Handwoven Magazine – Daryl's Blog

Derailed…

I had every intention of following up my last two posts with two more, because I was only halfway through talking about the 64 named looms in my studio and what’s on them. I had intended to just jump right into the Structos, which I have many, along with the five 10″ 4-shaft Leclerc Sample Looms.

But the universe had other ideas. Right after I posted my last blogs, apparently as best we can piece together, Microsoft did one of their famous security updates, which caused havoc over at Google (don’t ask me how I know this), and the end result was a suspension of my main business email account I’ve had since I could get a domain outside of AOL. Somewhere in the 90’s?

Because I started traveling a lot, and my late husband as well, for our jobs, my husband found a way to reroute my main email, theweaver@weaversew.com, which was part of a hosted platform, to IMAP through Google, allowing me to look at my email in my laptop, or tablet. This is before the invention of Apps. So for years, that email IMAP’d through Google, and all was well. Until about 10 days ago. When it became inaccessible. At first my tech support thought it would come back, that Google was scrambling, and all would be well. Then he tried updating my email program, Microsoft Outlook, and nothing would bring back accessibility.

As I freaked out, people close to me reminded me that no one died, and that I hadn’t lost my files and records, I just couldn’t email anyone and anyone who emailed me, the emails would bounce back as no such address. Some people called or texted and asked, WTF? I gave them an alternative email. I desperately thought about who needed to reach me in the next few days, like the tour company sponsoring my upcoming trip to Japan, I leave in a couple weeks. I thought about all the guilds I’m working with for upcoming lectures and workshops. I spent days trying to change my email address so I could be reached. I lay awake a nights haunted by MFA which is a nightmare, meaning Multi Factor Authentication, meaning each address change I could actual make happen, took 15 – 20 minutes with all the 2 factor authentication, email confirmations, snail mail letters generated, texts and whatever. I get the need for security, but this was ridiculous.

Anyway, I’m not out of the woods yet. I worked with my hosting company Pair.com (which by the way is incredible) and they gave me a multi page step by step on how to redirect the email off Google back to a hosted mailbox through my weaversew domain. Sounds complicated, I can assure you, I’m not so tech savvy and these last couple weeks have been my worst nightmare. (I know, there are a lot of things worse than this).

My tech support, who is probably the best in the state, is not so easy to get, largely because he is the best in the state… While waiting for him, I kept trying to figure out what to do, working with tutorials, working with my hosting company, and I was able to get my email working again, but not in my preferred email program Outlook. I spent hours trying to come up with the right set of settings or protocols to make it work. It didn’t help that two of my three email programs were affected, and that there were 11,000 emails in my inbox on my main email address, and apparently 5,000 emails in my back up gmail account. So I spent hours filling and sorting and deleting until I was down to almost nothing.

I was finally successful in getting the right settings and got both email accounts to work in Outlook, but only on my office computer. I was afraid to even start messing with my laptop. One thing at a time. Turns out that was a good move, because by the afternoon yesterday, all of my email folders I’d created over the years, disappeared. Gone. I’ve never been so devastated, and I’ve had some pretty crappy things happen in my life. “You should have backed everything up” was not helpful, because I didn’t know how. Because my laptop remained untouched by my successful transfer of the emails back to Outlook, my daughter and I successfully spent until about midnight last night, with my tech support logging in remotely, retrieving 33 GB (no that’s not a typo) of email data off my laptop, dating back to 2013? maybe beyond… So I have everything, at least I think I do, and my emails are all functioning. If you emailed me and got no response, I lost about a week of emails, they would have been returned to you. Try again.

I’m waiting for tech support to help me reinstall the 33 GB of data back into Outlook, but I have it. And those 11,000 plus emails? They are all back. I’m thrilled and yet devastated that I have to go through them again and sort, file and delete.

I wanted to title this post For the Win, part 3, but I wasn’t sure if I felt like I won anything anymore. My filling all my looms seems rather anti-climactic. Nevertheless, I’m going to plow forth, and document anyway, so bear with me, because at the time (2 weeks ago) this was a big milestone for me. I’ve already cleared one of the floor looms I talked about in my last posts, so before I clear anything else, here is the list.

The first 13 Structos and 2 Leclerc sample looms are all set up and ready to go for a Learn To Weave program I do annually, and they can be used for any demos my daughter and I should encounter during the year. They live up on shelves around the studio patiently waiting. But they are all warped thanks to the class we taught at my guild in January. Their names, all after Star Trek characters, are “Yar, Worf, McCoy, Sato, Kes, Chekov, Uhura, O’Brian, Bashir, Troy, Scotty, Crusher, and LaForge“. The two Leclerc looms are “Neelix and Phlox“.

I also have a baby 2 shaft Structo named “Rand” that is only 4″ wide. I keep that set up with a handpainted warp, because it is really helpful to be able to explain how a loom works, with one that is set up, and help students identify the different parts of the loom.

The other three Leclerc Sample Looms are “Lursa“, a 4 shaft loom with a Huck sampler from an article titled “Stuck on Huck / 4 shaft Library” by Lynn Tedder from Best of Weaver’s Huck Lace, edited by Madelyn van der Hoogt.

“Bettor” has a 4 shaft doubleweave sampler from Jennifer Moore’s Doubleweave, but I used the threading from Ursina Arn-Grischott’s book Doubleweave on Four to Eight Shafts. I don’t know why I did that, for a challenge maybe? It hurts my head…

And “Hemmer“, which I talked about in a recent post, another 4 shaft loom, threaded in a straight draw (I think), intended for intense pick up. I found a booklet from Elizabeth Tritthart, historicweaving.com called 100 Horizontal Stripes. I love this one, and yes, it is really slow cloth, tedious as most pick up is, but you really can lose yourself in it and take pride in seeing the design build. And it uses up embroidery floss!

The remaining dozen Structos have cool drafts and structures on them, and I periodically pull one out and just weave. I can take one easily onto the deck and weave outside! The documentation on each one is important, because I have to remind myself each time what I’m doing, where I am in the draft, and how it even works. I have a guild mate, a relatively new weaver, who comes once a week to explore a different loom. It helps to teach it, and we work out together what a newer weaver understands and doesn’t understand.

If you are still with me on this… in no particular order…

This little 2-shaft loom, “Chapel” was pulled out of the attic for parts, and I decided to set up a simple clasped weft technique after a workshop with Deborah Jarchow.

“Dax” has a 4-shaft Theo Moorman threading, which allows me to weave narrow strips of silk habotai, printed with an image in an ink jet printer, on a linen ground, using sewing thread as the tie-downs. I have a monograph on the subject, including step by step how I do this technique. This is a photo of pansies.

“Picard” is an 8-shaft Structo, threaded for a 4-tie pattern called Quigley, which I’d woven in a class with Madelyn van der Hoogt, and loved. This particular pattern was designed by Diane Click and is found in Tom Knisely’s Handwoven Table Linens book.

“Riker” has a 4-shaft overshot gamp, adapted from a draft by Robyn Spady in the May/June 2014 issue of Handwoven Magazine. Robyn does great gamps! I love Gamps, I define them as a sampler that works like a grid, each vertical stripe is threaded in a specific pattern, and each horizontal stripe is a specific lift plan, and the intersections of each creates stunningly different patterns.

“Sulu” has a 4 shaft twill variation on a twill color gamp, again by Robyn Spady in Handwoven Magazine, November/December 2008. Getting the beat correct so the twill lines move at a 45 degree angle is harder than it looks.

“Kira” has only 3 shafts. This is an amazing structure on only 3-shafts. It is a rug technique called Krokbragd, which no one can pronounce, but it is gorgeous, and also very tedious. This draft is from an article Vakker Mug Rugs, by Anu Bhatia, in Handwoven Magazine, May/June 2022.

“Archer” has a structure called Deflected Doubleweave, this one is on 8 shafts. I drafted this from the Marian Stubenitsky’s book, Double with a Twist. The real beauty of this cloth will come out after it is washed, when the yarns in the structure deflect into each other. The yarns are 8/2 Tencel.

“Burnham” has an 8 shaft Rosepath point twill threading. Carol Strickler’s book, A Weaver’s Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, has pages of little Rosepath designs, which are so much fun to weave.

“Kirk” has an 8-shaft Honeycomb threading, taken from a sampler in Malin Selander’s Weave a Weave. I’ve done three of the five variations, and within each of the variations are even more variations. These are really fun. They are named after operas, the first is Tosca, followed by Aida, and then Isolde.

We are getting there! If you are still reading I’m impressed. Remember I said a couple posts back, this documentary is for my benefit, a place to remember when I warped all the looms, with pretty pictures…

“Reed” has a 4 shaft Doup Leno threaded onto it. I wrote an entire issue of Heddlecraft Magazine Issue #19, on the subject. It is hard to see what’s happening in this small of a scale, but the lacy fabric is structurally sound because the turquoise warp threads twist back and forth because of a series of half heddles or doups.

“Sisko” has an 8 shaft Shadow Weave on from a draft by Joanne Wood Peters. You can purchase the draft from Webs, it is Valley Yarns draft #199, called Shadow Weave Sampler. The yarns are 8/2 Tencel.

And last, but not least, (because there are ton more “other” looms, like Inkle Looms, still to document), is “Pike“. He has an 8 shaft Summer Winter motif, heavily adapted from a draft I think I got from Madelyn van der Hoogt in her class. I had to rework it to fit the size of the Structo.

I know this is a long post, but like I said, this is my journal and I wanted to document something I was proud of. And I’m glad I did, because I feel like the entire email debacle pales as I look at all these images. The data is there, it will eventually get migrated back where it belongs, mostly. My greatest joyful moments come when I figure out something fun or cool in the studio. They are what keep me getting up in the morning, that and the cat sitting on my face, and I’m so grateful to have this craft, the looms, the yarns, and the library of reference books to sit and pour over while I drink tea.

Stay tuned…

Write What You Know…

Back in the day, it was discovered quite by accident that I could actually write. A Catholic Elementary School graduate, I could diagram a sentence with the best of them. But writing assignments in school were tedious and not something I jumped into with relish. When Madelyn van der Hoogt, then editor of Handwoven Magazine, heard the things I said at my now infamous technical critique of the fashion show at Cincinnati Convergence in 2000, she contacted me about writing for Handwoven Magazine. Writing articles is very different than 7th grade term papers. But actually, not really… There is research, and hopefully you get to write about something that interests you. But the spelling, grammar, checking your work thing, that was drilled into me by a bunch of Italian speaking nuns. Go figure…

Madelyn called after my first submission, thrilled with the way I apparently wrote, and kept me on, for 35 issues straight. I only left that job as features editor when the magazine was sold and cost cutting procedures cut me right out of the mast head. But over the years, I’ve been asked to occasionally contribute to various magazines, Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot, Heddlecraft, Threads Magazine, Sew News, and one in Canada after a keynote I gave at a conference there. I genuinely enjoy writing, I like some of the research I have to do, and writing what you know is much easier than some obscure writing assignment in middle school.

I spent a good portion of last year researching, weaving samples, and writing Heddlecraft Magazine issue #38 on Combining Warp Structures. It was the second time I wrote an issue of Heddlecraft. That issue came out last fall, and it is something I’m really proud of.

Writing assignments have been quiet the last few months, which is just fine. I liked the break after an intense year. Oddly enough, at the end of February, I started to get inquiries, “Do you think you could write a short article on…”, or “I have this idea, do you think you could…” or, “Would you be able to do this by next week…” So suddenly, I went from a quiet winter, to six articles or written content I should say, all due within three weeks.

A friend said to me, when I outwardly groaned to her in a phone call, “Why don’t you say no?” That’s not really how it works. I wanted to do all the assignments. They were all interesting and for the most part, things I knew about. Could I write about my experiences using Mohair, could I write about my experiences volunteering for the Shakespeare Theatre, could I write the exhibition brochure for an upcoming exhibition, and could I be the guest host for Textiles and Tea, since the regular host would be away? Well dang… Six in all. I won’t give specifics until things are actually published. But I just spent the last three weeks at my computer searching for images from the 80’s, interviewing an artist as he installed his exhibition (opening this Sunday), and research and rehearsals for my stint as Host on Textiles and Tea, this Tuesday, March 21st. It was a year ago that I was interviewed for this weekly chat sponsored by the Handweavers Guild of America. I thought it would be a lot of fun to sit on the other side of the desk so to speak, as the interviewer.

In the meantime, I have become obsessed with warping all the looms. And I think, if you count the Gilmore Wave, which is a two shaft for warp face band weaves, there are 50 shaft looms in the studio. All but the Gilmore have Star Trek names, or names related to where or who they came from, or something on that nature. I’ll have to get out the labeler… I refurbished another Tools of the Trade table loom I’ve been sitting on (named Torres); this one too was a heddle disaster. I’m always shocked at how the heddles in a used loom are every which way, making it really inefficient to thread. There were a few hundred, and they all had to come off and be carefully reoriented. But I wanted a 4-shaft table loom that could take a long warp, where I could use my Zanshi balls I make tying together all the thrums or leftovers from my looms. Zanshi is the Japanese art of wasting nothing. I wove fabric like this already, I wrote about it here (scroll all the way down). But I ran out of warp, and the basket of thrums is overflowing. A friend mentioned she had woven Zanshi in a rib weave, with a dense fine warp. I got a couple cones of Black UKI 20/2 cotton from a friend who was downsizing, doubled them, and put on a nice tidy warp.

I experimented a bit with structure, starting with plain weave, then twill, and finally the rib weave. Which I love. So I’ll keep weaving the rib, and keep tying those thrums together.

I have a 12-shaft Voyager from Leclerc (called Janeway) I bought a few years ago, from one of my weaving guild buddies. It is 16″ wide. It had a white warp on it when I got it, and I did a quick yarn test for Silk City Fibers for a yarn they were considering by tying into that warp, but I’ve never actually warped it from scratch. Mostly because I haven’t been able to find a 12 shaft draft or structure that interested me enough.

A friend told me about Denise Kovnat’s blog, she is a fantastic weaver, and offers all kinds of classes and drafts for sale on her website. I bought a group of Echo drafts, which included some for 12 shafts, because that was one structure I didn’t have on my looms in the studio. I’ve woven it, but until now, it wasn’t hugely appealing enough to tie up one of my other looms. I worked on one of the 12-shaft drafts from Denise’s collection for a couple of weeks, until I came up with what I thought would be fun to weave.

I wound four yards of alternating lime green and teal 8/2 Tencel, at 36epi, which at 16″ wide, is 574 ends. Which is a lot. In a small space. I’m threading it now, and actually loving this little loom. The back beam unscrews easily, and the warp beam pops off by unscrewing the crank, just like on my Structos and I have a lovely clear shot of the twelve shafts, and the reed where the ends are sleyed in order. Threading an echo parallel threading is challenging, and not for the faint of heart. And truth be told, weaving 4 yards of Echo weave in Tencel on a 12 shaft table loom will take a very long time. I half expect, with all the other looms, that I won’t live long enough to actually finish it. But I no longer care about finishing stuff anymore. It is about the process; it has always been about the process for me. Curiosity and learning something new are my driving force now in my life. As long as my eyes hold out; I was just told by the eye doctor today that I’ll probably need cataract surgery 12-18 months from now. Sigh…

And my yarn stash grows. I’ve gotten a bit addicted to getting the newsletter from Peter Patchis each month, with the latest yarn specials. I usually order one of everything, because I have no idea what I’m doing to do with any of it. This was the latest haul that came in last week.

On Saturday, in spite of some nasty weather, I headed out to Sussex County to a Lace Day, sponsored by the Lost Art Lacers, lacemaking group. I used to belong to them, many lifetimes ago, when I actively made bobbin lace. I still have many of my pillows, but there are only so many hours in a day, and filling looms has become my latest passion. But, in my years of teaching warp face weaving on an inkle loom, I always talked about how appropriate needlework yarns, which are put up in small quantities, are for working on an inkle loom. I was curious to see what was out there. And I especially wanted to see my old friend Holly van Sciver, who is a fantastic lacemaker and teacher, and sells just about every type of thread for lacemaking and needlework in general, and has every book ever written on lacemaking. I wasn’t disappointed…

My small haul was pretty costly, compared to what I had just gotten from Peter Patchis, but I’m looking to set up a couple of inkle looms as well, especially the Gilmore Wave which I bought many years ago, and my daughter immediately stole. It is sitting idle now and calling to me from under the counter.

I was especially impressed with the handpainted cotton skeins from Karey Solomon of Graceful Arts Handpaint. I got a few skeins of 20/2 hand painted cordonnet with some Lizbeth size 20 Egyptian cotton to coordinate. I picked up some Bokens linen, Gutermann Silk, and Idrija cotton in 30 weight from Holly van Sciver.

Dearest readers, as spring is just around the corner, I hope as the small bulbs poke their heads out of the ground that life is awakening and there are gardens to plant, looms to dress, garments to sew, textile techniques to explore, and there are ideas all crashing around in your head. I can never be bored.

Stay tuned…

My work here is done…

Yesterday my latest issue of Handwoven Magazine came in the mail. I had quickly previewed it earlier in the week when the digital version came in, but this morning, I sat at the dining table, with my tea, and started to really look at what was in the issue.

The entire issue was devoted to Cutting and Sewing your handwoven fabric, and of course when I heard the theme last winter, I knew I had to contribute something. I wrote for Handwoven magazine as a regular features editor, back in the day, some 35 issues straight, so I’m no stranger to having my work in print. I knocked out an outline, and sent it off, and was pleased when they accepted it, not as a project though, which was a relief since the materials I had used for this piece were now discontinued, but they wanted it as a feature, much more in keeping with the way I write. I’ve written more than 100 articles and digital content at this point in my career, not including my blog (give or take 900 posts) and the YouTube channel, (80 videos there, not to mention 9 videos for Threads Magazine Insider). I feel like I had a lot to say, and I’m so very very lucky that there are mediums that make that content available on a regular basis.

So of course the first thing I look at when I’m in a magazine, is my article, I’ve proofed it prior to print, but that doesn’t mean things can’t go awry! Handwoven Magazine is usually pretty good, and gets things right.

But this morning, I started from the beginning, read the editor’s opening essay, about learning to sew, and becoming a weaver, and being hopeful that this issue will spark some kind of desire and skill set to combine the two. And then I turned to the letters to the editor. And there, on page 6, is a letter from a reader referring to an article I wrote for Handwoven back in 2011, and how it inspired her to create a scarf based on her trip to the southwest. The scarf was beautiful, shown with a photo from the trip, and a page from my article. There is something very life affirming when you know that you have inspired at least one person to celebrate what comes from their hands.

My article started on page 27, and of course listed my patterns and YouTube channel, The Weaver Sews in the resources. I’m hoping they are helpful for someone reading the article. (There has been a considerable uptick in orders for my 100 jacket, so I’m guessing that’s an affirmative).

I continued to look through the projects, most of them garments. I didn’t recognize most of the contributors, which means there is a new crop of handweavers sewing their clothing and writing about it and I’m so incredibly overjoyed to see this, and all of the wonderful garments they produced. As a writer, it is challenging to make something, and then explain how you did it, including the construction details, all within just a couple of pages.

I came to a project called Stormy Days Jacket, by Annette Swan Schipf. The jacket pattern looked oddly familiar, but it is a basic zip up jacket, so it could have been anyone’s pattern. There is a call out box, where Annette describes sewing tips, and there, the first bulleted item, it says that Annette recommends watching Daryl Lancaster’s videos before sewing your jacket. I started to cry. There is a reference to one of my videos specifically, the one about what to do when you don’t have enough fabric, and then, at the end, in the resources, is the listing for my 1800 jacket pattern. That was my pattern. I cried some more…

Towards the end of the magazine, on page 50, there is a project, a skirt, called Rustic Elements from Peg Mathews. It is a basic A-line skirt, reminds me of one I wore in the 70’s, with very fond memories, and there, at the end of the article, under Resources, is a reference to a PDF available for free on my website, on options to Clean Finish an Edge.

It isn’t that I enjoyed seeing my name in print. I’m long past that. I don’t get that rush anymore when an issue comes out that I’ve contributed to… But seeing others reference the work I’ve spent a lifetime developing, practicing, teaching, sharing and contributing, makes me know it was all worth it. I feel like I inspired others to do what I love most and to do it well. And seeing so many references to the legacy I have left, brings fresh tears. All of it, was worth it.

Which means, my work here is done. I feel like I picked a dandelion, well past the flowering stage, and I blew on it and a thousand seeds took flight in the wind and planted themselves for another generation of weavers! (Remember dandelion leaves are probably the most healthy green you can eat, and dandelions make a mighty fine wine…)

But I’m far from finished. I’ve discovered the joy of handweaving as a hobby and like I’ve said in previous blogs, I want to learn all the things. I want to understand structure and just make stuff. I just finished mohair blanket number 4, and there is still plenty of warp on the loom.

Meanwhile, because I don’t ever focus on just one thing, unless I’m under deadline… (see reference above to the more than 100 articles I’ve written…) I went to my daughter, who will begin her vet tech externship on the 8th, and so won’t be part of my daily weaving adventures, and I asked her to please try to organize the wood shed, before she starts work, which at the moment is impassible. There are some basic wood working tools out there, and right now, you can’t get past the door. She came back at me and said, “Well mom, I can’t really get in there to organize because all the basketry materials you harvested last fall, with the intent of making foraged baskets, are hanging all over the place…”

Well… So for me, them’s fighting words… Meaning that’s the kind of thing that forces me into action.

So I set up one of the empty 4 shaft floor looms with a cotton/linen warp, sett at 10epi. I had seen an article by Rita Buchanan in a Handwoven Magazine, May/June 2009 called Weft from your Yard. It talks about harvesting Siberian Iris leaves, and drying them over the winter. I have an abundance of water Irises in my yard, and the leaves on those babies are often close to 40″ tall. So I filled the wood shed with them last fall, and didn’t do anything, because, well the broken shoulder derailed me from any basketry plans, and actually, I forgot about them.

I laid out a bundle on newspapers, spritzed them with a lot of water, rolled them up and left them overnight in a long plastic bag I saved from a fabric roll.

Once the leaves were soft enough to work, I draped the roll of dampened leaves, still in the plastic, across a couple of adjacent looms, and started to pull them out, one at a time, and wove with them in a 1/3 twill.

For a header, I found a ball of handspun hemp from Nepal, which probably came from a weaver’s estate sale. I don’t really know how half this stuff gets in my studio.

And so, I’m having a blast, making mats from yard waste. I have to decide if I should save this year’s crop or if making a half dozen mats is enough.

Meanwhile, I’m starting to set up another loom with a turned overshot, something I’ve been meaning to play with… Because, having an empty loom makes me stressed… And since I’m up to something like 43 looms, there is always someone needing a warp…

Stay tuned dear readers, there is always a new adventure happening in my neck of the woods…

Loom gods and safe spaces…

I truly love my weaving studio, both of my studios actually, but the garage converted weaving studio is my beloved safe space, where nothing can intrude on my life and my looms know me and we have fun together. There is infinite creativity here, and I’m so very blessed to have this space in my life.

But first, the back story… Because you know there is always a back story. I’m a story teller…

When my late husband was still alive, he traveled the globe as a telecommunications consultant. When he wasn’t traveling, he worked mostly from home, in an office in a large bedroom space we strategically divided in half. I worked down the hall in this old house, in my weaving studio, which was created back in the 1980’s increasing an existing bedroom out 15 feet. It worked for me for most of my career.

I will admit that the computer gods and I weren’t friends. Back in the day, I always felt frightened of them, and found them to be rather hostile. My late husband on the other hand, had an intimate relationship with those computer gods, and I knew they loved him and behaved whenever he was around. I had that relationship with the sewing machine gods, just ask any student in a class with me who had a sewing machine issue. But not the computer gods…

It became a joke in our house, that I’d be working on something in the studio, which also contained my office, and something would go very very wrong. I’d text my husband down the hall, and ask him to come to the studio and just stand in the doorway. 30 seconds later, all 6’3″ of himself would appear and he would just stand there. And I swear, whatever was causing me grief on my computer system would instantly start working again. It really became a joke in our house because it happened so often. He wouldn’t even have to enter the room. It was as if they saw him coming and said, “Never mind…”

I even bought this hilarious creation at a craft fair for his desk. It now sits on mine. The computer gods and I have formed a truce. They miss him obviously, we all do, but we are OK together.

So in my weaving studio, whether you think there is any truth to inanimate things having some sort of soul, I can say with complete certainty, that looms, which were once part of living trees, (except the little metal Structos) and all the yarn in my studio, which came from living things, plants and/or animals, that there is a collective energy that makes its presence known. There are days they aren’t happy, and I feel it.

So in the morning, I turn on the lights, and have my smart speaker play some type of classical music, usually WQXR, NY classical radio, or if I don’t like what they are playing, Sirius XM channel 76, which is also classical. I have a few alternatives, like my Pandora account, in case I don’t like either of those choices, but I usually find something that soothes the soul, all of the collective souls, and I get to work. It has become a routine now, that I turn on the lights, and say good morning to all the looms, all 42, and then go about my day. The other morning, I said, “Good morning” and then had a thought, that the collective energy in the room should decide what music to play on the smart speaker. So I asked them. And I instantly got this blast of a voice in my head, “Strings”. Which surprised me, since Sirius XM just started a new station available on the app, called “Strings”, which I only discovered my smart speaker could play last week. So I thought, cool, “Strings” it is. I asked my smart speaker to play “Strings”, which is all violin/cello music, anything of any genre involving a stringed instrument. I started winding a warp for another Structo adventure, using my AVL warping wheel to load another set of spools, and as I’m winding this 20/2 warp I suddenly realized the irony of a group of looms asking for a station called “Strings”. And I started laughing.

I’m sure you are all thinking at this point that I’m completely losing it. Maybe I am. My daughter thinks I need to get out more. But I’m so happy in my garage/studio space, we all get along, and there is always something cool to create, some yarn to play with, some structure to explore. I’m making progress on entering my vast library into LibraryThing.com, and I’m up to 645 books. I’ve just started in on the weaving books. So much to study, explore, I really need 5 lifetimes to make a dent.

So my buddies in the weaving studio, the loom gods, keep me good company, and we collectively finished the first mohair blanket which I just had to cut off the loom. Because I wanted to see one completely finished, and secretly because I needed to resley half the warp because I put two mohair ends in the same dent. No one will know, but I didn’t want to weave the rest with that issue.

I am just so in love. This is what I remembered weaving 40 years ago, and I never had one of my own to curl up in. This one is mine. I can’t wait for winter. Meanwhile there is plenty of warp and plenty more weft in different colorways.

I have a student coming next week, for a week, for a private class in my weaving studio, and I needed to clear the loom I’ll be putting her on. I started this yardage last fall, from a weaver’s estate sale/donation, from some handpainted wool for the warp, along with some alpaca and merino, and the weft is merino for the ground and some 4 ply baby llama I bought from a knitting store. I put on 6 yards of warp, and thought I’d have enough of the llama for the weft. I’m less than a yard from the end, and have run out. So I found a couple balls of a similar weight 4 ply alpaca in a darker brown, and I’ll finish the yardage out of that. Don’t ask what I’m going to make. I never have any idea. (Except for the mohair blankets). I weave because I like to weave.

And I’m making progress on warping up many of my little Structos. These are such fun to work in miniature, and every time I set one up, I hear a small cheering squad in the background. My daughter named all the looms in the studio, and she gave all 19 Structos names of characters in Star Trek. They seem to love having personal identities. It seems to give them a soul, or at least a cooperative energy.

Here is Riker with a four shaft overshot gamp, by Robyn Spady, from a draft in the May/June 2014 issue of Handwoven. 20/2 cotton ground sett at 30epi. Pattern is 10/2 perle.

And here is Kira, with a Krokbragd warp, 8/4 carpet warp, sett at 15epi, from a project in the latest Handwoven magazine, May/June 2022.

It took a bit for me to get the courage to write this blog, because though I’m really loving my happy place, the world right now seems very cruel, uncivil, and just downright scary. I use social media when I have to, I have 2800 friends on facebook, and many, or rather most of them, I don’t actually know. Most are from the fiber community, and I love seeing what everyone else is working on, inspiration comes from many places, and no, you can’t create in a vacuum. But along with that, I have breaking news feeds from about 10 different news sources, some liberal, some conservative, some right in the middle. And the news this past week was about as unsettling as I’ve ever experienced. I’ve tried incredibly hard to keep my personal beliefs and politics to myself, because it isn’t anyone’s business, and I have a lot of students, friends, acquaintances around the world, and even family members who are passionate about what they believe and I have to respect that. As a trained artist, I’m taught to see all sides and perspectives of something, to extract out my vision, and act on it. But so much of life depends on so many factors, where were you raised, under what conditions, and in what generation. Do you have children and how old are they? My perspective has expanded having two children on either side of 30. And one is a staff sergeant in the military. He definitely has an opinion. The other is a member of a couple of marginalized groups, and so definitely has an opinion. Respect, and civility have always been my method for approaching life, pretty critical when you traveled and taught for a living. I tried hard to keep politics out of my classroom.

So this week, the US Supreme Court handed down a number of decisions that were really unsettling. Facebook exploded, and lines were drawn in the sand. And there I stood in the middle, not sure how to respond to any of it, because, though I knew how I felt about gun issues, and abortion issues, many of the people I love and respect, feel very very differently. (On the gun issue, NY and NJ have some of the toughest gun laws in the nation. NJ is the most densely populated state in the country. The Supreme Court ruling knocking down NY’s Concealed Weapon law was at first glance disheartening.) So I spent the last few days, talking to many people who pay attention but feel differently than I do. Creating a dialogue. Because that’s what we are missing in the world today. I did not take to facebook to scream vitriol, I reached out to those I respect who see life differently. I read as much as I could from different sources, keeping in mind which sources slanted liberal, and which slanted conservative. I NEVER watch cable news. Cable news is designed to scare you, get you angry and keep you coming back for more. I read. And talk to people who don’t see life the way I do. It is enough.

I will say, that in 1974, the end of my first year in college, when I ended up with a nervous breakdown, desperately trying to extricate myself from a relationship that was abusive and controlling, spending a week in the infirmary trying to heal physically, and mentally, and just get through my first year of college, that I found myself in a situation where I thought, after everything I’d been through, that I was pregnant. I have never been more frightened and alone in my life. Roe V Wade was newly passed, and I made my way to the nearest Planned Parenthood, and I’ve never been more grateful for anything in my life. Turns out I wasn’t pregnant, just really really messed up, and I began the slow process of healing. I told my mom years later, no one really knew what I went through, but to think that someone wouldn’t have that option, should they find themselves in a situation that there doesn’t seem to be any viable solution to, I’d want them to have that same set of choices. And my heart grieves that in some areas of the country, those options no longer exist.

Maybe we as a country can work together to find solutions that aren’t so black and white, because nothing is black and white in this world. Meanwhile I’ll scroll on past the vitriol on Facebook, look for the really pretty creative stuff, and keep reading and asking and having meaningful dialogue that can lead to some kind of middle ground. One can only hope. Meanwhile, “Strings” from Sirius XM is playing for my looms, and they are happy, and there is life and soul and positive energy in my happy safe space.

Stay tuned…

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun…

During the interview last month on the HGA’s Textiles and Tea, the host Kathi asked me the proverbial question, “What’s next for you?”

I really didn’t have a definitive answer, because I really didn’t know. What I do know, is that I have a studio full of looms and yarn and books and cloth, and I never tire of exploring, creating, and seeing what happens if…

I had hoped once retired from teaching, that I could indeed turn this business of 45 years into a hobby. A real hobby. Where I have no deadlines, or immediate goals, other than getting a loom set up for a coming workshop, like the one next week on Huck Blocks with Rosalie Neilson. Done and check…

Soon, I hope, the weather will be glorious in my gardens with ponds. They are beautiful now, but the weather is still very windy and chilly, and not enticing to sit outside with a simple loom, and just breathe. Every year I have this goal, this vision of life in the back yard, listening to the birds, the quiet drone of small planes overhead, and watching the fish in the pond while I weave. Sounds lovely, but I can assure you it never happens. Because I am always too busy, and more importantly, I get easily distracted and depressed by all those weeds and deeds that need attention in said poetic back yard.

Our vegetable garden is already producing. My daughter took over the gardening of the vegetable plot, and I’ve managed a salad at lunch and dinner all this week.

So what that means, is I need little looms to easily carry outdoors, and just weave. I have plenty of inkle looms. And many have projects on them. But I have a large collection of 18 little Structo looms, the 8″ wide metal kind, four of them are 8 shafts, and I have a couple of adorable 4 shaft Leclerc 10″ wide looms of about the same vintage. I had visions of setting them all up with different weave structures to explore, and one of the perfect ways to do that is with what’s called a Gamp, which is a sort of sampler with blocks of design across, so whatever you ‘treadle’, affects all the different threadings across. It is like creating a library of little designs.

There is no purpose to these for me, other than an opportunity to learn. Not everything has to yield an end product. Learning is a really good reason to do anything. And I’m in a position that I can invite in a student or friend to just come and try out a structure they might be curious about, because a loom is already set up…

So over the last few weeks, as my broken shoulder starts to heal, I’ve been really busy just playing in the studio. I’m making progress on the overshot placemats I agreed to do for a friend (this is a really good friend), and I’m actually half way done. I’ve completed three mats and only have three more to go. And I’m really enjoying the scale, working with 20/2 cotton for the ground, and 10/2 for the pattern. I thought I’d hate it, but I can weave half a mat in an hour, and I’m getting really smooth at handling two shuttles. (The pattern is from Handwoven Magazine Nov/Dec 2010 in an article by Mary Berent, pg 38).

I had a guild friend come and help me set up one of the baby Leclerc’s, with a doubleweave sampler, from Jennifer Moore’s book called Doubleweave. This is a pretty complex and lengthy sampler, and just drafting it out in weaving software is time consuming. It doesn’t look like much at the moment, but I’m actually weaving two layers of cloth simultaneously. One layer is light, and the other dark, and then they switch.

On the other baby Leclerc, I used the spools that came with it, when my late mother in law gave me the loom years and years ago. The spools had linen on them, and I managed to get them threaded and I started a linen huck sampler. I’m using the “Stuck on Huck” sampler in Best of Weaver’s, Huck Lace pg 6, by Lynn Tedder.

And on one of my 8 shaft Structo’s, I found a beautiful Shadow Weave sampler from a draft from Webs Valley Yarns #199, Shadow Weave Sampler Scarf in 8/2 tencel. I wound four spools with the color sequence using yarn I had in colors I already had, and the effect is charming. Can’t wait to sit in the garden and weave on this.

And on one of my 4 shaft Structo’s, I had my guild helper help me wind four spools in 16/2 cotton (I wind the spools using my AVL warping wheel) (this was a couple months ago when my left arm wasn’t strong enough to wind on the AVL, I’m good now). And I threaded a twill gamp I found in Handwoven Magazine, Nov/Dec 2008 in an article by Robyn Spady, pg 40.

I have three more drafts planned out for another group of 8″ Structos, an 8 shaft Quigley from Tom Knisely’s handwoven table linens, a deflected double weave gamp from Marion Stubinetsky’s Double Twist pg 204, and another Robyn Spady gamp, in overshot on 4 shafts from Handwoven Magazine May/June 2014.

Did I mention how much fun I’m having?

And yes, there is still life to contend with. I managed to film two more episodes on Monday of The Weaver Sews, one launched last night, part one. I had so many people ask about how I made the doubleweave sampler jacket I featured in my last blog post, I decided to just do a couple videos.

And yes, there is always stuff to update, and organize, and work to be done for places I volunteer for, like my guild, where I am the treasurer. I spent the whole morning on the phone with the state of NJ trying to get the Division of Revenue and the Division of Taxation to talk to each other over the official guild address. Occasionally there are really helpful people in our government, with a sense of humor, who can actually get something done. Still, it took the whole morning…

I spent a couple days updating my design journals, both tangible and digital because I realized that I hadn’t done that since before the pandemic, and I’ve created a lot of new work and there are no records of what I did in permanent places. Just lots of scraps of paper… Now what weft did I use for that fabric?…

And on a personal note. Today would have been my 44 wedding anniversary. I miss my husband, I would just love to have 10 minutes with him to hear what he has to say about the mess in the world right now. I’d probably need more than 10 minutes. We were married in the spring of 1978 in a little chapel in southern NJ. The Kwanzan Cherry tree outside the chapel was in full bloom.

When we bought the home where I’m currently living, in the early 80’s, the first thing we did was plant a Kwanzan Cherry in the front yard. It has bloomed every year for our anniversary. Never fails. Recently I had to call in a tree expert to save the tree from some fungal infection, which really brought the tree back to life, so much so that the top became too heavy and it was in danger of splitting right down the middle of the trunk. So the tree experts came back, and for a considerable sum of money, I had them bolt through the trunk, and top the tree, by about half. And sure enough, on my anniversary today, this beloved tree hasn’t let me down. What we do for love…

Stay tuned dear readers, there is lots more adventures awaiting in my studio as I plan to head outdoors for the summer, which we all know probably won’t happen, but it is still fun to plan and dream. ‘Course weaving on a small loom in the comfort of an airconditioned house works too…