daryl – Page 8 – Daryl's Blog

Checking it twice…

Have I ever mentioned that I hate checking my work? Always did. Even back in Middle School, I’d work on complex math equations, and then get the answer wrong in the last step because I made some stupid addition error. Still, it would make me nuts to go back and check my work.

And of course, I became a weaver. And in weaving, you HAVE TO CHECK YOUR WORK! There are just so many times you find a threading error in the middle of 750 ends and start to say, yeah, I need to check my work.

I’m in addition to other things, a writer. I’ve written more than 100 articles, both print and digital, and I know this sounds weird, but I’m a writer, not an editor. I love to write. I don’t have to edit. They have people for that. I’ve been offered editor jobs, and flatly turned them down, because, I’m a writer, NOT an editor. Editors are like God. I just provide content. And I’m pretty good at it. But someone else always does the final check of my work. (Actually I check the final copy right before it goes to print, but I can count on one hand the amount of times I ever found errors, and then it was a fluke. Usually a photo in the wrong place.)

That said, I offer a lot of digital content on my own site. I’ve recently upgraded all the digital monographs, especially the ones that have to do with garment construction for handweavers, to include links to techniques illustrated by my YouTube channel The Weaver Sews.

And of course, I sell patterns. The year we took to develop them was mind blowing days of constant checking and editing and checking again. All of those patterns needed directions, and needed measurements in both imperial and metric. More mind numbing days of editing my own work. I actually decided that in everyone’s best interest, I would pay someone else, a real tech editor, to do the final edits on the extensive directions for each of the patterns. All 12 of them. The directions, often more than 30 pages, would be kept separate from the patterns, so I could edit without too much complication.

It became quite clear to me, after I was asked to teach a two day remote workshop in Canada, making my 500 vest pattern, that as I updated the prospectus, and looked over the directions, that I really needed to include all the YouTube Channel video links for each of the steps where I recorded content that explained them in further detail. It took the better part of a week, and I was terrified that I’d have mistakes, yet I knew there would be because I am so bad at checking my work. Still, I carried on, and knew it was inevitable that I do the other 11 patterns, updating those directions to include video links. But my calendar was too full and I didn’t see getting to this until winter.

Then this happened…

As best I figured, since I never go anywhere, I caught Covid at a fabulous packed house production of On Your Feet at the Papermill Playhouse. Everyone had to wear a mask. And 48 hours later, I was coughing with a fever. My first instinct was to test for Covid. And it was negative. So I went to bed, felt lousy for a couple of days, and then started to feel better. The night before the guild sale, my daughter had already dropped off our work, she encouraged me to test again, just to be sure I really didn’t have Covid.

Yeah…

By the time I knew it was Covid, I was feeling better, and there didn’t seem to be a need to go racing off to the doctor. I knew my sense of smell was gone, but I assume I’ll eventually get that back. Problem was, not only was I going to miss working the sale, my daughter couldn’t go either, because, we assumed it was just a matter of time before she showed symptoms. (She lives with me and was also at the theatre. Fortunately she never got it, and continued to test negative). I had to cancel my week long private student that was due in last Sunday night.

Which was really really unfortunate. She worked hard to get her fabric finished, and set aside the week. And this was already rescheduled from last spring since I was still undergoing treatment for my fractured shoulder. Which left me with a free week, absolutely nothing on the calendar, because I assumed I’d have a student all week.

Since I was fine by the weekend, this was an unusual dilemma for me, to have a “snow” day turn into a “snow” week, no snow, but unexpected change of plans.

I decided, as much as I really really didn’t want to, that it was time I redid all the directions for my 11 remaining patterns, and added the links. Problem is/was that I needed to rewatch some of the videos to remember what was actually in them. There are 80 of them. I’m working on, and have been for the last year, an index of the YouTube channel, both by video in chronological order and alphabetical by topic. It is a huge huge job. I’m actually paying someone else to do this. But she is struggling to find time as well. We got to 68%, which is currently posted on my website, but it is taking forever to complete it. You can find what we have completed here.

So I started last weekend, determined to use this week to update all the directions for my sewing patterns, which are free to download from my website. And while I was at it, watch as many videos as my brain could stand, and mark topics and time codes, and then enter them into a very large Excel spread sheet.

So I’m sure you know where I’m going with this. I’ve spent a miserable week, staring at a computer screen, checking my work, rechecking my work, converting to a PDF, and checking my work once again. And I know there are errors. There always are…

And I’m within 10 videos of completing the index. Ann Marie is working on four of the last ones, and I have five more to view.

And so dear readers, this is my gift to all of you, updated directions with live links in the PDF to appropriate videos for many of the steps, and soon a completed index of what to find where. In return, please let me know whenever you find an error, missing link, whatever. I say this of course with fear, because I know you’ll find them. Many of you are actual editors, and though I bow down to you, I also know you will find the mistakes! Email me at theweaver@weaversew.com

There are no cool pictures to share. All I did was work all week on the computer until I couldn’t see anymore. I’m well beyond Covid at this point, and my work sold well at the guild sale, I’m writing checks tonight to the participants, since I’m the treasurer. I’m checking each check twice to make sure I got the amount right, and didn’t do something stupid like leave out my signature.

Some of the work that didn’t sell at the sale will be donated to the Shakespeare Theatre’s annual holiday bazaar, check that out if you live in the north Jersey area. Work will start soon on the costumes for their December production of Shakespeare’s 12th Night.

And I rescheduled my student for the end of November. So now I have to clean my house all over again. Fortunately housework doesn’t require checking your work…

Stay tuned…

Quiet and focused…

My mom always calls and asks when she doesn’t get a copy of my blog in the mail, if she missed something. My 92 year old mom, who taught me to love fibers, sewing and garment construction, has no internet access, no cell phone, nothing electronic. By choice. If you want to talk to her, you call. So I dutifully make a paper copy each time I blog, and send it to her in the mail. The old fashioned way. She always calls when she gets it and tells me how much she loved reading it, over and over, and how lovely the pictures are, and we always have a good chat about it.

I of course haven’t blogged in a couple weeks, so she was wondering.

Truth is, I’m hyper focused. I always have good intentions that in the spring, I’ll start making stuff for my guild sale, and actually I did somewhat this year, with the 18 yards of mohair, netting me seven mohair blankets, a run of hand dyed scarves, and some mats woven with water iris leaves from my garden. But still, just a few weeks before the sale, I found myself once again, locked in the sewing studio, churning out whatever I could with whatever leftovers I found. And I am always stunned at how many, or how much scrap I have tucked away. That’s one of the benefits of weaving yardage. Once you make the garment, you have lots of smaller hunks of fabric to just play with. I have a whole guild lecture I do on what to do with leftovers, and of course there is my digital monograph of the same name…

I did craft fairs, for 10 years. By 1990, I was done and swore I’d never sell my work again. But the guild show and sale, is somehow different. It is actually fun for me to make a bunch of zippered bags…

…tote bags…

…greeting cards…

…and something new I tried this year, really fun to make, from a Simplicity pattern, #2450, I made a half dozen of these mug buckets, adapting the pattern to handwoven fabric, because actually, this is a fund raiser for the guild.

Ultimately what doesn’t sell of the 132 items I tagged, (don’t be too impressed, 40 of them are greeting cards) will either be donated to causes I support, for their fund raisers, or as gifts, not that I go many places that require hostess gifts… but I do have friends…

The guild sale is a great place to move-on stuff that can be loved in other people’s homes. I just have fun making it all.

So everything is tagged, we are using bar code tags now, and I’ve written and printed a custom hang tag with the story behind each piece, and what garment the leftover came from. That was a lot of work, but fun for me to go back through the archives. And I even learned in a class during Spinning and Weaving Week with the HGA, how to print my own sew-in labels, because no two are alike. And I know by law I have to have the percentage of fiber content, and country of origin of the fiber, but that information isn’t possible to know. I use too many different unknown yarns, and this is from leftovers and that’s as best I can offer. I didn’t have any poplin inkjet treated fabric, but I had a number of packages of 10mm silk habotai, which honestly is better for wearables, since it won’t be pokey and itchy. The Daryl Lancaster labels are from a stack I had left from the 1980’s. They still work. Did I mention I am a pro at sewing in labels? From my days working in a high end exclusive department store during college, we took out manufacturers labels and sewed in our own. In between customers, I was the best at sewing in labels. And I still do it volunteering in the costume shop at the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ.

If you live anywhere near the north Jersey region, the Jockey Hollow Annual Show & Sale will be at Brookside Community Center in Mendham on November 5th and 6th, 2022. Please check www.jockeyhollowweavers.org for more information.

They just seem to find me…

A couple of weeks ago, I got a call from someone on the west coast. This happens often believe it or not, or I’ll get an email from someone who Googled Tools of the Trade Looms, which I have a lot of, or Structo Looms, because not only do I have a lot of them, but they get mentioned frequently on my blog, so I’m apparently the “it” girl for looms of those brands.

Anyway, my friend on the west coast, and I say friend, because I recognized the name on the caller ID, she had taken a number of workshops with me in the past, works with a weaving school, with more looms than I can even count, and found a number of small looms and assorted parts, unused and unloved, in a closet, and called me to pick my brain. Again, not unusual.

Turns out, after sending photos back and forth, she had three Leclerc 10″ sample looms, from way back, like the little green ones I love and have two of. They don’t often some up for sale. And she had three little Structos, which I have a lot of, like I said, one was the standard four shaft, perfect condition, no rust, one an eight shaft (woo hoo!) and one was one of the original black ones with the wing nut tensioning devices, which I hate, and usually am not interested in. As a matter of fact, as I recall, there are a couple like that in my attic, which I stripped for parts, and actually, I wondered what’s up there…

Meanwhile, the discussion went back and forth, and after asking her to check out the cost of shipping (USPS was the cheapest by far, with 2 looms in a box for $147 each box), this happened.

They were packed and dropped at the airport last Friday, which is a holiday weekend, and were on my doorstep 9am Tuesday morning, in perfect condition, after a 3000 mile journey. Yeah USPS… The Post Office, go figure…

I paid a good amount with the shipping for these looms. When I posted the whole episode on Facebook, the comments were quite hilarious, including one person who really wanted to know why? Why did I need more? It is a legitimate question, and I thought about my answer for a long time. I don’t really need to explain, we all have our vices. I had 23 small looms already, between the Structos and the two Leclerc Sample Looms. And maybe like some people rescue stray animals, I have this thing about rescuing looms, rehabbing them, and bringing them back to life. A loom has a soul, and an aura, and there is definitely an energy, a really positive one, when it gets loved and used frequently.

But the real reason, sort of dates back to a time before Covid, when I was using my Structo collection as a traveling studio, along with my daughter, teaching for my guild an annual beginning workshop (we got a lot of new members that way) and regularly scheduled beginner classes at Silk City Yarns, part of Lion Brand in their Secaucus outlet. I was constantly asked after a participant had taken the class numerous times, for a Part 2. I kept thinking about when I took Madelyn van der Hoogt’s class on Whidbey Island back in something like 2018, where she had 32 looms, prewarped in a structure each, and participants went loom to loom and explored all kinds of different things, over the five days of classes. That will never happen in my studio, but I did have these Structo’s, just not enough of them and still be able to teach beginners.

Covid changed all that. Lion Brand closed its outlet and moved its warehouse to Georgia. And I swore I would not ever travel to teach again. I’m thinking though, that in service to my guild, I really should do another Learn to Weave class, because that’s how new weavers are born.

Meanwhile, I took about 10 of my Structos and started warping them with various structures, which I talked about earlier in the year. I was looking for gamps that would allow treadling exploration, and though it was for my own purposes, those little Structo spools hold a lot of 20/2 cotton warp, and those warps will probably outlive me…

I think about having a group of students come in for an evening weekly, or whatever, and I can fit a half dozen at my dining room table…

Anyway, as I think about these things, the looms to make that happen are showing up in unexpected ways. I had an alarm system contractor up in my attic upgrading my heat and smoke detectors, and while he was up there, I dragged out all the odd Structo parts I had stuffed up there. And I re-evaluated their status.

It took quite a few days to carefully unpack all 6 looms, which had their castles removed for easier shipping, and I started to assemble. The Leclerc looms were fairly straightforward. As was the four shaft Structo.

I replaced some of the parts on the eight shaft, like the reed mechanism, which was not standard. I’ll still need to upgrade all the rusty heddles, which I’ll do when I decide what to put on each loom, depending how many heddles each structure needs, but the little black original Structo kept haunting me.

I looked at the parts from my attic, and I looked at the one that had been shipped from the west coast, with the wing nut tensioning devices and I started stripping them allowing me to create a perfect 8 shaft FrankenStructo with real cranks. And I can swap out the hex beam from one of the other four shaft ones I have and fit spools on it. I have lots of spools, and no, I’m not sharing.

And, though I wouldn’t use a loom with the wing nut tensioning system, I did manage to piece together a seventh loom from leftover parts. So, as expensive as this whole escapade was, I got a lot of looms, which will totally do the job should I really want to do both a level 1 Learn to Weave, and a level 2. I suspect the universe has this plan and is not allowing me to say no.

That leaves this poor little rusty 2 shaft Structo from my attic, which is so old that all the movable parts are riveted, so not easily changed out for more contemporary beams, cranks, beater, etc. Every time I walk by it sitting on the counter, it cries out, “Please don’t put me back up there…” I need my daughter, who has mad metal skills to take a look and see what we can do with it. She is in Idaho at the moment at a large animal sanctuary, finishing up her finals for her Vet Tech degree.

Meanwhile, my gardener, whom I can’t live without, brought me outside this morning to discover this.

How we missed this, is beyond us.

The activity in an out of this wasp nest was constant, and after a bit of research, we decided that this is a rarely used area of the property, only the lawn crew use that south side entrance, and that wasps are actually beneficial. They will all die out once winter sets in anyway, but it was remarkable. Then my gardener, who was pruning one of my Kousa Dogwoods found the remnants of a wasp nest, and I brought it in to dry it. What a remarkable piece of nature. The nest is actually chewed up wood pulp, built in layers. Wasp Spit! I don’t have the heart to have this nest removed.

Meanwhile, after sitting on a panel last week for Spinning and Weaving Week, that had to do with getting into juried shows, I thought a lot about my response to the question about one good piece of advice to anyone wanting to get into juried shows. I commented that it is all about having good images, because that’s usually what a juror sees first.

Back in 2006 for the Grand Rapids Michigan Convergence, I actually put together a seminar on Photographing your Work. I know my way around a camera, or rather a film camera, since that was my second concentration in art school. The first was of course fiber…

I gave that seminar to many guilds and conferences over the years, but stopped because technology changed so much in the last 10 years, that I really wasn’t in the mood to rework the whole thing. So I stopped offering the monograph as well. After sitting on that panel, and remembering how important good visuals are, I decided that as a public service, I’d dust off that monograph, because the main content is still very valid, and offer it in my eShop for free. So if you are interested, the link is here.

While I was at it, I’ve spent most of the last couple weeks, along with all my other adventures, updating all of my digital monographs, checking links, adding images when I have something better to show, and eliminating the print versions. Largely I’m tired of printing, shipping is getting ridiculous, and if any of the links or content changes, then the book is outdated. The digital version I can keep fresh, have an index, and include live links you can just click on in the PDF file. I’ve also posted in the description of each of the digital monographs the date of the last update. So if you’ve bought any of my digital monographs, and still have the email with the download information, you can get the updated version anytime. Many of the monographs that have to do with sewing with handwovens, all now have links to my YouTube videos that talk more extensively about that particular topic or technique. I’m always upgrading something…

And finally, one of the questions on my facebook page about the acquisition of 6 little looms was from a couple of different friends who know me and know my space, “Wherever are you going to put them…”

I thought about this as I assembled all the little looms, and wandered around my studio for a couple hours. I decided that one of the shelving units, that had some Ikea bins full of spinning fibers and equipment would be appropriate, if I could find someplace else for the spinning detritus. There was space under the work bench that had looms, a bobbin winder etc., across the studio. those are the square cubes on the floor.

The shelves weren’t high enough for the Green Leclerc Sample looms, so I could put them on top of the book cases, replacing Structos up there.

Then I was able to perfectly fit 8 more looms on the shelving unit in the corner. I still have to replace aprons, and some of the heddles, (fortunately I have a good supply and no, I’m not interested in selling any of the heddles, looms or assorted parts) but that can wait until I know what I’m actually doing with them.

And there are more Structos here… I think I now have 30… 🙂

Life just gets curiouser and curiouser, and I’m not one to question what the universe has in store for me. The last three years have shown me that. I’m busier than ever, and really having fun, and yes, the studio is now bulging at the seams, but I’m a good garment maker and know how to let those seams out…

Stay tuned…

Seems like old times…

What a couple of weeks. I knew Mid-September through Mid-November would be jammed packed with all kinds of cool events, teaching opportunities, guild meetings, and general calendar must do’s but this is really crazy. I have vague recollections of just three years ago where the calendar controlled my life, instead of me controlling the calendar. Back in the spring, and even last winter, it seemed perfectly reasonable to book a couple of weekend workshops, since I’m not leaving the house to teach anymore, how difficult could this be?

Nothing here is difficult. And don’t get me wrong… I chose to participate in everything I put on my calendar. It’s just that the world opened up all at once, guild meetings started up again, a music group I once played for asked me to come back, Spinning and Weaving week, which is a weeklong series of weaverly events, all online, but like a conference all day long; teaching remotely every weekend, three weekends in a row for the same guild, and of course theater events, because those seasons started up as well.

By mid-November, this should all be quieting down, but for now, I’m tightening up my seat belt and hanging on tight!

Meanwhile, I taught remotely three weekends in a row for the Chattahoochee Guild in GA. A lot of old friends were there, and we had a great time. Last weekend we did a remote hands-on workshop and Leigh, a friend and workshop participant took this shot of the classroom, and there I am, larger than life. I of course couldn’t see what they saw, as I was viewing the classroom from multiple cameras strategically placed around the room. It was sweet when someone had a question and wanted to show me what they were working on, and they would go up to the screen to talk to me… We are all still getting used to this technology.

Meanwhile, I did manage last week, before the start of Spinning and Weaving Week, sponsored by the HGA (Handweavers Guild of America) to actually make a couple of pieces. I wove a fabric last year, all rayon, and it was sitting on the shelf just calling to me. There are a lot of competing voices in the studio, and sometimes the cacophony of who wants to be noticed more gets a bit loud!

So I wanted to see if I could draft this swing vest, based on a commercial pattern, using one of my own patterns. And I’m really happy with the results. I used my 1000 Swing Dress pattern and created this variation. I wanted to be able to use the selvedge of the cloth for the center front edge, and have it fall away in lapels. And fringe the bottom edges, so no hems. Eventually I’ll take my notes and recreate what I did and see if I can document it in a video.

I had extra fabric, and I thought it would lend itself to a bias top, so my 900 Bias Top pattern came in handy.

I still had extra fabric, and so I made this tote bag using my piecing technique, which I documented in a four-part video on my YouTube channel, The Weaver Sews. And there is still a stack of leftovers…

Meanwhile, while I had some free moments in the studio, I took a leftover section of the towel warp I showed last time and made this zippered bag.

So Spinning and Weaving Week is/was a lot of fun. Events all day long. Some really great speakers and studio tours. They featured me in my studio during Spinning and Weaving week two years ago. How I wish the re-play was available. I often meant to film my own version to put on YouTube myself. It is on the list. Which is growing exponentially…

I was one of the panelists Tuesday night, for a session about getting into juried shows and the basics. It was great hearing the other panelists and their perspective on things. Friday night was really really special. There was a viewing party of the Convergence 2022 fashion show, where I had five garments as an invited artist, but I did not actually attend the conference, for many reasons, mostly because I was at a wedding in Virginia for the son of someone who has meant a great deal to me over the years. I had hoped the fashion show would be recorded, and I wasn’t disappointed. Seeing my five works walk the runway was just the highlight of my week!

And this morning, I set up my messy office, because I have sixty different things going on at once, into a video studio because this afternoon was the Strut your Stuff fashion show, and of course I registered for that. Meaning I would be modeling one of my garments for it. I pulled out the video lights and set up the good webcam camera, the one we use for taking videos.

And I was first up for the actual fashion show. So here I am modeling my double weave jacket I made earlier in the year. I included the second image because the running transcript was just too hilarious, Artificial intelligence just doesn’t get textile terms. “Devil Weed” should have been double weave, but Devil Weed works… I sort of got that vibe when I was trying to weave off the sampler last January with one arm…

And Friday, in between sessions from Spinning and Weaving week, I took an online class through my guild with a weaver from AZ, Deborah Jarchow, on Clasped Weft. For some reason that technique has never crossed my path. It was fun, I sort of felt like I was dancing with the shuttles. I had set the loom up on Tuesday while watching Textiles And Tea, an online weekly interview, also sponsored by HGA.

And remember I mentioned the cacophony of looms and fibers and fabric and yarns calling to me? I had cleared all of the floor looms I’d been weaving on except for two. They reached out every time I walked by in the studio, as if to say, “Please won’t you sit down and weave with me?”

So I did sit down, whenever I had a few minutes. This is the ice dyed fabric I started earlier in the year, and I have no idea how much there is still to weave, because I started with 10 yards and it doesn’t look like anywhere near that on the cloth beam.

And my favorite loom (don’t say that too loudly, there will be a revolt) has a fabric I spent a long time working out last year, and I think I put on 8 yards of 10/2 cotton warp. So I’m probably over half-finished this very cool pattern called “Drunken Squares”. It has been that kind of a week.

Don’t cry for me dear readers, I’m having a blast. I just wish the blast was a little more like a pop, and less like an explosion! This will all calm down as the winter draws near. I have someone working on my yard clean up, nice to have people for that, and I was finally able to get my alarm system company to come and upgrade/replace and add additional smoke detectors, especially in the garage weaving studio. They had rate of rise detectors, appropriate for a garage, but not appropriate for a weaving studio with yarns stacked to the ceiling. So those finally got upgraded, but there have been workers in and out for the last week, and they will be returning yet again on Tuesday. We all just step around each other…

I teach next weekend for two days in Canada, again remotely, I’m still so amazed that this technology even exists. So it will be a busy week prepping for that hand’s on workshop. Wednesday night I have two different fun events happening simultaneously, which is unfortunate, but I can still do both, because one will be recorded…

Stay tuned…

A productive week in limbo…

So far, I have not been called in for petit jury duty, I call every couple days to see my status, and I will call again tonight, but because I blocked out this time just in case, I created an almost mini get away to my sewing room, in the basement, to just play. I did little else, which was sort of a treat. (I even slept in the guest room to pretend I was on vacation, which really confused the animals.) So it has been a really productive week, if you measure productivity by how much stuff you made. Which I tend to do, and always feel accomplished with a nice stack of my efforts.

I did spend a stupid amount of time trouble shooting a Back-up Service for my 900+ blog posts. There were suddenly a number of errors, which caused the service to not be able to back things up, but going back and forth doing screen shots and copies of logs, between my tech support, the back up service tech support and my hosting company caused me untold grief, have I ever mentioned I hate technology, and lost studio time. Yet, when things finally work, and I had something to do with the resolution, I’m inordinately proud of myself. I still hate technology, but I wouldn’t be able to leave a digital legacy without it, and so I carry on as best I can.

Meanwhile. My garden was odd this year. Lack of rain, and intense heat, I have a good deal of leafy greens to eat, but almost no peppers, beans, basil, and almost no large tomatoes, which is odd because this time last year I was making quarts of tomato sauce and pesto for the freezer. But for the first time in years, the cherry tomato plants took over the garden. I almost never get cherry tomatoes. So I dutifully dried a couple of trays in the oven, and popped them in the freezer for bursts of flavor throughout the winter.

And remember those Water Iris Leaf Mats I wove a couple blog posts ago? So there are a few left from last season’s batch, and I’ve been wrestling with whether or not to harvest this year’s. Meanwhile, my daughter Brianna has been fooling around with what to do with the prolific amount of Smart Water bottles she has saved, because all sorts of trash is treasure to a creative person. She made this adorable basket, actually a whole series from sea grass and a stripped Smart Water Bottle (she has a tool for that) last year. I immediately bought one.

She came to me the other night, after asking how to reconstitute the Water Iris leaves, and popped this on the table.

I’m blown away by what she comes up with. So that adorable basket was what prompted my handyman to harvest all the Water Iris Leaves in the yard and lay them on the patio table. I gathered them into bundles with zip ties and hung them under the gazebo for temporary storage, and they will ultimately move to a shed to dry over the winter.

Meanwhile, on vacation in the basement, I hemmed the dishtowels I cut from the loom the week before.

And I washed and cut apart the five scarves from the warp I made last winter with a broken shoulder. That felt really good. These are called “A Winter’s Tale”.

I cut out and sewed the little summer shirt from the Turned Overshot warp. Originally I had front waist darts, but I didn’t like how they competed with the overshot stripe. So I took them out.

And I started rooting through leftovers and scraps and played around. First I took some of the test samples from my Eco Printing experiments last year, and cut some into a zippered bag.

I was so happy with it, I did three more, using a suede microfiber skirt, which no longer fit me, as the base, and a cut up lavender silk skirt from a weaver’s estate sale as the lining.

I gave a lecture to a couple of guilds, one in Austin, TX, and one in GA, on what to do with leftovers. Every time I give this lecture I get inspired to go make something.

So I dove into my bin of thrums, leftover warp waste, of which I have a lot, mostly hand dyed yarns and ribbons, and grabbed a piece of micro-suede that I bought from a friend, fused onto fusible fleece, and started to assemble those thrums as a collage. I tossed them on, and covered each panel with Sulky Solvy.

Then I used a twin needle and a quilt bar and started to create a window pane effect to keep the thrums controlled.

Once I had all four panels completed, and washed to dissolve the Sulky Solvy, I started to assemble the bag.

Add this one to my collection, this is really fun.

And remember awhile back I played around with tying those same warp thrums together into what’s called Zanshi, a Japanese technique of wasting nothing. I wove those balls of tied together warp thrums into a fabric, which I hadn’t done anything with up until now.

So I cut out bag panels and made a tote out of those as well.

It has been a really productive week, but I fear that will come to an end. I really don’t like having my life a giant question mark, but ask anyone who goes through a tragedy, health issue, natural disaster, whatever, this is what being an adult is, and trying to stay focused and in the moment. I work best when I’m busy, and it keeps my mind from going into overdrive. Of course I fear that I’ll get called in the last day of my two weeks of jury duty, and be put on a case that could last weeks, because it is federal, but I can’t think that far ahead, and just do whatever I need to do today. I think another zip bag from the leftover scarp warp from the Winter’s Tale scarves…

Stay tuned.