Speedy

People are always amazed at how fast I am.  The secret is that...anyone who practices, mindfully, with similar manual dexterity to what I have can be just as, if not faster, than me.

In this video on You Tube, I break down the motions so that anyone can see how I do what I do.

Over the years I have worked hard to have ergonomic motions.  Turns out these ergonomic motions are also the most efficient ones.  So working ergonomically results in yes, less injury, but also more speed.

Working ergonomically, efficiently, with a good rhythm also results in more consistency and therefore better results in terms of the cloth being created.

So no, someone new to weaving will not be as fast as I am.  It took time to work out the motions, then practice them, training my muscles to do the motions consistently, while also learning when and how to adjust what I was doing depending on the fibre being used, to develop the speed that I now have.  There are times when I slow my weaving rhythm down to a snail's pace in order to weave, for example, a very open cloth and the weft isn't so much as beaten in but simply pushed into place.  Going slower in that instance gets me the results I desire much more quickly.

Everyone has to work at a pace that is comfortable for them, given their equipment and their intention.  It is not a contest.  It is personal growth and development that must be the first goal of any weaver.  Pay attention to what you are doing, do it the most ergonomic way you can, and in the end, efficiency may well increase, too.

A short profile of me done by the local cable channel is here

Batches

Such a big job meant it had to be broken down into 'batches'.

First job was printing out the orders and their payments, keeping the two together.  Keeping track of the sending of the link for the pdf was noted on the payment paperwork.

The orders were filed alphabetically in case of queries so that they'd be easier to find.

Once the introductory offer period ended, I pulled out the Canadian orders (because they didn't need customs forms) and the four orders to be sent overseas and put them into separate files.

And then I began writing out mailing labels for the envelopes.  This took some time.  Yes, I could have typed them and printed them on my printer, but I already spend way too much time sitting at a computer, and I could get up, refresh my tea, stare out the window to clear my mind of numbers/names and take a wee break before going back to it.

Once the mailing labels were written out, the customs forms were done.  I had adhesive return address labels so that I didn't have to write out my own address, which helped enormously.

Boxes of padded envelopes were purchased (buying in bulk saved a few pennies, but it also saved plastic wrapping - iow, garbage).

This morning I began affixing the labels to the envelopes, again beginning with the Canadian and overseas ones.

Now I'm doing the US ones.  I'm taping the labels down because I've had such labels come off in transit - and I really don't want that to be a problem for these.  The customs label gets tucked into the envelope.  It will get taped (temporarily) to the outside of the envelope when the book goes in.  (Temporarily because the post office clerk needs to weigh the parcel and write in the depot code, weight, date etc. then stick it down to the envelope.)

The Canadian ones have been sorted by province.  The US ones will be sorted by zip code.  When we take the envelopes to the post office, this should make their job easier and faster so that we don't have to wait for ages while they deal with the flood.  Organizing by zip code will streamline their process.  I've talked to a clerk and we'll go in around 2 pm - after any lunch 'rush' and before the after work 'rush'.  Most likely we will do this over the course of several days.  The shipment of books weighs +550 pounds.  The majority of them are being mailed out and I doubt either of us will be much looking forward to carrying them into the post office.  I may request that we use their loading dock but the bins still have to be carried out to the van.

I'm hoping to get labels onto the envelopes done so that when the books do arrive all I have left to do is sign them and get them packaged up.  Doug will help with the packaging up part.

My goal is to have the books on their way before conference duties ramp up again, which they will very soon now.

Eating that proverbial elephant, one bite (batch) at a time.

De-Cluttering

It feels like my life since becoming a production weaver has been one long stab at de-cluttering.

Since I have been working to earn an income from weaving, and there are so many steps that need to be done to get a warp into the loom, weave it, wet and dry finish it - I have always worked in batches.  The warp is the initial batch - planning multiple items on it, winding the warp, dressing the loom (beaming, threading, tying on, weaving it off) - then wet finishing, dry finishing (or vice versa depending on the dry finishing involved), tagging, then storing until they are sold.

As a result there has been a constant heap of bins with warps in various stages of preparation, then bins of finishing (hemming, fringe twisting), etc.

When I taught, there were bins of yarn with drafts being prepared to be mailed out.

When I did publications, the number of bins increased exponentially.

With all of this creative activity, my life was similarly cluttered with teaching dates, publication dates, deadlines, soft and hard.

Finally I have come to the point in my life when all this activity is becoming less of an issue as I downsize my expectations, and therefore the number of deadlines, projects, teaching that I am willing to schedule.

Normally with the conference just six months away, I would have been loading up my calendar with deadlines post conference.

Right now I have a few - Olds College (if they want me) in July, one teaching event in September, then three craft fairs I have decided to do in Oct/Nov.  But otherwise?  I am not booking anything for the second half of the year.

Realization has dawned that not only can I downsize my calendar, I am actually looking forward to it.

Even more, I am looking forward to downsizing my stash, the general physical clutter in my studio, and even, maybe, in my house.

Currently reading The Woman who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone (the true story of love, spies and the unlikely heroine who outwitted America's enemies - Elizebeth Smith Friedman)

Choosing Direction

Above are two drafts for a four shaft 'pin wheel'.  Notice anything about them?  The cloth is identical, the only difference is in the direction they have been threaded and the tie up.  

The one on top is how I prefer to thread.  I am right handed, prefer to thread from right to left with the straight draw direction beginning at the back of the loom coming forward to the front of the loom.

Why?  Because I find this to be the most efficient way to thread.  (Left handers may find threading from left to right easier.)

In almost all publications (now) drafts are written with the first thread on shaft one.  Why?  Probably because weaving software likes number 1 to be on shaft number 1.  I really don't know.  But for me, threading with the straight draw going upwards and away from me leads to a physical position that I find very uncomfortable and fatiguing.

Thing is, drafts are not written in stone.  With Fiberworks Silver there is a 'shaft shuffler' tool which allows me to quickly change a threading draft to something I find easier to thread, be that changing the diagonal of a straight progression, adjusting where pattern ends fall in a draft, etc.

Once a weave structure is understood, it is fairly easy to make adjustments - add extra repeats of a border on the selvedge, separate motifs within the body of a draft and so on.

The above is a partial image (because the complete draft is too large to copy properly) where I took the Canadian Snowflake draft (I reduced the 8 shaft Swedish Snowflake design to four shafts) then turned it into a twill block draft.  This will be the next warp that goes into the AVL.

There are times when the straight draw has to change direction, and I live with that, but when the straight draw is all one way?  I will change it to my preferred method where the diagonal goes from the back of the loom to the front to make the job of threading easier.

The more someone understands how threading drafts work, the more they can adjust the draft to fit their intended cloth and get closer to the results they desire.

Highs, Lows and Long Slogs

I know a number of writers personally and follow some more on social media.  Inevitably some of them will hit a low patch in their writing, so I was well aware (also because of having done this once before) that getting this book 'born' and into the world would resemble a roller coaster.  Life also conspired - as you know if you have been reading this blog for a while - to add a few twists and turns to the ride.

All writing is challenging.  Writing fiction is challenging in terms of coming up with the story line, then figuring out how to best tell the story.  Technical writing is challenging in terms of writing with clarity about techniques and processes in a way that aids understanding.  Or at least, that's the goal.

After years of writing magazine articles and class handouts (as well as essays in school) I was no stranger to what would be involved.  It was every bit of what I expected it to be, this journey, and more.  There were more highs, more lows and more long hard slogs.  The difference between this and Magic was the scope.  Magic was about one slice of the craft of creating a textile.  The writing part wasn't hugely difficult, rather it was the choosing of the projects to provide examples of how to do wet finishing and why it was so important to do it.  And then, of course, weaving the hundreds of yards of samples.

For Magic there were initially 20 projects, which grew to 22.  The initial warps for those samples started out at 40 yards, but some of the projects required more.  20 times 40 yards is 800 yards, plus the additional warps - so very nearly 1000 yards.  Warps were typically 40 to 48" in the reed.

But that wasn't all - then came the preparation of the samples.  Loom state samples were taped and cut apart.  Wet finished samples were wet finished, most of them including a hard press.  At the time I did not have the industrial steam press, so all of that pressing was done on a small flat bed press.  It took hours and hours.

Then those samples had to be cut to size and both loom state and wet finished samples stapled to their respective pages.  In the end, all the pages were assembled and put into custom 3 ring binders.

So most of the work of Magic was the labour of preparing the samples.

This book was different in that most of the work was in the writing.  Deciding what to include, how best to describe the techniques, what photos were required.  Of course there were some samples to be woven, but the bulk of the work was in the writing, editing, re-writing, more editing, more re-writing, back and forth with my beta readers.  (Truth to be told, some of them were truly alpha readers, a few hung on to be beta readers.)

There was so much text that it became overwhelming which is why I finally broke down and hired an editor.

In both cases I self-published.  Magic was done with the assistance of a local printer, his off-set press and graphic designer son.

20 years on and the technology has changed to such an extent that I needed the expert assistance of someone who could wrangle the new technology to the mat.  I just happened to find someone who also knew and understood the 'old' technology.  Not only that, but Ruth is also a spinner and weaver.

The majority of the books are being shipped outside of Canada.  I wrote out mailing labels earlier in the week, then did the customs forms, finishing those just now.  The books are very close to being ready, but I also have other things that need to be done.  Year end, for one.  Remitting sales taxes.  Balancing my ledger.

Work has also continued on the conference.  Announcements will be forthcoming very soon, as in a matter of hours.  This has also taken longer than we'd hoped, as these things are wont to do.  But our goal, right from the beginning, was to work our darndest to make it a good event for all participants - the instructors, vendors, volunteers, as well as the participants.  So we took extra time to make sure the information that will be posted to the registration website will be as accurate as we can make it.

As with so many Big Projects, it may appear that not much is happening, but there is plenty going on behind the scenes! 

Textile practitioners are well acquainted with the degree of preparation and labour that goes into creating their pieces. 

It's no different to write and publish a book.  Or craft a conference.

Buy the books at blurb
Check out the instructors and their workshop/seminar topics on the conference website - click on Schedule

Unsupported

One of the reasons I like the AVL is that I can do things like this and not have to do anything remedial because the tension on the warp is not held at the cloth beam but up at the front on the 'breast' beam (aka the sandpaper beam).

On an ordinary loom, this overhang would have to be dealt with in some way.

In this instance it has happened because I finally used up (yay!) the cottolin and switched to 100% linen.

Linen is much denser and more rigid than cotton or cottolin (which is half to 60% cotton) and therefore it does not draw in nearly as much as the other yarn.  That means the web is wider and the selvedges tend to hang over the edge of the cloth roll.

On an ordinary loom I would either cut off and re-tie so that the linen weft was only building up on linen weft layers or I would insert several sticks (warp packing sticks, whatever) to support the linen layers.

Since the mechanics of the AVL are different, though, none of that is necessary and the web just rolls on up and nothing nasty happens to my warp tension.

When the loom is working properly it's a dream.  When it isn't it becomes a nightmare and careful diagnosis of what the problem is needs to be done.  With more mechanical 'aid' comes more opportunity for things to go horribly awry as a friend says.  Fortunately right now the loom is behaving, and I'm making good progress on this warp.  So good, in fact, that I might even be able to cut it off tomorrow, or Thursday at the latest. 

I haven't decided if I will switch to the scarf warps on the Fanny or immediately dress the AVL again.  I'm sort of leaning towards the latter while the loom is behaving!

Milestones

Humans seem to need to set milestones as they navigate through life.  So we mark the turning of the sun/calendar into a new year, birth/death and so on.

Two years ago I began life as an 'orphan', although when your parent dies at 90 and you are no longer a child I don't know if that word really applies - but we don't really have another for that life transition.

Since then life has been full of change.  I have continued, as best I am able, to live my life as well as I can while also recognizing that I need to also change the expectations I have held for myself for decades.  Expectations of being able to work, to live life fully, completely, in terms of goals and productivity.

In many ways I have succeeded, in many I'm no different than I was at 29.  I still dream big dreams, tend to set myself big goals.  But now I have an inner voice going, what, wait - what are you thinking!  I enter this year working on acceptance.  That life does not go on forever.  That all things come to an end.  That plunging into the deep end of the pool becomes less sustainable the older I get.

Acceptance is not giving up, exactly.  Acceptance to me is the suspending of expectation that this body will continue to go on as though it was much younger - and fitter - than it is.  Acceptance is not trying to push it beyond its endurance.  To recognize that it will take longer to heal from injury and to not get upset at the length of time that it will take to do so.  (My knee being the case in point - falling in early October, ripping it up pretty badly, only just healed at Christmas.)

Instead of setting myself on the road to big tasks, I work on cultivating contentment with where I am.  Tranquility with the way things are.  That doesn't mean I neglect progress.  After not being able to really weave much for a couple of months I have been slowly getting back to the loom, working on regaining muscle tone.  But now my goal is to get to the loom once or twice a day, not 3-5 times.  That may come, or it may not.  Progress is progress, no matter if it is one step or a dozen.

I have been calling myself semi-retired and getting comfortable with that definition.  Still working on it, but when you have done what you love to do for 40+ years, it is also hard to contemplate not doing it at all, which is what 'retirement' would mean.  So, semi it is.

As I work on changing my definition of what work means, I find one of the most valuable things I can do is encourage and support others who are younger, fitter, and still have energy.  I won't say enthusiasm, because I will always be enthusiastic about weaving. 

2019 means that we will get cracking on the conference in June.  Semi-retirement for me means I have not come up with any Big Projects to tackle once the conference is over - as I would do, normally.

Instead I will work on lending whatever support I can to those who are taking up the mantle of being the dreamers, the movers and shakers. 

Sending best wishes to all.