Weaving A Gem Of A Life

Out of my hands

Sometimes decisions are taken out of our hands. It’s just the way life is.

As planned, I finished weaving ML’s wrap today. Went to the shipment of Egyptian cotton I’d received for EL’s wrap and wound a bobbin. Then I started winding a second bobbin, when I finally paid attention to what my hands were telling me. I finally really looked at the label that was on the yarn.

Poop! They sent me 16/2 cotton, not 8/2. Went to the shipping receipt and the payment invoice – both said 8/2. So I called the company, who will immediately ship out the 8/2 cotton. Then I emailed EL to let her know that all we can do is wait for it to arrive. Today’s Wednesday, so I might receive the replacement yarn on Saturday. But I’m betting it’ll be Monday.

In the meantime I’ll go to that purple & gold rayon warp I wound while I was waiting for the baby wrap yarn to arrive. Glad I got it on the little loom. Now I’ll thread it and weave off the three scarves. If the cotton is here by then, I’ll jump back to the Macomber. If not, I’ll wind another warp for my counterbalance.

Not hard

I started weaving the baby wraps. I wove a few motifs with scrap yarn to spread the warp and find & correct any threading errors. Then I started weaving with AN’s black cotton weft. It gave each of the six warp colors a pop.

I was quite happy that even with my other commitments I was able to get all of this wrap – only 95″ on the loom – woven yesterday. I even got the first few inches of the 2nd wrap – ML’s – woven.

Pretty amazing how different the dark and light colored wefts look, isn’t it? ML is having me do a different treadling for part of her wrap, so that’s what you see here.

Today I got 2/3 of ML’s wrap woven. I’ll finish hers tomorrow and start on the 3rd – EL’s.

In Like a Lion

On Friday & Saturday afternoons the weather was just lovely. Although the temperature wasn’t high, the breeze on my face felt more like spring than the bitter wind of winter. I took my old camera outside with me Saturday afternoon and took some pictures of the sweetness of animal tracks in the snow.

Today is the first of the month and March is certainly coming in like a lion – I think we’ve had about 4″ of snow fall today. I hope that the old saying is correct, that if March comes in like a lion it goes out like a lamb. I’m definitely tired of winter. Of bitter temps. Of shoveling.

On the weaving front, by yesterday afternoon I had finished winding the warp for the next baby wraps. Here’s a shot of the 6 bouts on my warping valet, ready for beaming.

Baby wraps offer me what seem to be unending opportunities for learning. Sometimes learning the same thing over again. This time the lesson was something I was told way back in elementary school – go with your first answer.

In this case, my first answer was, sorry, I can’t do what you’re asking. I later relented, and wished I hadn’t while I was winding and beaming the warp. The question: will I warp long enough for 2 long and 1 short wrap? At first I somewhat reluctantly said I would, since the desired total finished length was 10 Meters, my maximum willingness/ability. As planning progressed, the requests expanded to 11M. I said I couldn’t do it, and the involved moms made modification to bring it back to the 10M.

But I didn’t let it rest. The mom who backed down was EL, the woman who’d designed the warp. Her 2 sister wraps were going to get what they wanted, and in my mind, EL should, too. So I told her I’d do my best to get her the length she wanted. Now, mind you, this was my decision – I got no pressure from mom. But I won’t do this length again.

As I mentioned in the last post, that meant I had to wind the warp in 6 bouts instead of 4. Then the beaming was a bit of a bear. All of the colors except the lilac and the royal blue behaved very nicely. Those 2 colors, not so much. Lots of tangles, errant threads, problems. Took much more time than usual.

I finally got it beamed last night, and today got both the heddles and reed threaded.

Hopefully the weaving will proceed smoothly.

Weaving OCD

I have some obsessive-compulsive behaviors – mostly obsessive. Or maybe it’s just a strong need for closure. In any case, I usually find it helpful, but sometimes it makes life a bit more difficult than it needs to be.

After reporting that my camera wouldn’t flash I did, in fact, google the problem. I’m sure not the only one who’s had the problem, but no one had any resolution. So I called the very helpful people at B&H photo video, where I bought the camera, asking if they thought buying and using an AC power cord would resolve the problem. Unfortunately, they didn’t think so. We talked for some time, and with the reality that my camera is 7 years old, their best advice was to replace it. It’s not like the camera cost a bunch of money when I bought it, so I used their recommendations to buy a new camera similar to my old one (which I really did/do like), with a projected delivery date of Friday.

Meanwhile I waited for daylight to combine with my pole lamp to take a photo of the shawl on the loom.

(Fair warning – a lot of weaverly stuff for a few paragraphs before I get back to my OCD behavior.)

From my perspective, another great concept that didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. I used black and silver rayon along with black & gray bamboo and 3 different colors of gray cotton in the warp, and ladder ribbon yarn to add some bling. I used an old 6-dent reed to make sure that ladder ribbon would pass through without difficulty, threading all at 20EPI. It did, but as you may be able to see in the photo, the ribbon is so squinched that it’s not showing itself well. Plus I clearly used too much of it, making the shawl cheaper-looking, in my opinion.

So after I wove that first shawl I cut it off the loom, pulled several strands of the ladder ribbon out and replaced them with rayon so I didn’t need to rethread the heddles. I did, however, rethread the reed, giving each of the remaining ladder ribbons their own dent, using 20EPI for the rest of the threads. I wove the other two shawls and they are better, but still not the look I wanted. Apparently I should have kept an empty dent on each side of the ladder ribbon. Or something. Before I try it again I’ll do some online research to see how other weavers have successfully used it, ‘cuz I’ve seen it used well.

(Non-weavers can start reading again here.)

So anyway, the yarn for my next batch of baby wraps was scheduled to arrive on Saturday. So on Thursday evening I did some planning for a run of 3 scarves. Friday morning I wound a warp using 2 colors each of rayon & gold. I think it’ll be smashing!

After I got it wound I went out and shoveled my driveway and walked the dog. When I got home the mailman had delivered my mail, which included all the yarn for the baby wraps. Here comes my dilemma – what will I do now? Weave those 3 promising purple & gold scarves or start work immediately on the baby wraps? Both were calling to me with about equal volume. Both were jumping up & down in my brain & saying, “Pick me!”

So I decided to beam the scarf warp onto the counterbalance loom and start winding the baby wrap warp. That way I could move the bar for my warping valet back to the Macomber loom and not have to move it again.

Meanwhile my new camera arrived, and of course I had to charge the new lithium battery pack. So I couldn’t take any pics of the sections of baby wrap warp I wound. And I have to wind this warp in 6 bouts instead of my usual 4 in order to fit all the length on my warping board. I’ve got half of it wound now, and will do the other half today. I should be able to get some good pics of them with the new camera.

Glam Shots

I’ve sent in two applications for shows this year. I’m only applying to three this year — between weaving lots of baby wraps and having my house on the market, it seems like about all I can handle, since those 3 applications represent 5 shows. In fact, I worry about producing enough work for these shows – but I have that same worry every year and it always works out. So just one more application to go.

I got something like 48 images from the professional photographer of the four pieces I took to him; I had to narrow it down to a manageable — and affordable — six.

I had brought him two props this year: Dolly and a metal stand I call Rod Man. (Prior years he just draped them all over a bar.) Rod Man was a last minute afterthought on my part – I figured Dolly would be the best. He draped Rod Man with a camera drape to eliminate some of the distraction of the stand itself – a good call on his part.

For jurying, I wanted all the backgrounds to be the same so there was no distraction to the eye. But for 2 of the pieces I really didn’t like the way they looked on Dolly, so I chose all 4 from Rod Man for the jury. You’re seeing 2 of each since they’re my favs.

We’ll see how the juries respond.

Weaving A Gem Of A Life

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Out of my hands

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In Like a Lion

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Glam Shots

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