And So It Begins

 

Today I started doing the preparations for the two classes for School of Sweet Georgia.

I am a wee bit nervous about doing these in part because we will be interleaving the topics in order to reduce camera changes.  But my brain fog seems to be lifting and I was able to think through the topics, set up the trouble shooting section, get the smaller loom dressed for the lace weave class, and didn’t feel overwhelmed in spite of not being in my own studio.  

I have the ‘luxury’ of taking two days to complete the preparations so when I got tired and started hurting, I stopped for the day.  Tomorrow I will finish setting up for the lace pick up, then sort through my teaching aids, organize my samples.  While I don’t have a lot of samples, I do have some nice ones.  

Getting the looms ready is the most time consuming, so I was glad to get that done and out of the way. 

I also have firm dates for when they will launch now, and once home I will generate the supporting documentation for the SOS website, which is a comfortable schedule. 

Filming will happen over three days, again a comfortable pace.

I am grateful to work with an enthusiastic crew who responds when I express concerns, or just ask for additional assistance with supplying what I need.  I enjoy the forums and being able to answer questions as they arise.  

Covid isn’t over and being able to teach in person is no longer on my radar, although I may do a very small beginning to weave for my local guild if everyone wears a mask.  We have had requests and no one seems confident enough to do it.  I got tossed into the deep end and that isn’t always the best approach because not everyone can swim.  When I get home I will talk to the new workshop person and the treasurer and see what they say.   Tonight I am putting my feet up and maybe will hem a couple more towels   

Quiet Day

 

Today is a quiet day.  A day to just be.  No plans, other than to let the injection do what it needs to do.  A day to let concerns go.   A day to pick up needle and thread, sit by the window where the light is better.  To listen to music.  To still my mind.  To stop fussing.  Because I have done what I can, and if I’ve forgotten anything I will have to wing it.  

Soon enough it will be time for focus and busy.  Time to order my thoughts.  Think of everything I can. To present the information as best I can. 

To reduce camera changes we will record out of sequence, and, more challenging yet, both topics interleaved.  Hopefully by Monday the brain fog will have lifted so I can pull this off. 

I’m no stranger to teaching weaving ‘out of order’ but this is the first time for doing two topics at once, so to speak.  But I’ve mostly only ever had live audiences.  Taping like this is going to require my complete brain power.  Challenging?  Oh my, yes!  

Fortunately both Felicia and Greta are weavers because I’m going to be relying on them to let me know if I’ve said what needs to be said.  Or we do a re-take.  And keep doing re-takes until they are satisfied. 

The weather here is quite lovely and if it weren’t for Covid and my feet, I wouldn’t mind going somewhere doing something.  But the classes are my primary concern, so I will sit in the hotel room. Hem. Nap. Rest. 

And just…be.  

Endings

 

The piles of boxes and bins have made their way upstairs, ready to be loaded into the van.

The past few weeks have been filled with me thinking 'this is the last time'.  The last time I will pack up a major portion of my studio and head (in this case) south to once again try to share my knowledge with others.

Neither of us is in our 30s anymore and we are tired.  So as I collected all the 'stuff' and Doug packed them into boxes and bins, I could see he was as tired as I am.  So I kept reminding myself that I don't actually *need* to keep doing this. 

I gave up the dark o'clock flights when I 'retired' in 2019, but the drive out to Alberta in June, and now this one, with covid still raging (and too many people 'ignoring' it) has meant more stress than I really want to deal with.

OTOH, I had to go to Vancouver for a medical appointment, so while it means we'll be away for longer than is comfortable, we are able to do two major things with just one trip.

So we have packed half of the kitchen (not really, but it seems like it) and will stay in the hotel room unless we need to go to my medical appointment or head on over to School of Sweet Georgia.  We will begin loading everything into their studio on Friday, and the rest of Friday will be spent getting all the prep work done.  If I need it, I can return Saturday to finish up.

Hopefully, if I've done all the thinking correctly, getting things set up the way I want means we should be able to get all the filming done in two days.  And then head home before the holiday traffic gets going - because it's Canadian Thanksgiving coming up.

Of course things just couldn't go smoothly, so yesterday our elderly microwave stopped working.  Doug has gone to see if he can get a replacement before we leave so that we don't have to worry about it when we get home.  And so I can heat my lunch today!  Because I'm trying to empty the fridge before we go.

The brain fog from the pain/painkillers has made all of these preparations far more difficult but I pushed through on Friday and Saturday and I'm as ready as I can be.  If I've forgotten anything, I'll just have to wing it.

It's really hard to face the 'end' of my teaching, but OTOH, I *can* still teach - just not in the way I used to.  But life isn't the way it was, and 'normal' means something completely different when it means I must continue to protect myself from an airborne virus.

One of the reasons I am working with School of Sweet Georgia is that they not only tell me they want to protect me, they actually make decisions that *will* protect me - like offering to wear N-95s while we film.  I will bring my HEPA filter as well, which will mean they probably won't have to wear them given it will be just the 3 of us.  But I appreciate their offer and am so grateful.

It is a pleasure working with the SOS team and I hope we can continue beyond what I am already committed to do (the live lectures, plus these two new classes).

I am considering teaching beginning to weave classes locally, in part because I don't have to travel anywhere and the guild room is fully loaded so I don't have to pack up my studio.  And I can make the class(es) be mask required and limit the number of students.

Because that is the guild policy right now - masks are *strongly* recommended, but also?  If an instructor requests masks, we will make their 'class' be masks on.  

If the craft is going to continue to thrive, we cannot start killing off our teachers by exposing them to a virus that could seriously impact their lives, and in some cases kill them.  I know several very experienced and talented instructors who are, like me, immune compromised.  We should be protecting our knowledge assets.

And while this may be 'selfish' because I am one of those people, if you protect *me*, you actually protect *everyone* in the room. 

When I was 25 I though I would be able to teach until I was 75 (if I made it that far).  This year I turned 72, so maybe 3 more years, if I can manage it.  But I think I'm really and truly 'done' with packing up half my studio.

Decisions, Decisions

 

Playing around with more options for the upcoming warps, I think I will be going with this one.

The warp will be 2/16 unmercerized cotton, the weft 2/20 mercerized cotton.  The play between the shiny and mat yarns should make this an interesting textile.

These will be 'proper' tea towels.  The yarns are light enough and absorbent enough that they should work well.  With a finer weft than warp, I am planning on increasing the epi I've been using for the 2/16 towels from 32 to 36 epi.

Someone asked me (in another context) if increasing the epi by one or two ends actually matters, and I said 'yes'.

One of the exercises I did for my master weaver monograph was weave the same yarn at a variety of densities.  I chose a singles wool and used a very open density, then increased that by one or two epi to make a variety of different qualities of cloth.

I then wet finished them, including fulling as part of the experiment, but I did the fulling in pre-set times - 2 minutes, 4, and if I had enough cloth 6 or 8.

The changes may have been subtle, but they were absolutely discernible, if not to the eye, certainly to the hand.  And they would have made a difference in how the cloth functioned.

In most cases, the 2 or even the 4 minutes of fulling left the cloth unstable in the more open densities, and my conclusion was that people should not be afraid of fulling.  It does, however, need to be monitored in order to not go beyond the state you want it to be when 'done'.

Cotton, however doesn't full, so you do have to pay careful attention to density.  Given that 2/16 and 2/20 are pretty close in size, I might not have increased the density very much.  But mercerized cotton is more slippery than unmercerized cotton, and the fancy twills I've been working with are less stable.  So the 32 epi I had been working with seemed too loose to me, so I'll be using 36.

If I find that the cloth still isn't stable enough, I can change the tie up and add some plain weave, but for now it's a 1:3:1:3:2:2:3:1 tie up.  (I like using tie ups where I can arrange to lift fewer shafts, even if it means weaving the cloth 'upside down'.)

My goal today is to finish threading the 2/8 cotton warp which will use up the last of the thicker linen for weft, and may even use up the slub that is one ply cotton, one ply linen.  If there is still warp when those are gone, there is a fairly large cone of textured cotton.  

Little by little I am making headway on the my stash.  

It feels a bit awkward to be ordering more yarn so that I can use up what I have, but the 2/20 mercerized cotton simply is beyond it's best buy date for warp so it will get used up as weft.

My story, sticking to it... 

Goat Trails

 

This was the state of my studio up until a few minutes ago.  Much of the rubble on the floor has been moved to the other end of the studio so that nearly everything is in one heap.

I've tagged everything so that I can - hopefully - find what I'm looking for when I begin setting up the filming studio at School of Sweet Georgia next Friday (and Saturday if I need that much time, which I may).

I'm juggling two completely different and separate topics, which will actually get filmed concurrently in order to minimize camera set up changes.  I'm really hoping my pain and chemically induced brain fog will have lifted by then.  Based on the last injection, it took 3 days for everything to clear my system and give me my brain - and executive functioning - back.  Fingers crossed for the same, this time.

In spite of a constant realization that this will be the 'last' time I do this, or that, my brain simply won't stop and I came up with an idea I am going to pitch while I'm down there.  I don't know if they will be interested, but I'll talk to them and see.

 I am trying to arrange my life to reduce stress and right now, travel is a huge part of the stress of doing these online classes.  

'If' is a really small word that encompasses universes, galaxies.  If wishes were horses, beggers would ride.  I took that admonition to heart as a child and so I have always worked, worked, worked to bring my goals, my dreams, into reality.

My goals and dreams are now much smaller, but it appears that in spite of brain fog, I still have them.  Even as the thought popped into my head, my conscious self said 'wait, WHAT?"  But where ever those dreams are born insisted I approach SOS and so I have collected documentation and samples and will ask.

But honestly?  I am tired of the stress.  The chaos.  The goat trails.  I am going to try and convince the dreaming part of my brain to be less - less ambitious, less enthusiastic, less, I don't know, driven?  Creative?

I have also decided on the direction I want to go with the 2/20 mercerized cotton I still have in my stash.  Given my eyesight and not being able to see that size of thread very well, I am going to invest in some 2/16 natural cotton and use it for warp, with the 2/20 mercerized cotton for weft.  The mat and shiny combination should look good.  And I can still see the 2/16 - at least more easily than the 2/20, so there is that.

I have already generated a draft based on that combination and just need to decide if I only order in natural white, or if I buy some blue to use up the bin of various blues, including the cones from Robin and Russ - you just *know* how old those are - likely nearing 40 years.  Long past time to use it up and being that old, I'm not inclined to try it as warp.

I'm going to take a break from sorting and packing and start threading the warp I just beamed yesterday.  Would be nice if it was at least begun so I didn't have to do it all when I came home.

But man, I am looking forward to getting rid of some stuff and making the goat trails wider, if not fewer.

Doing the Right Thing

 

If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

I continue to work on staying safe from covid.  For me, being immune compromised, getting sick from covid would not be good.  It would not be 'mild'.  It would not be a 'nothing burger'.  It could, in fact, be fatal.

We are 2.5+ years into a pandemic, one that far too many people have decided isn't real, doesn't exist, is all a figment of someone's fevered imagination.  In spite of the daily deaths that would - in any other circumstance - have caused people to pause.  But here we are.

So I advocated, quite loudly, at a recent guild event for all people attending guild events to attend wearing a mask.  

Since then I have seen more and more reports that the majority of people would be fine with mask mandates, they just don't want to buck the majority.

I'm here to tell you, that if you are part of the majority of people who would be fine with a mask - WEAR THE MASK!

Don't wait for government to tell you.  You already know it's the 'right' thing to do.  So do it.  Do it even if it means that you might be the only person in the room doing it.  By your example you will encourage others to ALSO put on a mask.

So please.  If you belong to a weaving guild, protect your fellow guild members and wear a mask.  Be the example.  Be the lone voice if that's what it takes.  Protect our elders, their knowledge and experience.  

There are still too many people getting sick and some of them are dying.  Far too many are dealing with the long term effects of Long Covid.  

Protect them - and yourself - by wearing a mask at guild events, workshops, conferences, exhibits.

Even if you are the only one.  Because it's the 'right' thing to do.

Coming Down to the Wire

 

We make plans.  The universe laughs.

Hope springs eternal.

Even as I despair of meeting my (self-imposed) deadlines, a tiny part of my brain is thinking, thinking, thinking and even as I say "I'm done" that little kernel wonders, what if...?

The taping for the next two classes will soon be history and filed under 'things I have done' instead of the 'things I will do' category.  Vowing they would be my last online classes a few weeks ago, the other night (damn insomnia) I was unprepared for that little part of my brain to send out a teaser 'what if'.

And now, of course, like an ear worm, I can't seem to put it back into the little box it popped out of, like an evil jack-in-the-box, tempting me to consider, to propose, to start thinking about the whole thing more, adding this, adding that, planning warps to exhibit the principles.

Every time it drifts through my conscious awareness, I push it back, push it away, shove it aside.  And yet...here it comes again.

I may yet decide to roll with it.  Or sanity may prevail and I'll let it die of a lack of oxygen, a lack of energy to do All The Things required to make it happen.

After 40+ years of weaving I have a broad base of knowledge.  As the years progressed I focused my attention on certain aspects of the craft that I felt needed to be promoted more (wet finishing, ergonomics) and let go other things about cloth construction that interested me.  

Lately those things have begun to reappear.  They are, in fact, facets of wet finishing, largely the special effects that come about *because* of wet finishing.  How weave structures that depend on the deflection of the threads in the cloth develop to their full potential in the wet finishing and other approaches.  In fact I used to offer a workshop with that very focus.

And now I find myself revisiting it - even as I threw away the workshop notes thinking I would never need them again.

Ironic, right? 

Oh well.  It may all come to nothing.

But the fact that this is happening, right now, tells me I'm not done yet.  Even as I come down to the wire in terms of my health, energy and drive to accomplish things, a part of me wants to do 'more'.

Time will tell if I can scrape up the will to actually *do* more.  Or if I will be content simply weaving down my stash.

In the meantime, there will be two more SOS classes launched in the new year and the lecture series continues.  I have a couple of bookings for guild presentations.  The topics are listed on my (new/refreshed) website

Two garments, woven for my master weaver monograph, exhibiting significant fulling