manual of Hand-Made Bobbin Lace Work  $20

Nottingham, Pamela. Complete Book of English Bobbin Lace  $40

SOLD Raffel, Marta Cotterell.  The Laces of Ipswich,  soft cover  $20 SOLD

Stott, Geraldine and Bridget Cook.  100 Traditional Bobbin Lace Patterns.  Soft cover $30

Woods, Sandi.  Special Effects in Bobbin Lace $45

 If there is anything here you want to purchase before I set the auction up, let me know.  I can accept Paypal, or payment by 'donation' to my ko-fi page, or if you are in Canada, etransfer.  Prices will be listed in Canadian dollars, so USians will get the current currency exchange 'discount'.  Once the auction begins, it will have to run until the time is over.  If you want any of these books for the upset price, let me know asap.

Motivation

 

All of my life I have been pretty highly motivated.  When I set my mind to do something, I will, hell and/or high water not usually an impediment of much note.

I thought I would continue to the end of my days in the same fashion.  I mean, I loved my work (not all of it, of course not, but the weaving? yes, indeed) and I saw no reason to stop weaving.  When I did 'retire' (for certain values of) I anticipated continuing to teach in person, and to weave, but now I would make things more for my own interest, and less consideration of what would, or would not, sell.

But life had other plans, as they say.  My stout body (in every sense of the word) has suffered a string of injury and illness.  

Frankly, that outbreak of shingles a couple of years ago nearly did me in.  And after I 'recovered' from that, everything *else* seemed to get a lot 'worse'.  More pain, less mobility, more frustration, less energy.

I am *finally* starting to feel 'better' but at a cost.  Medications always, *always* come with adverse effects, and I *always* seem to get whatever the paperwork says are a possibility.

So, my new medication doesn't cause the brain fog the hydromorphone caused, but it does come with fatigue and nausea.  And so I take Gravol, which *also* causes fatigue.

I manage to get to the loom twice, most days, but sometimes I need to do other stuff, and by the end of the day I'm flat as a pancake.

A month ago the pain doctor recommended I try 'red light laser therapy' as a way of treating what ails me.  (mild impingement of the S1 disc and moderate to severe of the L4 disc, plus suspected damage to the SI joint, all of which leads to chronic sciatic pain, PLUS peripheral neuropathy in both feet).

By then I had switched from the hydromorphone to low dose naltrexone, which appeared to be helping but wasn't entirely dealing with the pain, and the doctor had read that people with diabetes and PN were finding relief from the pain by using red light laser therapy.

I found someone who was using that on patients, and began treatment, partially skeptical, partially desperate for relief.

Reader, it seems to be working.  

The problem is, I've been sleep deprived for years because when the pain was bad, as it was increasingly becoming, I could not tune the pain out.  For far too many nights I have sat up, doing jigsaw puzzles, and more recently fwipping bobbins to make lace, but nonetheless, NOT sleeping.  

And my motivation appears to have dried up as dry as the rivers that no longer flow, but merely trickle through my town.

I have tried SO many things, and wound up crushed by disappointment that nothing was working I barely allow myself to hope that things will improve to the 'before times' reality.  I have not quite lost hope that things will improve such that I will be able to weave with less discomfort, but am now resigned to not being able to teach in person.  Unless I do it locally and students accept my limitations. TBD.

Since weaving helps with things like aerobic health (critical for someone with cardiac issues) and generates endorphins (which helps reduce pain), my priority is always to get to the loom.  My main goal is stash reduction, and on that front, I have made progress.  But so much more to be done.

Over the past two years I wrote two more books, but right now?  I'm having a really hard time to write anything but these blog posts (and sometimes sarcastic posts on social media - sorry/not sorry).

I have 3 articles I've promised to School of Sweet Georgia, and I'm hoping I have the mental wherewithal and energy to begin dealing with those - soon.

In the meantime, I've decided to 'test' eBay auctions by auctioning off the lace books I don't want or need.  This weekend I will log into there and begin listing those books.  That will get me up to speed on the functioning of the site because it's been about 10 years since I've done an eBay auction and, well, things change.

The list of bobbin lace books is below.  If you are interested in any of them, I will post the link to the auction as soon as I'm done listing them, here and elsewhere (my social media, such as it is).

And if you are interested in *weaving* books, I'll be starting the guild eBay auction asap after April 15.  Stay tuned...

My books available at the usual places.

Bobbin Lace Books

Chart for lace Identification and the Meshes of Handmade Lace by Lolita Eveleth  $10

Lace for Dolls and Dolls’ Houses Ann Collier $20

Special Effects in Bobbin Lace Sandi Woods $45

The Book of Bobbin Lace Stitches Bridget Cook and Geraldine Stott $30

Complete Book of English Bobbin Lace Pamela Nottingham  $40

A Manual of Hand-Made Bobbin Lace Work Margaret Maidment  $20

Lace in the Making Margaret Brooke  $10

(I may dig through my 'library' of lace books and add a few more.  We'll see how much energy I have.)

Spring is Springing

 

The snow is all gone now, and spring is well underway.  This morning the sky is blue and the sun is shining and it feels good, and not-so-good, all at the same time.

The predicted rain yesterday really didn't show up so we continue to be 'too dry', and the next rain is still at least a week away - if it comes, at all.  We were hoping for a wet spring, but so far...not so much.

I haven't checked the BC wildfire website for a few days, but neither have we had much in the way of thunder storms, so I'm hoping there are no new fires.

Yesterday I got to the loom twice, mailed some books for the guild, and dug into the hemming pile.  More towels are in the pipeline, and if I get this warp off by Saturday there will be more.  Little by little I pick my way through.

As I weave I frequently think about weaving and one of the things I notice about weaving is that it is complex.  You can say quite blithely "I'm going to dress the loom" which actually encompasses several days of work.

Typically, a tea towel warp will take about 3 hours (plus breaks) to set up the tension box and spool rack, then beam 24 sections of warp, then transfer the bouts to a stick I use for the purpose of bringing those bouts up and over the back beam and tape it to the loom so that I can reach them to thread.

Threading will take another 3-4 hours, depending on how many ends (36 epi takes longer than 32 epi) and how complicated the sequence to be threaded is.  The sleying takes maybe another hour, the tying on takes maybe 15 minutes, and then, only then, can I start to weave.  I may need to fix threading or sleying errors, which also takes time.

But before any of that happens, I've already spent an hour, maybe more, generating a threading that I'm willing to invest all that time into weaving.  Sometimes I design something, and park it and never actually weave it.  Or I might re-visit it and tweak it some more...and then may still *not* weave it.

Weaving (the actual shuttle throwing) a tea towel takes around 60 or so minutes.  I only weave for 45 minutes at a time now.  Since my last 'injury' that is as much as I can manage.  A warp of about 24 or so yards produces 19 to 20 towels...if I don't suffer a catastrophe that means I scrap one or two towels.  They might become 'seconds' and be given away; they might get tossed into the rag bag.  Depends on how 'bad' the error is.

After weaving, the towels get cut apart and serged, then around 12 to 20 will get tossed into the washer and dryer, removed while still damp, stored in a plastic tub that I can 'seal' so that the towels 'steep' and the damp evens out before I press them.  For tea towels, Side A then Side B, then hung on a drying rack to finish drying.  Once dry they are hand hemmed (my tv watching handwork), then given a final pressing.

All of this takes weeks from start to completion.

And this is what I mean by saying weaving is labour intensive.

Why do I do this?

Dunno.  All I do know is that the first time I sat at a foot powered loom I felt like I'd found 'home'.

After nearly 50 years of doing it, I now do it for the benefits I derive - the aerobic exercise, the endorphins that help me control chronic pain.  The exercise of thinking through a design challenge.  The intellectual stimulation of trying to figure out how to explain what I'm doing, and why.  

I miss teaching in person, but I'm still not able to do that, for a number of reasons.  So I write.  I've written four books (so far?), at least one of which is considered a 'classic' of the craft.  I write this blog, in some part because I want to help people understand the craft - answer questions, make people think through their problems, come to solutions.  And for as long as people are willing to book me, doing the Zoom presentations.

I have two this month and I think one in May.  My topics are listed on my website.  (Yes, I know Google is warning people it is 'unsecure', there is no httpS, just http...I've had this domain since the 1900s if you can imagine...yes, I'm that old...)

If my web mistress can squeeze me into her extremely busy schedule I will most likely be raising my fees for Zoom presentations sometime this year.  But if you book *before* that happens, I'll honour the current price, even if the presentation happens after the price increase.  

And of course my books are available from blurb and one is on ko-fi   

Sweet Georgia Yarns may still have signed copies of The Intentional Weaver, if anyone wants one of those.

And of course, my classes at School of Sweet Georgia and Long Thread Media.

Good Intentions

 

photo by Andrew Kurjata

I had good intentions for today. 

I went to bed thinking I could get up 'early' (earlier than I have been lately), jump into the shower, then leap onto the loom.  ('Jumping' and 'leaping' being relative terms these days.)

Anyway, I didn't.

Instead I saw another post about the abnormal drought conditions with photos by a local journalist of the rivers, and once again Blinker Boys stoutly insisting that the river is always 'low' this time of year.

Yeah, about the term 'low'...

Low is not almost completely dry.

This photo shows the devastation better than many others I've seen.  This bridge normally has, at the very least, a wide channel of water at the far end.  But even that is barely a trickle, almost invisible from this angle.  There IS still water in that deep channel, but this is not just 'low', this is damn near barren.

It does not bode well for the coming summer when the river is traditionally 'dry' in places - but never, not even in the driest summer I can remember (and I've got 70 years of memory to draw upon) have I seen the rivers *this* dry.

Anyway, time marches on - and so does climate change.

Just now I got a phone call saying our new hybrid vehicle is in town.  We ordered it last August.  Are we upset it has taken this long to get it?

No.  We are 'old'.  We are very familiar with the concept of waiting for something.  We scrimped and saved, and paid more for this vehicle than we have ever, in our lifetimes, paid.  It isn't even a very fancy vehicle, but it IS a hybrid, and as such, our dependency upon gas will be reduced.  Not entirely.  Because just like with the heat pump, we need to have a petroleum based 'back up'.  So we have a natural gas back up for the heat pump - which we needed over the winter when temps went below -25C.  And we'll need gas back up for the vehicle at times, especially during the winter.

We added in a few creature comforts - heated seats and steering wheel.  Extras that have come down in price since we last looked at having them.  And at our age, creature comforts seem to be a lot more desirable.  And we aren't traveling much anymore, or going to concerts, movies, dining out (because I'm still dodging Covid and other viruses).  So why not splurge a little on what may well be our 'last' vehicle we ever purchase?

Back to weaving related things...

I have finished inventorying and pricing the guild books.  The guild members get first dibs until April 14 after which I will begin listing them, 10 titles at a time.  

The books will be listed alphabetically according to author and my plan is to list 10 more each day until they are all listed.

I don't feel like spending the hours it will take to list them all, all in one day.  I cannot sit at the computer that long anymore without paying for it at the end of the day.  Besides, I'm not sure I even could list all of them in one day, even if I tried.

Yesterday I managed to tie on and start weaving the last third of the current warp.  The next one is designed, ready to be beamed just as soon as I get this one off.

And I have photos taken for the first article for SOS.  I'm hoping to start writing that this afternoon.

But first I still need to jump into the shower and leap onto the loom.  Relatively speaking...

Breathing Room

 

It's the time of year when I sometimes wake up to this.  This morning was overcast and dreary so I didn't get to see this spray of light, but hopefully it will show up more frequently - until spring progresses to the point where it happens way before I wake up!

Yesterday I finished inventorying and setting the auction upset price for the guild books and emailed the newsletter with said list to the person who sends it out after proof reading (and adding a couple other things that she takes care of.)

So now I have about 2 weeks of hiatus dealing with book sales.   I thought I would get started writing the first article for School of Sweet Georgia, but I have an appointment at 2 pm, plus errands (bank, post office) and then the dentist's office called and said they had a cancellation for 4:30 - could I come and get that broken filling fixed?  Um, yes.  Yes, please.

I got one session at the loom this morning, but now there isn't time before I leave for my first appointment and there won't be time to do much in between my first foray to town and my second.  So I think I might grab my library book and just sit and read for a bit.

Since there are So Many guild books to sell, I'm thinking of posting the entire list here on the 14th because I will be listing them 10 books at a time so that I'm not inundated with shipping all 100+/- on the same day!  That way, if there are bidders interested in more than one title, I can create a hold area and wait until the auction is over - or the bidder indicates they are done purchasing - and ship the entire order in one parcel.  This makes sense to me on a number of levels - one parcel to one person rather than several parcels to the same address means less shipping.  Even though it will mean more 'work' on my part, keeping track of it all.

I'm trying to be sensitive to reducing my carbon footprint and one parcel is a lot more sensible than many to the same address, in a matter of days.

So, if you are interested in what the guild has to offer, maybe bookmark the 14th and check the list and see if you might be bidding on more than one?

Spring Has Sprung

 

Spring seems to have arrived.  We had a small 'flock' of American robins in our back yard this morning.

The woodpecker arrived last week, claiming his territory by rattling away at the metal vents in the roof.

With climate change advancing relentlessly, it is hard to know what the future holds.  We're old, we've been around a lot longer than younger generations, and we know what the seasons used to hold.  Someone in their 20s has no real idea of what was considered 'normal' - and now is not.  To them, what is happening has been happening for all of their lives and they have nothing in their experience to compare the 'now' to what used to be 'normal'.  As in, before climate change began to accelerate.

We continue to recycle, reuse, reduce.  Our wants are simple.  We have travelled (although not nearly as much as we had hoped) and we have experienced many things in our lives.

This morning a fellow weaver/teacher posted about the 'adventures' she had in her life, saying she should write a book.  I hope she does.

If anyone wants to know more about my life as a professional weaver/teacher/author, my book is still available as a pdf via my ko-fi shop.

Things are changing, rather rapidly, and will continue to do so.  What the future holds we cannot know.  

Decisions are being made that will forever impact our lives and most of us feel like we have no input into what those decisions will look like.  Billionaires are taking over more and more and making decisions that impact those of us who are not wealthy, investing gigantic amounts of money to take over things like writing and art.  Once again people who create things are being told that a) anyone can do it, b) your creativity, skill and talent is worthless because c) a machine can do it.  So they spend billions of dollars and suck up the equivalent of a small countries energy to feed AI machines while explaining that humans who do the same, but better, don't deserve to earn money.

Yes, I know AI is a 'tool'.  But as someone posted on Facebook the other day, I don't want AI to create art so I can do the dishes.  I want AI to do the dishes so that I can create art.

Writing is a skill.  Some people are a lot better at it than others.  Sometimes writers have spent years and years honing their skill in order to be able to tell a story well, or write a knitting pattern that actually makes sense, not gobbledygook.  

In a way, I'm glad I was a weaver/writer/teacher before AI came along to try to usurp my skill.  If nothing else, perhaps, just perhaps, my books will hang around long enough for people to learn how to weave from a human, not a machine who doesn't know how to weave.  Or all the 'it depends' conditions that affect how a weaver makes choices in order to create 'good' cloth.

I did not set out to write a book for the ages.  But maybe, just maybe, my books will outlive me and be useful long after I am gone.

Time will tell.

Step by Step

 I'm coming down to the 'end' of the current series I've been working on for the last 18 or so months.  I've explored the weave structure and gotten comfortable with it, but I'm beginning to get that restless feeling that means...it is time to move on.  Not that I have anything grand I want to do.  In fact I will be revisiting 'fancy' twills.  

But I thought it might be interesting to some of you how the last few warps came about.  If you want to see more of the Matrix designs, my ko-fi shop is filled with some (not all) of the various designs I wove as I explored the weave structure.

At the end, I came up with a 'tile' design.

I was quite pleased with myself when this appeared on my screen.  I felt it showed off the weave structure, was complex (four different tile designs), and when woven in this 'counter change' format was symmetrical.

Once I had this one set up I wanted to see what else I could do with it.  Fiberworks offers a 'drop' option when copying the threading (and treadling) so I set up the first section, then requested that the software repeat the threading but to 'drop' it.  I had no idea what to expect.

Interesting but not all that attractive to me.  It was going to take some more messing around.

So instead of using the 'drop' function, I mirror imaged the first half of the threading, alternating the blocks in the treadling.

This one showed promise but I messed with it some more and wove this instead.

In this version, I used the mirror function for the threading, but in the treadling created a 4 x 4 block in the middle which then repeated along the length of the towel.  The repeat is too large to be seen in a thumbnail.  

And finally, after messing with the drop function more (a *lot* more) came up with this.

Now I'm preparing the 'last' warp of this series.  The warp will be the same blues (peacock and bleu moyen) and the weft will be what ever is left of the two blues in the warp and whatever warp is left - if there is any - will be natural white.

Colours are not close to 'true' but I wanted to see if I would get the effect I wanted so did an approximation.

When using the same colours in the weft as in the warp the effect will be more like a 'satin' weave - very subtle.

I'm now officially over the halfway point on the current warp so it feels good to have the next warp sorted out.  Sometimes it can take several hours before I find something I want to invest my time and effort into weaving.  Weaving is labour intensive and I don't want to 'waste' my time and effort so I prefer to have a plan I feel 90% confident in before I commit to threading, sleying and weaving the cloth.

If you are interested in more detail on the development of this series, I documented it up until about this time last year in Stories from the Matrix.