Start Stuff…

Many of my fiber friends have posted social media posts and photos of New Year’s Resolutions, where the goal is to finish up projects long overdue.  It is a valiant and great way to start in on the New Year, but I actually have a slightly different take on stuff.  Most of the stuff I make takes lots and lots of time.  Sometimes months.  Sometimes I get distracted by other more important things like deadlines, travel, articles I have to write, family events, and really, if I were truly honest, sometimes it is boredom.  I figured out what it is going to look like, I’m happy with it, and I get bored and anxious to start something else.  I have seven working looms in my studio and having looms with nothing on them depresses me, and looms full of projects energizes me.

It is winter, the celebrations are over, it is dark, and it is cold (finally).  And January is the most wonderful month because there is little on the calendar, rarely any travel, and I usually have lots of uninterrupted studio time.  This year will be a bit different because sadly my husband had some bad news at the oncologist.  The latest scan showed his esophageal cancer is not gone in spite of the brutal chemo/radiation he endured October and November, and that in fact there is now a spot on his liver.  So Monday he starts another round of chemo, and more trips to Hackensack University Medical Center.

And so rather than finish up things, I felt like the best antidote to all of the above was to start stuff or restart stuff.  Having stuff waiting for me, calling me to come and play in spite of the dark cold winter, especially stuff with lots of color and texture would keep me distracted and occupied and involved, and focused on things that I do have some control over.

And I even took advantage of a short visit by my sister and her husband and redid a small powder room on the first floor.  The wallpaper was old and peeling and dated.  It didn’t take much to remove it, and with many helping hands, we were back up and functioning in just a couple days.  The room is bright and cheery and welcoming for a bathroom…

Inspired by this, when I took the Christmas tree down, I decided on reworking another area of the house, to better suit a long winter of nesting.  My daughter and I love to fix puzzles.  We don’t always have a convenient place to build them, so when the tree came down, I used the space to set up a card table, for puzzles and games, took down the sheers to let in the south facing light, added a couple of prisms, and I love to sit and watch the colors dance across the walls.  Healing and light, and a social gathering place for the family.

So this is what’s on my looms.  I’ll have recently blogged about the 18″ wide tartan.  I haven’t made anymore progress because I got distracted by other stuff.  But I’ll get back to it…

This loom has been sitting for more than a year and a half with about a half yard woven on a 24″ wide 10 yard hand dyed warp.  I know because I checked my blog to figure out when I actually warped this loom.  Yeah. I know.  So after a few fits and starts, I got the loom up and running again, they definitely don’t like to be left idle for a year and a half.  The cloth is weaving like butter and everytime I advance I have a new combination in front of me.  Like weaving magic.

This loom has a ridiculous amount of warp on it, 4-5 yards I think, 9″ wide, which I did for a workshop I took back in October.  I have it re-tied and have started in again on the slow slog of weaving a bubble cloth from merino and tencel on a table loom.  It is pretty, but 4-5 yards?  Painful.  But I will persevere, mostly because there will pop up a time when I need this loom for a travel demo and I don’t want to have to try to weave this thing off in a couple of days.  The second photo is the washed sample from the class. I know the colors are off, work with me here…  They are more correct in the second photo.

And I needed to get another scarf warp on the loom.  I make these mostly hand dyed scarves, combination plain weave and twill on six shafts with an additional two shaft supplemental warp.  Most of you have seen me bring them to classes where I teach, and many of you have bought them.  I have none left.  The warp is twelve yards which will do five scarves.  I wound it in two batches, and carefully beamed the warp chains under tension.

I added the supplemental warps on a separate warp beam.

And I started weaving.

The thing is, I realized I was out of 8/2 tencel in Shale, my favorite weft, neutral enough to blend with all the colors.  I had one remaining bobbin.  So I could start the warp, check for errors and issues, and now I have to wait until WEBS gets Shale 8/2 back in stock.  Of course that would be the color that is backordered.  🙁

But no matter.  My studio is bright and colorful.  There are things calling to me, and I can work on whatever I want, whatever catches my interest.  I expect a long winter and I have a lot of looms that need clearing and lots of sewing projects to tackle.  I have an article due shortly, another essentials technique article for Threads.  And I have 14 warps to wind for a beginning weaving class I’ll be teaching in a couple weeks for my local guild.  I wish I could say come join me but the class is quite filled, with a waiting list.  I’ll be doing another one in June at Luna Parc out in Sussex County NJ, check out the link if you are interested.

Happy January, may you have lots of things colorful and bright to call to you to come and play…

Stay tuned…