Balance

Life is all about balance. Balancing work & play, what I want to do and what must be done. When it comes to my weaving, at this point I’m balancing what I must do before the next show and what I want to do before the next show.

So I started by making a warp for three handwoven scarves in rayon chenille, in one of Tammy’s hand painted blends she calls Persian. As usual for me, 1 warp, 3 wefts. From left to right: Persian, mulberry, & lilac.

I haven’t used this colorway since early 2009, and then in a cotton chenille. It’s always interesting how different the same dyes look in different fibers – and how different the finished products look.

After this I figured I’d better do something that absolutely had to be done – repurposing old pillowcases into lovely packaging for my handwoven scarves and shawls. This time I sewed 52 of them.

I’m sure these will carry me through December, and then I’ll need to sew more for next year.

Then I had to weave more Rainbow rayon chenille shawls. I still haven’t finished the fringes or wet finished them, so no photos. But you’ve seen them before. One was already ordered, the other two will go in shows.

Oddly, for reasons I can’t figure out, my warp was 10″ too short. Huh. So the third shawl is 10″ shorter than usual. I’ll have to make the price a little less and hope that a short person wants it.

My paycheck job has been exceptionally busy, dramatically cutting into my weaving time. There are precious few days before the next show. In fact, in four weeks I’ll have three shows. YIKES! So the more I can weave, the better, since I really won’t be able to replenish between shows.

My brain tells me that I should weave some red rayon chenille scarves. My heart tells me I don’t want to. I want to weave some houndstooth, even though I know they won’t be fast since it’s back to two-shuttle weaving.

“Too bad,” I say. “If I can’t weave what I want, why am I doing this?”

So I warped the loom for three handwoven houndstooth scarves in cranberry & black rayon.

White & black would have had more drama, but I wanted to work with red, so there.

Your turn: what’s overflowing your plate of late?