Webs – Daryl's Blog

All on account of…

My friend came to visit this afternoon. She said, “You haven’t posted in a while, I keep checking… I miss your posts…” My friend isn’t a weaver, has no sewing skills. We are musicians together, and raised our kids together, but she loves reading my posts. Who knew?… So, I promised her I’d sit down tonight and post one. And I was shocked at how behind I was on all the interesting goings on in my neck of the woods.

I made it through the holidays. They were quiet and somewhat challenging, but this is January, and a fresh start, and unlike this time last year, my shoulder is mostly healed and I’m carrying on. But January, after a couple of years break for Covid, means it is time to buckle down and do the final preparation for the Learn To Weave Class that I teach for my weaving guild, the Jockey Hollow Weavers. I spent the last few months rehabbing a number of additional small Structo looms I had acquired, and though the looms were ready to go, I had to wind 16 warps (I wind two at a time, cross at both ends and cut in half), and print all the handouts, and of course packing and loading the car. All on account of I had agreed to do this. I always ask myself why, until I’m actually doing it and I realize why I agreed to it and how much I love it.

We ended up with 14 students after a number of last minute cancellations, mostly from people not feeling well and terrified of spreading something nasty to fellow weavers. In the past no one would have thought twice about coming with a little cold or cough. But I appreciated the caution, and to my knowledge everyone from the class was and still is healthy.

So I give them each a small 4 shaft loom for the day. Most have no previous weaving experience, though a few are rigid heddle weavers, wondering what the shaft experience is all about. I prewind a warp from 8/4 cotton, in two colors, with a striped section in between, and they sley the reed, thread the loom according to the draft I give them, which has a point threading and straight draw, learn to read a draft, and weave off a small sampler of all the cool structures you can do on that point threading and straight draw. In one day. They work hard, and learn a lot.

Usually they either kindly thank me for opening their eyes to the work involved in weaving, or they want to jump right down that rabbit hole and immediately join the guild and borrow loaner equipment and become our newest weavers. I already have three who have since joined the guild. And one discovered a two shaft structo loom hiding in her basement purchased from some consignment shop years ago. It is only 2 shaft but she is on her way. These were her samples.

All on account of I did something really really dumb, something I’ve never done in 35 years of teaching, I double booked the day. Apparently back in May, I agreed to pencil in a date to give a lecture for a guild in Oregon. The same day as the Learn to Weave class. Which wasn’t officially in my calendar at the time. I didn’t hear back from the guild until the end of December with final plans. That’s not unusual, but what was highly unusual was there was no record of the lecture in my calendar. I never ever make that mistake. They couldn’t switch speakers from another month, and I’m too professional to just say, “sorry…”, so my daughter and I decided to actually film a video on the topic of What to Do with Leftovers, which was what the guild had asked me to lecture on. I scripted it, used the slides from the original presentation, and we created a YouTube video, about 48 minutes long, which I offered to the guild for free as compensation. I admitted to them they were basically doing a beta trial for me, so I didn’t feel like I wasn’t benefiting from the experience myself.

There were some technical challenges streaming the video, my daughter worked with them to try to iron out any issues. This was a guild who was not only showing the video to the in person meeting, but to those out in Zoom Land who were tuning in. That in itself presented challenges. I was on pins and needles all afternoon during the Learn to Weave class, hoping we wouldn’t get a call that they couldn’t get it to work, or something technical went wrong and they didn’t have a program. In the end, it all worked well. I heard they loved it, there was laughter all through the video, something about my deadpan comedic expressions (all my daughter’s clever editing, I can assure you) and applause at the end. They told me it was one of their best meetings. The palpable relief at the end of a successful Learn to Weave class and a successful guild lecture happening at the same time, was incredible. All on account of I screwed up.

Last year I saw this lovely project download on Webs (www.yarn.com) that had kitchen and dining room textiles, in three color ways. The structure for the striking mats and runner was Summer and Winter on 6 shafts. I bought the download and printed it. It called for 8/2 cotton, which I had a tonnage of…

It was all on account of I couldn’t see what I actually had because the cones were all stacked to the ceiling on top of the wall units four deep. So I had my daughter climb up and pass me down all the cones, which I lined up on the dye sink counter so I could start keeping a log of what I had, where it was from and how much of each color I had.

We eventually got all the yarn labeled, catalogued on little cards, and stacked back up, but I held back yarn I thought would work for the mats. I didn’t have a key color for each of the colorway choices, but I wasn’t about to order more yarn for a missing color, so I got creative with what I had. I substituted out the green for a more celadon color, I didn’t really like the green anyway (I did have that green, just not enough).

And I spent the day Wednesday, winding the 8 yard warp, sleying the reed, threading the loom, and beaming the yardage. I was weaving by Wednesday night. It is nice to know what’s on your shelf!

Meanwhile, on account of I was giving a remote lecture to another guild, also on the west coast, late last night, on the topic of Doup Leno, I decided to try to see if I could actually do that technique on one of my four shaft Structos. And so, I spent the early part of the week figuring that out, and was really pleased that not only did it work, but I really liked the fine lacey cloth from the 10/2 cotton, and I could use it as a second live demo during the lecture last night. I’m still experimenting with the cell height, but that’s expected.

And earlier in the month, or maybe it was during Christmas week when nothing happens, and there is always fun to be had in my studio, I set up an eight shaft Structo with a honeycomb structure, from Malin Selander’s book, Weave a Weave. I am having a blast with this one. All on account of I have these 30 Structo looms…

I’m sorry January is nearly over. I like this month, it is cold and nothing happens in the garden and I can hunker down and really play. Once the Learn to Weave class is over.

Stay tuned for more adventures on account of I have a bunch of looms that are naked and not happy with me, and of course, I have to update the prospectus now, for the What to Do with Leftovers lecture that has a viewing option of watching my video instead of me live on Zoom, for a lot less money! Seems like each time I do anything digital, there are 57 things that then have to be updated…

Happy New Year!

I’d just hate to call it an addiction…

It’s just that I can’t resist those emails. The monthly ones from Peter Patchis Yarns. The frequent ones from Webs. The one to me personally from a yarn company that shall remain nameless, “Hi Daryl, we are going to discontinue a product line, one we know you like, let us know if you want to purchase what’s left…”

I had even avoided opening the monthly newsletter from Peter Patchis, until a friend on a Zoom call mentioned the great yarns for the month. It is only $6. a pound. Sigh… So after filling up on one of almost every color of Webs 8/2 cotton, on sale for an OK price, and a number of $6. a pound cones from Peter Patchis, and another box from the unnamed company… I sort of panicked. Where the heck was I going to put all this yarn when it came in? I swear there is no room in the inn… And no, as a friend suggested, I’m not renting a storage unit… Can you imagine wanting to know what colors I have in 8/2 and driving to a storage unit to retrieve a couple cones? Absolutely not…

So sitting in the studio, doing odd tasks like winding cakes from my dyed skeins, a boring and tedious task, I’ll get to that in a minute, I just sat looking at my wonderful, incredible, overfilled monstrous space of a studio and it occurred to me that I could move some of the Structo Looms out of Yarn Alley, the alley behind the bookcases, to another location in the studio, and the felting supplies I have for teaching, which I’m not doing, could store someplace else.

In case you are wondering, I have 18 Structo Looms, I believe five are 8 shaft, plus I have 2 of the 10″ wide Leclerc versions of the Structo’s. Those are the greenish ones on the top shelf.

That left the top of the bookcases in Yarn Alley empty.

Which I immediately filled up with all the yarn that came in the past few days. It really isn’t an addiction. Of course I’ll live long enough to actually use it all… Stop laughing dear readers, stop laughing…

In between all that, I took that pile of dyed skeins that I thought would be pretty together, refer to my previous blog, and I lined them up to plan out a scarf warp.

I thought of calling this run “Winter Sky”, because that’s what I saw out my window, January in NJ. But then the title A Winter’s Tale, with a nod to the Bard, popped into my head, and this has certainly been a winter to tell about, what with my fractured shoulder and all, and getting this warp on the loom, especially one I haven’t put 12 yards on two beams before, I earned the title.

So, skeins have to be wound into cakes.

Cakes have to be wound into warps.

Warps have to be sleyed, I work front to back, and had to use an 8 dent reed for my 27epi, because the 9 dent is tied up with the Drunken Squares Warp, which I can’t weave on yet because my arm won’t do a 25″ wide warp easily. Note to self, you need more 9 dent reeds…

Sleyed warps need to be threaded.

Threaded warps need to be tied onto the back apron. Tensioning devices are added…

And the warp is wound. All 12 yards. I did have my daughter help, it really does go easier with two people, though I rarely have that luxury.

And then I had to rig up a way of attaching my sectional box to wind the supplementals onto the lower warp beam. My Leclerc Sectional box does not fit on the second back beam of the Macomber. Weavers are so resourceful.

Everything is now in place, second back beam installed, and I’m ready to tie onto the front.

And the weaving has commenced. I’m loving this warp. Very understated. A true winter’s tale…

Meanwhile, I cleared the Harrisville Warp I put on my small four shaft loom. I was trying out an idea, and threw on five yards. I wove a couple narrow yards with the two skeins of sock yarn I have, sett way too dense for a scarf, which I did on purpose because I was testing for garment weight fabric, and the end result is pretty cool.

I must have screwed up the calculations because I thought one 50 gram skein of sock yarn would do a two yard scarf length, but it took both skeins. So I pulled some small leftovers of mohair I had laying around and wove the other couple of yards. Both are washed, and these will eventually become panels for some sort of garment. I’m mulling over possibilities…

I’m always thinking, always thinking. Nights are the hardest to shut off my head, and especially now because my shoulder constantly aches, and I just can’t get comfortable. So I spend many hours at night just thinking…

I’ve mentioned before that my daughter and I adore fixing puzzles. She purchased a series that she adores, from the Magic Puzzle Company. We were working on one called The Busy Bistro, and I just couldn’t stop thinking about the color relationships in this puzzle. They were gorgeous. I spent many hours at night just thinking… And I have all this dyed yarn.

So I took the poster from the puzzle box and started pulling color groups, lining them up in the apron of my 12 shaft loom, which I got, new to me, last Mother’s Day.

I’m determined to get a warp on this before this Mother’s Day, it cries every time I walk by it, “Warp me, please…” I’m basing this on a fabric I did before, except I want to expand some of the design areas, to include an additional 4 shafts. This is the fabric I wove years ago, probably 10, and made a tunic out of it. It was 8 shaft. Now I have 12 to play with.

I’ll move yarns around and eventually start snipping samples on a draft, and see what I get.

Meanwhile, I found fabric to use with my 3 1/2 yards of the Rainbow Double Weave sampler I painstakingly wove off right after my accident. Of course this fabric was on my shelf, and there is a story behind it, but that story is for another day. First I want to see if this will work… Everything is hanging up to dry, and I’m loving the palette.

And finally, I got a large envelop from the US Government earlier in the week. And this just made me smile. Back when I developed the YouTube channel, and came up with the name, The Weaver Sews, and had my daughter help me with a logo, I thought it would be beneficial to have it trademarked. What a process. After a couple of rejections for technical reasons, I failed to read the unreadable directions properly, I managed, after a year and a half, to procure a real trademark document. Perseverance, a typical trait of most handweavers, paid off and I’m official.

Spring is coming, and I got out for a walk today. It was near 50 degrees. I am still terrified of ice, but I got out, bought a couple things from the grocery store, and walked home. It felt so great. Stay tuned dear readers, there are more adventures to come, and lots of yarn to play with. and lots of looms just calling for warps…

Full Days and Future Possibilities…

Once again, I’m prepping for my next trip, if it is fall, I’m probably somewhere. This fall I’ll be bouncing from NH to WA to WI to NC and points in between. To say I feel like a bit of a yo-yo would be putting it mildly. I have so loved having these last four weeks to myself, to be busy and productive and unencumbered by house stuff and contractors and children. My only issue if you will, is that my beloved Ranger is mad at me because I’m holed up in the studio most days and he has taken to lifting his leg around the house and marking his displeasure. I know he needs to be neutered, but the breeder wants to breed him once more and she owns those rights. So I have to put up with a dog who is pissed at me and give him as much me time as I can. And I have discovered what a black light can uncover…

Meanwhile, I have been working fast and furiously on updating a couple of my class patterns with details that have been requested and were sort of at the bottom of my very lengthy to-do list. I took advantage of some uninterrupted time and really dove in. Drafting a small detail like a hood on my tunic pattern is more complicated than it seems. Drafting the hood was nothing. I did that in about 15 minutes. Then comes drafting all the sizes. And while I was at it, I’ve had requests for more of a drop shoulder, common on men’s shirts, so I redrafted the tunic body as well with that option. Then I had to test it. I did it in a sheet first, and made it to fit my daughter, who is quite a different body than me, and a lot younger, apparently having a hood on everything is popular among millennials. She loved it.

Then I tested it on a version to fit me, with the drop shoulder, in a lovely wool I had in my stash, and I have to admit, I would wear that…

Once I know it is correct, then comes the fun part, not only do I have to copy all the patterns multiple times, but I have to design cover sheets for the pattern and redraw the handout. That meant another dozen or so illustrations, and then once the handout is reworked, converting the whole thing to PDF and uploading to my shop so students who want the directions for the pattern they have traced, can always have the latest version. If you have already bought a version of one of my pattern directions, you should be able to click on the link you were sent and download the latest version. It is free, and available here, but of course, you have to take my class to get the pattern. Please don’t write me nasty letters about me not offering the patterns for sale. Know that I want to, and that I haven’t had the time or expertise to do that conversion, but it is in the works. I just need to hire someone… More about that later…

And while I was on a roll, I went ahead and drafted the pattern for the combined jacket and collared vest. I had made this jacket a couple years ago, by combining two of my class patterns and a number of students jumped on it, but I had to physically help them do the conversion and there were of course no directions. So on my list was “draft Noro jacket pattern and write directions.” Here is the original jacket, woven with Noro Toiyo Lace in the weft.

I managed that last week, making copies of the patterns on Monday and writing directions, which I will say I do enjoy, and I love making those little illustrations, but my eyes were bleary and my brain was fogged by the time I got the proofed version. And there is no telling that I got it 100%. Just today I got a lovely note from one of my students who had downloaded my directions for the bias top she had traced in a class. I had added a swing dress to the pattern, and built a handout. I apparently left out a couple of critical steps, oops, she figured it out, but wrote to tell me. So this afternoon, I edited that, reprinted all the incorrect pages for the handouts I prepared for Harrisville next week, and updated the store file here…

Here is the test version of the collared jacket with zipper. This is a lovely woven wool that I bought from Mood fabrics many years ago. It worked out perfectly for this jacket. The directions are here.

I snuck away this weekend back to Peters Valley to take a class, something I promised myself I would do every summer. Sharron Parker is a wonderful feltmaker, and I had the privilege of rooming with her when I traveled to Cuba back in 2018. When I saw she was teaching at the Valley, I jumped on it. It was terrific fun. I have done a fair amount of felting in my day, but I’d rather thread 1400 ends on a loom than do the physical effort it takes to roll felted fabric. So I assumed I’d be quite sore by the end of the three day class.

Sharon actually had a lovely plan for helping get from point A to point B, the class was mixed levels and everyone had fun playing along. First we made geodes and cut them apart.

By slicing them further, and laying them on stacked batts, and further felting them into the batts, we made some lovely designs. The geodes did all the work. Later Saturday night I used my sewing machine back in the studio to outline parts and my needle felting machine to make certain areas more secure and flatter. I can still go back and do more work, something to look forward to…

She gave us each a page from a Wolf Kahn calendar, and told us to try to replicate the colors by blending, either with a drum carder or hand cards. I really worked at this to see how closely I could replicate it. I’m pretty happy with how close I came…

And then with another half dozen ideas for directions to go, I spent all of Sunday playing with wool and hot soapy water. I made a small stacked batt piece, and instead of slicing linear like I usually do, I cut into it horizontally and vertically, and loved the effect. I made a second batt, this one much thicker and more colorful, but I’m so in love with the surface I’m not ready to cut into it yet.

The scraps from cutting out the piece above got felted into a lovely work, because with wool, you don’t have to waste anything…

Meanwhile, I watched my daughter in action as the fibers assistant for the class. She didn’t disappoint. Felted unicorn horn and matching ears…

She has been up at Peters Valley all summer as the fibers assistant, and has been exposed to so much, but when I taught my yardage class up there three weeks ago, she had signed up to take a metals class working with tin cans way back in January so was unavailable to help me. Let me just say that I completely get it when she says after each class that the teacher wants to adopt her. And lucky me, I get first dibs and have made the decision over the last couple of weeks that I do need help taking my own business where I want it to go, especially after losing my beloved Cynthia who moved to southern NJ. My daughter is really really good. Of course if you have followed my blog regularly over the last ten years, you’d know that. There is a lot for us to work out, especially with the financial arrangements, and the thought that I’m taking on the responsibility for an employee and that she is related to me. Like today, when I was training her (she is between classes at the Valley and came home to help with the final prep for Harrisville), on how to create the composite handouts and upload to the eShop, she kept rolling her eyes and saying, MUTH-ER… I’m a millennial and I know my way around a computer…

One of the jobs I gave her today besides binding all the handouts, was to relabel all the Texturized Weft interfacing I sell, because when I bought another 400 yards, I got caught in the trade war with China and had to pay an additional 30% tariff on the two rolls. I knew the company who designed it was French, but the fabric actually is made now in China. Sigh… Anyway, I needed her to cut more of the Fusi Knit, and package and label, and handling 200 yard rolls x 60″ wide interfacing is brutal. Those things must weight 70 pounds. She did about two packages and said, I have an idea and she disappeared…

She returned with a bunch of poles and connections from my old craft fair booth, which we keep in old ski bags in the garage because well, you never know what fun things you can do with poles and connectors. She rigged up this…

And then after cutting another package, she disappeared again and came back with more poles, because she wanted an underneath support, so came up with version 2.0…

This is why I need to hire my millennial daughter, who is as bright as her late father, and needs to be in a position to grow her own brand and develop her own life as an artist and develop her own workshops and seminars and I wouldn’t be who I am today without the support of my late husband, and I feel like I owe that to her, she is talented and really really good. And I’ve already downloaded the classes for her to learn Adobe Illustrator which will allow her to convert my patterns, once scanned into vector drawings… Stay tuned for that…

And I’m even managed to do some weaving. The towels are progressing, and I love this pattern, from Webs, their Kaleidoscope towels, because you can change the weft and get all sorts of different effects. I think I’ve completed seven so far, on a 14 yard warp.

And I finally got the Retro Palette scarves up and running. I love the subtle coloring of this one, and I got to play with my new toy. Peters Valley had one of these and I immediately ordered it. It is a large lit magnifying glass that really helps for tasks like threading and in this case hemstitching on the loom. I want one in every room…

And because I desperately wanted to squeeze in one more thing, I made a padded bag from the leftovers from a towel run I did a few years ago. The last bit wasn’t big enough for a full towel, and the guild show and sale is coming in a couple months, and I have a lot of scrap to get creative with…

Stay tuned…

Heddle Wars…

This has been a rather tough week. Not for me. I’m fine. But in a series of really sad, and horrifying events, accidents, deaths, unwanted health diagnoses, and other calamities, none of which I have any control over, it has been rather tough to carry on as if everything in the world is fine. Sunday alone I went to two visitations at local funeral homes. None of these events are my stories to tell, but my heart is broken for my friend with a cancer diagnosis, my other friend who lost her father, and a pretty horrific event that, if you live in my area, you know about, and if you don’t, you don’t want to know about, all of which has left me distracted and in mourning. And there is my daughter. I haven’t said much about her issues, again it isn’t my story to tell, but she is struggling with her own health diagnosis. She has left her job to reevaluate her life, and is living in my basement now, safe, but lacking focus and purpose. She will be OK, of that I’m confident.

When my husband was dying, one of the only things I could think of to keep my brain from exploding with grief, was to steal away moments in my studio and calculate the most intense fabric design, one that even I had to struggle to execute but honestly it kept me sane. It is the banner fabric across my facebook page. If you read my last couple of posts, you know my goal was to fill all of my beautiful looms with colorful cloth because they have been naked for way too long. My original 45″ 8 shaft Tools of the Trade loom from the 70’s had been given to my daughter when she moved out a couple of years ago, which left me with glorious space and room for all of my textile-y things. When she moved back in, she brought the loom back and a second one almost identical which she picked up for $350. That one got shoved in the guest room. So between us we own 9 Tools of the Trade Looms, manufactured in the 70’s – 90’s. The great thing about having 9 of the same brand loom is that all the parts are interchangeable. Which gets to the meat of the story.

Because of my daughter’s health issues, and work schedule and general life style, she had slowly gotten away from the things in life that brought her joy. I know how it happens, and I suspect dear readers that this kind of situation has happened to all of you at some point in your lives, and sometimes, many times throughout your life. I just got off the phone with a coordinator for Florida Tropical Conference which is happening in about two weeks. I suspect that every person who has ever coordinated a conference has gotten so far away from the simple things that bring you joy, reading a book, designing a project, setting up a loom, knitting a scarf, whatever, that suddenly they, actually we, find ourselves rudderless drifting in a stormy ocean with nothing to ground us. I would look in my daughter’s eyes and see nothing. There were no lights on. Rudderless…

Having left her job for a bit of a sabbatical shall we say, mostly to get her health back on track and to finish school, she woke up last weekend and I reminded her, having just updated the schedule on one of the guild websites I maintain, that the guild challenge was due in April. She looked at me aghast. When she signed up last year, life looked very different. Suddenly her eyes sparked and the lights went on and she dove into her basement dwelling and came up with her laptop, weaving software and the plans she had shelved for her challenge project.

Meanwhile, I needed to dress one more loom, my 36″ 8 shaft Tools of the Trade also sat naked in my studio. It was depressing every time I entered the room. And so it began. I came up with a really complicated warp design, spent hours with my weaving software. She wound her 12 yard warp using my mill (hers is packed in the attic) while I used a small 4+ yard warping board propped on my ironing board. I was building my cloth around a 4 1/2 yard warp I had obtained in a Kathrin Weber Dye Class. I’m not sure if I dyed it or if Kathrin did as a demo, but there it sat and it was my trusty assistant who said, “When are you going to use that warp?” I pulled all kinds of things from my shelf, including some cupcake dyed skeins I also did in that class. For those who are curious, cupcake dyeing is where you wind a ball on a ball winder, and then pop it in a deli container with about an inch dye and let it absorb into the ball. Flipping the ball over and putting in a different color makes some great effects. I wound a total of 11 warps for a cloth about 32″ wide. Most of the warps were rayon, and very slippery rayon, the kind that you have to really keep under tight control, and then of course, my daughter’s cat had to be in on all the fun. I won’t bore you with cat photos, they are all on my facebook page.

She had a narrower warp, dishtowel width, so she finished before I did. Next step before sleying the reed is to find out if you have enough heddles. Those are the wire things with eyes on each of the shafts that the warp ends go through, which allows you to create patterns. This is where the story has a bizarre twist.

Sidebar: I’ve had trouble with my smaller Tools of the Trade looms, and breaking warp beams and brakes because I load too much on them and require too much torque to get the tension I like for weaving. My little 25″ looms weren’t probably designed for 12 yards of warp. I had done some alterations to the brake on one of the looms and had the bolt shear off. Some of this is because hardware from other countries is getting cheaper and thinner and not able to withstand what I need said hardware to do. But I digress. I have a number of sectional beams in addition to standard beams for my small 25″ looms, which are of course interchangeable. The sectional beams have more substance but the kind of warp I’m putting on doesn’t work well on a loom with no packing. Too much variation in the warp threads. I got the idea a number of years ago to pull the sectional pegs from one of the warp beams and use it as it if was a standard warp beam. In the photo you can see a second warp beam still with the pegs and the upper one has had the metal pegs pulled out.

It worked well for what I needed, except when the bolt for the ratchet sheared off, and I had to replace it with the original handle. It is hard to tighten a beam with 12 yards of warp and paper packed on it with that little L shaped handle. I would have much preferred a ratchet like on my large looms. Meanwhile my daughter had moved away with my large Tools of the Trade, for more than a year and I had the room renovated and bookcases installed and a lot of detritus tossed in the process.

I got the idea that if I could put the perimeter metal pegs back in, it would give me a better grip on the beam when I wanted to tighten it. So I went to find the pegs. I remember storing them in a container, a small basket I thought, and though the room had been redone, it shouldn’t have been hard to locate that container. Gone. I’ve been searching for two years for that stupid container of pegs. I don’t lose things. I’m fastidious about cleaning up after myself, putting things back in their place, and if I wasn’t, I could never do the job I do traveling around and having everything I need to pack right at my fingertips.

Fast forward to last weekend…

My daughter was removing the shafts from the large loom to count the heddles on them. She needed about 700 heddles for her project. So each shaft got pulled, and she started the count. She had developed a counter weight system for the project she had previously been working on using suspended film canisters on the front shafts, filled with whatever, pennies, I had no idea. She needed more weight on the front shaft for whatever she was doing, I didn’t much pay attention because the loom wasn’t with me for the last couple years.

She started peeling off the pink duct tape wrapped around the film canisters and cried out, “OMG”! I looked over and there, stuck to the duct tape wrapped around each of the film canisters were all of my missing sectional pegs. All of them. She had pulled them off the shelf a few years ago, needing additional weight and never happened to mention it because, well why? I wasn’t sure whether to kiss the earth in celebration for the return of something I definitely needed for this new run of scarves, or to kill her. There are no words.

So at this point, I’m beginning to count my heddles as well. I need something like 1200. It was pretty obvious that between us, we did not have enough. All of our nine Tools of the Trade Looms use the same 10 1/2″ inserted eye heddles. But all of them were warped with the exception of one of the table looms which I was keeping in reserve in case I need an emergency warp for an article I’m working on. There were extra heddles on the other looms, but they can’t be removed once the loom is warped. So I ran to the internet and knowing WEBS ships pretty quick, I ordered another 400. I hadn’t gotten notification that they had shipped, and it is now Thursday and I’m getting desperate, we were battling for who got the heddles, there were enough for one of the looms but not for both. I called them, and the order hadn’t been shipped, and wasn’t going to be shipped until the following Tuesday, so I added another 200 and spent a ridiculous amount on overnight shipping which still meant that the heddles wouldn’t arrive until Monday because unlike Amazon, UPS doesn’t deliver on weekends. We are getting so spoiled!

Meanwhile we did what any self respecting couple of desperate fiber artists would do, we stripped the poor remaining table loom of all of its heddles. Poor thing. We had enough to get us going and when the heddles came in yesterday, I carefully put the table loom back together and all is well.

So I sleyed my warp…

Then I threaded it.

Meanwhile she was all warped and starting to weave.

Then I beamed my warp. It is so luminous, shimmering and just plain pretty.

And now, my 36″ loom has a pretty four yards of warp for a fabric that will one day become a garment, but first it has to travel around, I just got an email that Peters Valley needs a faculty piece from me for the summer faculty exhibit. So I have to get cracking on the weaving…

And Brianna’s dishtowel warp which is built off a photograph my husband took at Baltimore Inner Harbor of the beautiful lights reflecting on the water in the Harbor, is on its way as well.

Stay tuned…

They made me do it…

Wow dear readers, lots to catch up on!

It is snowing. Before Thanksgiving. Sigh… Sorry everyone, I don’t care what side of the political fence you sit on, but weather patterns are changing rapidly and it isn’t a pretty thing. My heart bleeds for all those who lost everything between the devastating hurricanes this fall and the wildfires on the west coast, storms seemed to be vying for cable news attention in a big way. Knitting was cancelled tonight for bad weather. We shouldn’t be having snow days in November, not in NJ. I have always joked that one day NJ will no longer be here and that the Delaware River will be beach front property, but I didn’t think I’d be seeing it in my lifetime, or my children’s lifetime.

That said, I’m doing what any self respecting fiber enthusiast would do, I’m making stuff.

First off, my guild held its annual show and sale this past weekend. The guild did really well. Which is a wonderful thing. I’m the treasurer, I do numbers. This will help with our wonderful programs, two of which were rebooked from snow events last spring, which blew our budget this year, which I wrote, and we haven’t reached December yet! In a last ditch effort to have something to sell, I made two totes out of scraps from one of the last handwoven garments I made, currently on exhibit in Asheville at the Blue Ridge Fiber Show. I made two, forgot to photograph the second one, it was nearly identical, and both sold to the same person in the first hour of the show on Saturday. This person, who has bought a ton of stuff from me over the years, loved that they were the same but with different color linings, and bought both for two different sets of files. Go figure…

When I was in CT filming video for Threads magazine a couple weeks ago, I had partially made five garments to illustrate specific techniques we were going to be filming. I have since finished two of them, and have already worn both and am enjoying the newest additions to my wardrobe.

The first one is this lovely pencil skirt, from an old Vogue pattern 8677; I’ve made it before. It has a high waist with waist stays, which I made from plastic cable ties with the box end cut off. The skirt is really comfortable. It is made from a Ralph Lauren cotton I picked up in Nashville a couple years ago, and the skirt is completely underlined, which was the point of the video I was shooting.

The second garment I finished up in the evenings at the OBX retreat last week, or was it the week before! This is a quilted cotton vest, with a raw silk lining on the inside, trimmed around the perimeter with bias cut linen strips. There is a thermal interlining between the layers and it is toasty. The vest is supposed to be reversible, and I trimmed it that way on purpose. The video I designed it for was specifically for illustrating how to bind off a perimeter edge, miter corners, and join the two ends together. There was a lot of handwork on this but it is really fun to wear. The pattern is from my class patterns, the collared vest.

Speaking of…

Because of the number of patterns I offer, when I teach a class like I did in Reno, and like I will be doing in Wisconsin in a couple of weeks, the biggest takeaway I got was that I need to present the patterns in a way that people can keep track, of what goes with what and what pieces are needed for each silhouette. I’ve been mulling this over for a long time, and making notes, tweaking and reworking because once I assign a number to a piece, and write it on, I can’t change my mind without retracing the entire pattern section. Just to let you know, in a class where students are all tracing different things, I have 9 different silhouettes, with multiple views, and multiple copies of each of the half dozen pattern pieces in that particular silhouette. We are talking hundreds of pattern pieces floating around. Things get put back in the wrong envelopes, and in the case in Arkansas where space was tight, students were falling all over each other trying to find the next piece they were looking for. I know it is an issue. I have additional silhouettes in mind, but had to first get control of the pattern situation.

So this is what I came up with. Each of the silhouettes will now have a hundred number to identify beyond the description, and each pattern piece will be numbered accordingly. Plus each pattern envelope will have an image and description of what’s in there, with a line drawing of each pattern piece and the match points clearly marked. I have four of the nine silhouettes completed, at least that envelope part, but I won’t write on the actual patterns until I’m really really really sure! Even this morning, I looked at what I had done yesterday and found mistakes. This kind of task takes a lot of proofing. A lot. And still, I know I’ll get something wrong. But my wonderful students don’t hesitate to point out when I do! (Which I’m really really grateful for. Really)

Please don’t write and ask me if I sell my patterns. I do not. I can’t. Not yet. Mass producing these for sale will take a whole other block of time, research and investment and that will be a goal down the road when I give up teaching but for now, these are for student use in my workshops.

Meanwhile, the latest issue of Threads Magazine is here, issue 200, a very big milestone in publishing. I have an article about Crocheted Edges in the Embellishment Column, four pages. Great technique for handweavers. I also shot a video of the techniques which will come out sometime next year.

Because time is getting close and I’m an overachiever anyway, I needed to get my holiday towels on the loom so they can be woven off by the first holiday party, which is coming up right after I return from Wisconsin. I’ve got this… While I was in Arkansas, Debbie the owner of Red Scottie Fibers and I spent a lot of time talking about Bockens Nialin Cotton and Linen vs Brassard Cottolin, which I can get from Webs much cheaper. Though I don’t want to come across as cheap, these towels are all gifts and I’ve never had a problem with the Brassard Cottolin, and its Webs American predecessor Valley Yarns Cotlin. They both made nice thirsty towels. I decided to see what all the fuss was about, and bought the Bockens, which is Swedish, from Debbie and will report back what I find, though I won’t be able to say how good they are to use or how absorbent they are because they aren’t for me. So if you are on my list this year, you know who you are, you’ll have to give me feedback on the more expensive yarn. So far, winding the warp was a dream, the yarn is smooth and clean. I’m using a draft I picked up at Webs awhile ago, for their Cabana towels. The towels are woven in a mock basket weave, and look to be quite dense and lofty. We will see.

The biggest thing is to keep the cat away from my 11.5 yard warp. That would not be pretty. I’m getting use to this cat thing, which my daughter brought with her when she moved back home, and I can’t trust it to even leave my charging cords alone. I just got this one with my new tablet. We hadn’t treated it with BenGay yet, which is supposed to keep cats from chewing phone chargers. They cost about $17 to replace from Samsung, ask me how I know that, and they are specific for fast charging. The things I learn that I wish I didn’t have to know…

So dear readers, stay safe in this first winter storm of the season, to my fiber friends in California, there are no words to describe how my heart bleeds for all of you. To those who have lost homes, studios, businesses, animals and even loved ones, this is a cruel world and I hope that in all this pain and darkness we find a way to come together as one family.

Stay tuned…