In Praise of Trying

next silk warp

The opening ceremonies are on for the Olympics and I'm in the studio thinking a lot about 'trying'.

A sage has said that "There is no try. There is do or do not."

Well, he's right - sort of. When it comes down to the wire, when you need a gold performance, you either do it, or....you don't.

But before you get to that place, before you get to the start line at an Olympics or other world event, there is a whole lot of trying that goes on.

No one comes into this world at the peak of their performance. They must acquire knowledge and skill - and then apply it.

People buy a loom (or potter's wheel, or you name it) and then throw up their hands in dispair when they see their initial results. As though the tool was the secret to good results.

Instead of learning the physical skills required to weave (or pot or turn wood) they look for more and better tools, more and better 'tricks'. And yes, buying the best tools and materials and applying 'tricks' will bring a certain level of improvement but if they never learn the basic skills involved, will they ever achieve a gold medal performance? Perhaps.

Let's face it - anyone can weave. Weaving well.....well that's another thing entirely.

Any craftsperson must have knowledge of their materials, know how to use them effectively, be aware of appropriate tools and tricks, when to use them and when not. This knowledge does not come quickly or easily. It is only through the application of purposeful study that skill levels increase.

And making mistakes. Lots and lots of mistakes. Choosing inappropriately and understanding why that particular yarn was a poor choice for that application.

Being analytical. Adjusting your hand motions, your body position, tweaking subtle changes that all the time bring you closer to being efficient. Being skillful.

That's not to say that someone working inefficiently can't do good work - of course not. But when seconds count, efficiency is A Very Good Thing.

Athletes (and I include dancers in this category - they epitomize artistic athletics) learn how to move their bodies in order to maximize output with the minimum of input. They are aware of shaving nano-seconds off their movements. They constantly work to improve their performance. Then they put themselves into the limelight and strive to be the very best they can be at whatever it is they have devoted their lives to doing.

Ultimately their first and foremost competitor is themselves. That's why so much is made of an athletes personal best. And yes, while the goal is to bring home the gold, only one person can do that. The rest have to accept personal best.

Weavers don't have Olympics. But they can enter juried (or non-juried) exhibits. They can ask for honest feedback from others with more skill than themselves. They can be honest about their efforts, analytical about what they have done, question if they could have made more appropriate choices, work toward being a more efficient/ergonomic craftsperson.

And never, ever stop learning.

So while the Olympics are on and I'm thinking about pushing one's boundaries, I'd like to issue a challenge - if you have never entered a juried exhibit, think about entering something this year. Convergence is coming and have a number of exhibits planned. Submit! If you can't manage Convergence, how about your county fair?

Remember that the gold medal is not what it's about. It's about doing your best. And do, instead of do not.

Navaho Plying

first skein ever Navaho plied by moi

I think I may have fallen in love. :) I'm madly trying to get some samples made up of the fibre I'm now carrying and I decided that I'd like to try plying. Since I have plied the traditional way before and found it time consuming getting two bobbins spun up, and wasteful cause I can never get two bobbins with the same yardage on them, thought I'd try Navaho plying.

Since I'd never done it before I only had a rudimentary grasp of what was required so I did a bit of a rummage on the internet and found a video tutorial here: http://3.ly/9SK

It looked simple enough.

I started spinning the merino/nylon blend fibre that I'd carded last night and done a bit of a hash job on, so I carded one more batt on the Wild Card tonight sandwiching the nylon between two layers of merino and spun that, too. That did indeed work somewhat better, but I'm sure there must be a simpler way to do blends. When Loralee gets back from her cruise I'll see if she can walk me through the process. Maybe I need to alternate the two fibres throughout, except I'm trying to do a 10-12% nylon content.

Anyway, I finished spinning the singles at guild meeting tonight and having an empty bobbin with me, got that on and the full bobbin on the kate and started plying. (Typo originally was playing, which I suppose I didn't really need to correct!)

Perhaps tomorrow I'll wet finish it, and then next dye day I'll try dyeing it. Nylon is supposedly good with acid dyes - one way to find out is to toss it into the dye pot.

There isn't really enough yardage to do anything with so I'll card up some more and do at least one more skein. I think this yarn would make a good toque so I may look for a knitting pattern. It may take two more skeins - will have to figure out yardage and if I can replicate - within reason, given I'm a non-spinner - and find a pattern that appeals to me.

On the weaving front I did weave two more towels with one left on the loom. Decided to save it for tomorrow or else both looms will be empty and I have colour gamp kits to make up tomorrow, too. After all that is done I will slam that silk warp on the Fanny loom for another scarf and think about the next warp for the AVL. Still some single 24 nm linen left - my goodness do you ever get a lot of play value with fine threads!!!!

Doc put me back on another week's worth of anti-biotics and between that and getting a good night's sleep last night my energy lasted much better today. :)

Currently reading The Parisian Prodigal by Alan Gordon

Scarfaweekend

This week has been pretty busy, what with the eBay book auctions for the guild (and me) ending every day of the week, plus getting ready for the weekend workshop.

Somehow I never seemed to have a lot of time to get to the loom(s). :(

I did manage to finish off the placemat warp, weaving a mat or two here and there, and then got a silk scarf warp wound and onto the loom Friday. I started weaving last night after class and got about half of it woven before my energy totally petered out. But it's looking nice and will make a good sample of the 2/20 silk yarn I've been dyeing. The weft is Bambu 12 black.

I decided to take my rigid heddle loom up to the guild room and worked on that while the students worked on their looms. With only two students, if I don't have something to do myself I tend to hover overmuch, which is not good for the students.

Since I'd woven a scarf at craft drop-in on Wednesday we wet finished that scarf so that they would know how to wet finish. I didn't quite get the scarf on the rigid heddle loom finished today, so I left it at the guild room to finish Tuesday night at spin-in.

Since I'm pretty tired I don't think I'll fire up the AVL - rather I'll go work on finishing the silk scarf and cone off two more skeins of a different colourway to pop into the loom as soon as the blue/black warp is done.

Currently reading Poltergeist by Kat Richardson (this series is set in Seattle and since I know some of the neighbourhoods and landmarks she mentions, it's kind of fun)

Lashing On

Someone emailed me a few days ago and asked if I ever lashed on. The answer is, yes, I do lash on sometimes.





I'm trying to get some samples of the 2/20 silk yarn that I've been dyeing woven up, and this yarn is a prime candidate for lashing.

The yarn is slippery and fine and doesn't really like to hold a knot. That makes it difficult to secure the yarn to the apron rod by tieing directly to the rod as I would, ordinarily.

The secret to successful lashing on is to use a slippery cord. Tie the warp into bouts of about 1 inch - or a little less - then secure the cord to the apron rod. I tie a loop in the end, then wrap the cord around the rod, pulling the loose end through the loop. I work from left to right but I assume you could work from right to left if you wanted. I just find working this direction feels more comfortable to me - and I'm all about comfort when ever possible!

Open the shed and alternate passing the cord through the shed in the bout, and wrapping around the apron rod.

At the end, tie several half hitches to secure the loose end. Adjust the tension on the warp, flicking the individual cords between the warp and the apron rod until the tension is equal. Sometimes just pressing down on the warp threads will be enough to equalize the tension on the cord, too. Experiment and see which works best for you.



And here is the first few inches of the scarf woven. I threaded an advancing twill and am treadling in straight twill progression. There are times when I will thread something more complex so that I can treadle something simple. Why? Because in this scarf there are 324 ends and approximately 2300 picks. I'd much rather do something complex for 300+ times and something easy for 2300 times.

You can just make out the undulations in the weave structure in the header picks, I think. Click on the photo for a close up.

Playing with Fluff

Ruby Merino Top






Firestar blending filament





So just what have I been doing today? Not much weaving! But playing with fibre? Oh yes.



Started re-packaging the spinning fibres last night, and today I took photos, labelled packages, entered data on my website. The Ashland Bay pages will go live tomorrow morning (Friday, Feb. 5, 2010) http://laurafry.com



Still lots more to do, but it's a start.



Doesn't the firestar look like whipped cream? Well, in real life it sparkles, too, and adds a lovely bit of sparkly shine to fibres. I was a little leery about spinning with it, but so far it's been just fine to spin. (And I'm no spinner, trust me!)



And dealing with eBay auctions closing - all this week. I'll be very happy to ship the last of the books off and get them out of my living room! And the guild ought to be very happy about the revenue, too.



The looms weren't entirely neglected today - I did weave a couple of placemats. My bp has been erratic again since getting off the anti-biotics, which leads me to suspect that the infection is back. I've since discovered that such a long standing infection in the body can lead to all sorts of other complications so I've made another appointment with the doctor and will see him early next week. Hoping my lab work is done by then so that we can get some concrete answers. And if not answers, at least rule some things out.

In the meantime, it's back to the placemat warp - there should be enough to do a nice table runner to go with the mats, and the beige tea towels on the AVL.

Next up for the Fanny loom are some samples of the varigated 2/20 silk. Have to cone off the skeins and wind the warps, but that won't take too long.

As for the AVL, I'm not sure. It looks like there is plenty of the fine linen left for another tea towel warp, so I expect I'll toss another 2/16 cotton warp onto that in aid of using up the linen. I need to clean off some shelves so I have somewhere to store all the new inventory coming in for the shows.....

Currently reading Greywalker by Kat Richardson (I enjoyed her novella and the public library has 3 of ther titles so I took out the first two)

Scarf A Day

Scarf number 1 (orange) and Scarf number 2 (blue - on loom)

One of the blogs I follow is Janet D's:

Scarf A Day: Everything Old is New Again [Scarf #42]

She essentially challenged her readers to join her in her Scarf A Day goals. So today became a Scarf Day for me, too. :)

I had managed to weave one scarf on the little Ashford rigid heddle loom a few weeks ago, but the loom had been languishing. Today was crafts drop-in day, so I grabbed some wool that I'd balled up a while ago, quickly wound a warp then headed for the drop-in where I would have a nice big table all to myself to dress the loom.

Since it took hardly any time to dress the rigid heddle loom, I started weaving, and managed to finish the scarf just before 4 pm.

Still have to weave the header (footer?) before I can cut it off, but I didn't have any 'extra' yarn with me for that. So it had to come home still on the loom.

All of which is to say that no, I didn't finish re-packaging the spinning fibre, nor take the photos for my website. :(

It has been a bit of a challenging couple of days on the personal front and it was nice to just get away from the mess and chaos here and spend a little time with some other creative people.

Reed Marks

Reed marks - before and after

On one of the lists I belong to a newbie asked about the wisdom of putting more than one end per dent in a reed. She was concerned about the marks left by the reed.

The above photo shows a before and after shot of towels that I've been making. The peach towel is loom state, the purple is finished. The set is 32 epi and I've sleyed four ends in an 8 dent reed. The reed marks are very clear in the peach.

During wet finishing threads will slide to areas of least resistance. They will generally fill in small gaps such as those left by the reed and if not disappear completely, will be significantly reduced.

In these towels the linen weft is not so inclined to move as much as a cotton weft would, so while the reed marks are not entirely gone, they are greatly reduced. Click on the photo for a closeup.

Remember - it's not finished until it's wet finished!