Decisions, Decisions

 

The state of my stash has been weighing on me - heavily.  These are just two shelves of my current stash.  To be fair, I have gotten rid of or woven a large part of my previous stash, but still...pounds and pounds and pounds of stuff.  

It is beginning to feel less of inspiration and more burden.

Since I fell and damaged my back, it has been a slow - but steady - deterioration.  Now I am left with one option to try and if that doesn't work...the options are not great.  This body is such a spechul snowflake and been rode hard, put away wet far too many times.  I really ought not complain because it has worked for me, and generally worked 'well', through thick and thin.

But as I contemplate the future, I really, truly, wonder how much more (whatever) I have left in me.

I take comfort from the fact that some people still want to know what I know (or think I know) and somehow I feel that I can't 'go' yet because there is something 'else' that I need to be doing.  (Of course I have zero idea what that might be, so I just keep on keeping on...)

Friday Doug took the latest box to the courier to ship to WEFT.  I'm on tenterhooks now with all cross-ables crossed until it arrives.  But overall, even though I didn't get 'perfect' results I learned a tonne, confirmed some of what I thought, and had a good dig around.  I won't say I'm 'proud' of what I managed, but I did it.  And that's not nothing...

The first anniversary of my brain injury is coming up.  In many way it feels as though it is the first birthday of my 9th life.  I survived what was considered a rather serious brain bleed, in my speech centre.  And not only am I still weaving, I'm still writing (maybe not well, but I *am* writing.)

I've had time to think about the zoom interview I did this month for HGA and I have made the decision that I will not be doing zoom presentations to teach.  Last week I took the hour to sit down and view the interview, from an interior point of view (how was I feeling when I said that?  What words were I searching for when I paused and my eyes were darting back and forth in search of the word I knew I knew but could not call to my mouth).  The last 10 minutes of the interview I hesitated to say much at all because I could feel my speech shutting down as my brain became overwhelmed and the words began drying up even further.  And that was a 'casual' interview, a conversation, not a teacher trying to keep a coherent thought in her head, to make sense for students to learn from.

My webmaster is in the final months of obtaining her degree and suddenly things have gotten very crunchy for her.  But in the new year I will be asking if she can do a quick edit to my website and remove all mentions of zoom presentations.

I can no longer 'perform' to my standards.  I either change my standards, or I stop doing it.  

The decision was made 'easier' insofar as a new weaver has offered to teach beginners in person, locally.  I am happy to act as a resource person for her.  At this point it is less about me, personally, teaching, but supporting those who can and are willing.

And conserving whatever energy and brain power I have left to put into my writing.  My alpha reader says she is willing to keep on being my first filter, which is incredibly generous of her and I'd give her more towels but over the years she has acquired more than enough of my towels.  :D  

A local textile person may come over this afternoon to check if I have some fine yarns she can use.  OTOH, my stash might be actually 'too fine' for her to use.  But we won't know until she looks.  I had intended to use some of those fine yarns to ply my handspun, but the arthritis in my hands is making me think I really should not be spinning anymore, either.  :(  But I will wait to see if the next med tweak is more helpful than where I am at now.

Tuesday I get the next jab in my lower back to help (we hope) lower the pain in my lower back, and I will discuss the adjustment to my pain medication and when we might tweak that.  I'm hoping to be functioning 'better' by the end of this month and hopefully start year 2 of my 9th life feeling 'better' than I have been.

Time will tell...

Perfect

 

Much as I would like to think of myself as 'perfect', I know it is not so.

I have done dumb things.  Stupid things.  Unkind things.  The kind of things that my guilty conscious gnaws on at dark o'clock - of which there have been all too many, these days.  Er, nights.

There have been people who have taught me 'better'.  And I try, really I do, to *be* better.  Kinder.  Accepting.  Because there have been times when I have not.

I keep reading about the 'paradox of tolerance', and have chewed over that for a while now.  It was not something I had given much thought about, but when I started seeing the memes online, I began thinking about the sorts of interactions I have experienced over the years.

Most of my life I tried to 'live and let live'.  If someone was truly obnoxious, I would usually quietly just...move on.  I might know the person - didn't mean I had to like them.  Or spend time with them.  I could 'tolerate' them as much as possible.

But as I got older and began to see the growth of the alt right I found myself becoming more vocal about what I would let people say in front of me and instead of the subtle eye roll and inching away from that person, I would speak out and challenge the lies that were being told.  And if someone called *me* out for an intolerant stance, I tried to think about what I had just said and open my mind.  Do better.

The one that finally got me over the 'tolerant', don't make waves thing was:  "Trump is such a good businessman, he has some really good ideas."  To which I loudly exclaimed "no he isn't, he's awful!"  And then listed some of the awful things he had been known to do - up to that point.  Of course he has gone on to make even more awful things happen.  And now he's threatening to invade Canada and simply grab up whatever he lusts after and never mind what Canadians may have to say about it.

He rules by fiat, flourishing his black sharpie, or tweet, changing his mind faster than a quarter horse running the barrels at a rodeo, without thought, just rage fueling him.  And his sycophants jump to attention, yes, sir, yes, sir, as you wish, sir.

So, when a county - like Canada, for example - doesn't bow and scrape and kiss his ring?  He throws the victim card into the conversation and all of a sudden our PM is told that Canada is actually a vassal state and actually 'belongs' to the US.  And, when that didn't bring PM Trudeau to heel, out came the threats to crush Canada economically to 'make it easier to annex'.

But here's the thing - *I* don't want to wish harm on anyone.  Or, at least, I never used to.  That core of my personality is beginning to fray.  I am trying to find a 'middle' road between objecting to the alt right attempting to take over my country (and others, ours is not the only one in his sight) and dictate how we can live our lives.

When he wants to literally destroy all the brown people, the disabled, the poor, the educated...I cannot stay silent.  When he wants to 'own' female bodies to do with as he wishes?  No.  Just no.  When he wants to dictate to other countries how we can live our lives and who will have rights and who will have their rights stripped away?  No.  

Our countries share a border, it's true.  It is also true that it is described as an 'undefended' border.  But pretty much every country has a border without an actual physical wall around it.  Even Trump with the US treasury at his fingertips could not get a wall built from the Pacific to the  Atlantic between the US and Mexico.  

Now?  He shakes the sword of war at Canada, taunting us that we don't 'have the cards' to defend ourselves.  

But he doesn't know Canadians.  We may not agree on things, and yes, we have a minority of the population who are alt right.  But even they have things they will not tolerate.  And someone is getting very close to pissing off a significant percentage of those.

So, no.  I do not have to be friends with the alt right.  I just have to make sure they don't compile any more power and try to keep them out of the House of Commons, School Boards, off city councils.  Because the majority of Canadians are still leaning left.  And no, we cannot be 'friends' with the minority who want to control what everyone else does, how they live.

Why am I, who is not a politician, saying these things?  Because I know history.  I have an understanding about human nature.  I know that in the past I have done things I regret.  But I did not blame the other person.  I looked inward and decided I needed to change *me*, not lay the blame elsewhere.

And what on earth does any of this have to do with weaving, for heaven's sake?

Because weaving is a lot like life.  If it wasn't we would not have so many metaphors using textiles and making them for how to live.  I have achieved a level of 'expertise' about textiles by keeping an open mind, and when I am told I'm wrong I dig deeper to try and get at the kernel of truth in order to understand what I am seeing happen.

When the next election comes along, pay attention to what people are saying.  Discover the 'code' they speak in about their values ('we need to save the children' while trying to erase LGTBQ+ under the guise of protecting children when all they mean is they want to erase those people while letting weird Uncle Chatty abuse the children in his own family.)

And so on.

Remember the Nazis came for the disabled and folk who needed care first followed quickly by other 'undesireables'.  If you don't know this, do some reading of *actual* historians, not 'history hystericals' that re-write history with fake information.  We are watching the Trump regime strip all human rights from the people who can least afford to lose them - health care, food, shelter, education.  If you have never read Orwell's 1984, maybe you should.  Or any other dystopian fiction.

Personally I can't bear to see such fiction play out because they are being used as playbooks - Handmaid's Tale, etc.

If you don't speak up, demand more from your politicians, you will 'tolerate' yourself right into the depths of Trump's fever dreams - and those of his minions.

Tension

 

Tension box

Yesterday I finally felt up to tackling the beaming.  I also pressed the additional samples for the current article, edited another article and emailed a couple photos I wanted to provide and will work on continuing processing the samples today, writing up a 'legend' and then adding string tags to more easily identify the samples for the editorial team to inspect.  Not sure how many of the samples will actually make an appearance in the magazine - if any.  They are...boring...to view.  Much more interesting in the hand - as is the case with so many textiles.

The photo shows the tension box set up with the maximum amount of tension, generally used when beaming using cones and pulling off the top of the cone.  Usually beaming from tubes is done from the side and the weight of the tube provides some tension, and less needs to be added to the tension box.

You do need to beam with tension, preferably more tension than will be used during weaving, in order to prevent the upper layers from cutting down into the lower layers and messing up the tension of the entire warp.

And this is why I constantly tell people 'it depends'.  Because change one thing, and everything can change.

Every 'variable' in weaving is dependent upon one or more of the other variables in the craft processes.  The reason I stay intrigued is that I try to understand how they all balance beside or across from each other and remain happy during the beaming and weaving of the web.

I don't think my body much likes the threading position.  Or should I say, it enjoys it even less than it used to do?  Anyway, I didn't get much sleep last night.  I may need a nap this afternoon.  But in the meantime I need to finish threading before I can sley and tie on.  Hopefully I can begin weaving tomorrow.

We'll see!

Peace and Quiet

 

I am in count down mode with my next back injection booked for next Tuesday.  I feel like I'm about 3 weeks 'late' getting it, but there isn't much that can be done.  When I made the appointment, it seemed do-able and I'd be 'fine'.  Today?  Not so much.

On the other hand, some of the other treatments appear to be gaining a toe-hold and after a perfectly miserable weekend, yesterday I didn't feel too bad.  But my 'job' today is to begin threading and that isn't a posture that my lower back much likes, so I suspect I will take some time today to finish the samples needed for the current article (deadline is approaching rather quickly!) and do the final polish for the next two, booked for the following issue.

Or maybe it was the appointment with the chiropractor who gave me a pep talk which helped.  Or maybe it is just that I made enough progress that I was able to lift myself up an inch or two by my bootstraps (which is such a fantasy - it was the helping hand from several people that allowed me to get up and move forward).

And that's the thing.   It is rarely ever a solitary 'job', to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get going again.  There are constant 'helping hands' that help to drag yourself forward, even when you think you cannot.  Sometimes it is a well timed comment that knocks you off your precarious perch, trying to not fall off and you realize you don't have to fall, you can just lay down and roll down the hill and not wait for the loss of balance and out of control of tumble downwards.

All of my medical team know how important weaving is to keeping me rooted in reality.  But in the end, it will be what my body will tolerate that will be the determining factor in what I can - or cannot - do.

One of the most difficult things to overcome is my own stubbornness.  My own determination.  My own expectations of what I could - or should - do.  

After the interview with Textiles and Tea, I had some time to think about my life and what I want to do with the rest of it - however much 'rest' there is.

For all the help I have received in my life, for all the support and encouragement I have been given - I would like to help others, as best I can.  A thank you.  A gesture of gratitude.  I could sit back and never do another thing other than read books or build puzzles.  But that begins to feel very...unfulfilling...after a while.   Pointless.  Selfish, even.  

Talking with a colleague a couple of years ago, we talked about impostor syndrome.  We both deal with it.  It's hard to accept that we have a level of 'expertise'.  I say that not to lift myself up, but to say to that inner child who was constantly told that they were never enough, that they were insufficient, to think that I would never, could never, be enough, and to assume that I was, was a fantasy.  That I was an impostor.  As we talked my mouth blurted out "I wrote a book because I know shit!"  We were both shocked into silence until we laughed and laughed.  We gave each other a big grin.  And I think we both began to shrink that inner child who had been told for years that they would never be worth while.  That we could develop a level of expertise in something - anything.  

Am I saying I will write another book?  Hell, no.  

But I *can* write articles.  

So, today I will tackle those things I'm doing for WEFT.  I cannot say I have the one, the only, the 'true' story.  But I can say I am doing my level best to try and understand all the things that go into the challenge of taking yarn and weaving it into a textile.  I will try to shed a little light.  Perhaps point out pitfalls in our 'usual' thinking.  And encourage others to find out more.  Because the life so short and the craft so long to learn...

Choosing

 

Realizing that the current sample warp could be off the loom as soon as (gasp!) tomorrow, figured I had better get cracking on choosing the next towel warp.

I still have some (quite a lot, really) of the 2/15 natural white cotton to use up, and a small amount (for me) of the dyed 2/16 so I rooted through a few boxes and decided I would go with a medium blue and a pale-ish buttery yellow/cream for the warp.

I'm still trying to *not* challenge myself (too much) and wound up with this draft.  Nothing grand or particularly 'fancy' but I like the little 'fancy' circles in the middle of the diamonds so I'm going with it.

The other day someone asked about 'dummy' warps and explained their issues when trying to use one.  Several times.  With consistently 'not great' results.

I know some weavers love them.  I've become disenchanted with them.  

But each to their own.

There are some issues with using one that just don't sit well with me.  One of the big ones is that people say they only need to get their threading correct *once* and then they don't need to worry about it any more.  Which is fine, if you like using the name number of ends in the same design over and over again.  Not necessarily a detraction if you don't mind weaving the same thing multiple times - which I do not.

I did, in fact, use dummy warps for a while as a new weaver until I got fed up and decided I was better served by figuring out how to become more efficient in dressing the loom, and then set about making that happen.

But that's the thing - hardly any of us in the 21st century need to earn an income by weaving.  (Note I rarely use the term 'living', just 'income'.)

So it doesn't matter what you choose to conserve - or waste.  For me it has always been my time I wanted to stretch thinner and thinner.  I was very young when I learned one of life's hard lessons - we can always buy more 'stuff' but we cannot negotiate our way into more time.  Once I have spent the coin of my available time, it's gone.

Sampling?  Never a waste of time to learn more before committing to a rather major task - like designing, winding, threading, sleying and weaving, then wet finishing.  So, yes, I weave samples.  The more I know about my materials, the more likely I am to wind up with acceptable results.

Tossing away (recycling) left over yarn?  When I add up the loom waste against the labour of setting up the loom, that few ounces of yarn pales in comparison.

If someone wants to use a dummy warp, they should do that.  But if they get fed up with it, then they need to figure out what to do instead.  Everyone has to figure out what is acceptable to them, and what is not.

What I do is not 'magic'.  If someone likes my results, I have been consistently generous on a number of platforms sharing what I do.  

Online classes at Long Thread Media

Online classes at School of Sweet Georgia

Books at Blurb.

Books at Ko-fi

WEFT - magazine

This blog - check out the labels at the side

I hang out on School of Sweet Georgia and Handweaving Academy sites and of course if you have questions you can email me laura at laurafry dot com

Fibre Prep

 

red/rust - 2/16 cotton - teal - 16/2 cotton

I keep coming back to my microscope photos of yarns, willing myself to better understanding what is happening in the yarn.

I learned to spin in 1974, long before I had any intention to take up weaving.  But I became fascinated by what was happening in the loom room and eventually changed my focus.

However, what was 'common' in 1974, at least in my town, was that people tended to spin wool from local fleeces, make their own rolags with hand carders, and spin using a supported long draw method.

Having finally managed to get a handle on spinning that way, it was a very short step over to spinning shorter fibres from the 'cloud'.

I gave up spinning once I became immersed in weaving, but those early days never left me and I was able to spin both from rolags and the cloud many decades later.  Still can, although my hands have enough arthritis in them that spinning is less enjoyable (more painful) so I only spin a little bit, now and then.

At various times I've posted photos of cotton still in the boll, and talked about different methods of spinning yarn.  And the editors at WEFT seem interested in following that 'thread' where it leads.

So I asked a local spinner if she would produce some very short staple cotton from the cloud and make a small quantity of thread on a drop spindle, both singles and plied, which I'll send with the latest article.

Some people will argue that it doesn't matter because the *weavers* don't need to know how the yarn is spun.  I still maintain that it *does* matter because different qualities of yarn are produced.  And weavers need to know the quality of their yarn - is it weaker or stronger?  More or less lint-y?  Is it smoother or more textured?   Etc.

It is no different than a baker needing to know what type of flour they are using and how best to make bread using that type of flour.  Or a potter the type of clay they have.  A woodworker which of hundreds of kinds of wood are being used.

If we do not understand the qualities of our materials, how can we know the 'best' practice while using them?

It depends.  Everything.  It all depends on the particulars of what a weaver does with their materials as they attempt to create a cloth of a particular quality.

So, yes, I'm back to sampling, doing more samples for the article I sent last month(?).  I've second guessed myself a couple dozen times now, but the loom is set up for the 2nd sample, and I think I have a good set up for the 'next' sample.   Then I will re-sley again, and weave another.  Then re-thread and sley and weave another.  If there is warp left over, who knows, maybe I will weave more?  

It depends!

Assumptions

 

after wetting the threads out the threads have increased in diameter as they bloomed

In our search for definitive answers, we tend to grab hold of one end of the string (quite literally, at times) and think that we have understood all of the aspects there are to know about something.

As I try to puzzle out what is happening with the thread I am using, I was given some explanations about tubes and how to understand how they work.  

And I understand that - sort of.  I mean it all makes sense in a theoretical way.  

But what I've experienced with working with threads is that they are not tubes.  They are not 'static' when it comes to their diameter.  

Michelle Boyd helped shed some more light on the issue the other day (thanks, Michelle!) and added another brick in my foundation of knowledge, as I realized that of course threads are not static - they change depending on what you do with them - and *to* them.

I was well aware how that worked in terms of cloth density, but trying to manipulate the threads in the way I'm doing adds another layer of complexity to the results.

And this is why I have repeatedly tried to inform weavers as to the nature of their materials.  Because if you don't understand their nature, it's difficult to make sure that you are approaching them in the way you want them to behave once they are woven *and wet finished*.

Now, not everyone needs to know these things, but I personally feel that if weavers are going to wind up with successful results (did you get what you wanted?) a deeper understanding of the threads and the fibres that make up those threads will help bring them closer to success.

I'm not saying 'perfect' - but we can settle for 'good' - or even 'good enough'.  But there are things that need to be understood in order to make that journey easier, fewer potholes in the road, so to speak.

So, Michelle Boyd's book, A User's Guide to Yarn.

A deep dive into threads and how they are affected by the manner of fibre prep and spinning, and what can happen when you use them, etc.

Yesterday I was asked if I would consider 'reviewing' Michelle's book with my weaver's 'eye'.  Because how a thread behaves in crochet, knitting and weaving, will depend.  

I felt good old 'imposter' syndrome, but I said 'yes' anyway.  In part because doing a review of her work for this book folds right into the deeper dive(s) I've been taking for 50 years - and hope to continue for several more.  I would not normally mention my participation in a project at this preparatory level, except they have announced who their 'expert reviewers' are.  And given how much light Michelle has shed on several conundrums I have had, I anticipate that there is a great deal more for me to learn from her.

And if you want to know what the heck I've been up to myself?  Watch for an upcoming issue of WEFT.  You may be interested.  It's certainly caught *my* attention.  :D