Nothing doing

My sales have been slower than usual so far this year. That’s both the bad news and the good news. Good because it’s given me breathing room, time and space to take slow down.

So what have I been doing for the past several weeks? I’d like to report that my garden is weeded, or that I’ve been doing a lot of reading, or that I’ve taken a vacation. I’d like to, but it’s not true. I haven’t spent time doing any of those things. I wish I knew what I have been doing, but I think it’s mostly just been wasting time, doing not much of anything.

I like to say to myself that I’ve been listening to my body when I’ve taken a nap, or sat on my porch with a cup of tea, or simply vegged out in front of TV. I like to say it, but it may well be just a bunch of rationalization. You know that old saying, “If you want something done, give it to a busy person.” That’s how I feel. Not busy. Not productive, not benefiting anyone or anything. This must end.

I have woven a few dozen bookmarks and a few tencel lace scarves.

And tried things with a few other pieces, some successful, some not.

I also helped out a woman in our Guild. Shew wanted to learn to weave, signed up for one of our weaving workshops, and got a table loom warped. She wove a sample header and the first few inches of a scarf. Then she got sick and missed two days of the workshop, followed by a move out of state. So she was looking for someone to weave the rest of the scarf for her. I jumped on it and offered immediately. It felt good to be able to help someone.

She had used a 4H table loom the Guild owns, one I’ve used before. So I knew enough to know I really don’t like this little loom. It has a very small shed (the space you throw the shuttle through) and about 1″ of a ‘sweet spot’ for weaving before you have to advance the warp. Even then, the design of the loom is such that the reed pretty much never hits the fell line at right angles. In weaving, these are not good things. But hey, it was just one scarf.

The warp was a light gray, and she was weaving a basket weave pattern alternating blueberry and lemongrass. I liked the two weft colors, but the gray warp seemed a bit too overwhelming for my taste. No problem, it wasn’t for me.

The challenge of this scarf was matching someone else’s beat and selvedges. This was substantially harder than I thought. The newbie weaver had a VERY light beat; I tend to have a light beat, too, so this wasn’t too hard to achieve.

Her selvedges, remarkably straight and consistent for a new weaver, were interesting in that there was next to no draw in. That was not easy to achieve. Or maintain. The weaving was remarkably slow for a rayon scarf, but I got it done and got it mailed off. The woman is thrilled and I’m happy about that. After all, who doesn’t want to feel useful?