365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Sunday, July 30, 2023
Summer-and-Winter Blues
Day 290: Yesterday was one of Those Days. The mind tends to wander while performing the mechanics of weaving, and I was lost in planning my next project, of which you will read more momentarily. I had nearly reached the end of the solid motif when something caught my eye. Immediately after the fourth or fifth coloured throw in the block, there were two white tabby threads crossing the same warps near the selvedge. "Dammit!" I said. "Mistake!" Fixing it would mean 10-15 minutes of back-picking, but in my opinion and practice, mistakes are not to be tolerated. With much further profane language, I set about unweaving my morning's work. When I reached the offending throw, I was surprised when the shuttle came entirely free from the cloth, the thread end dangling. Then I realized that my "mistake" had not been a mistake at all. Rather, it was where I had joined a new thread and the wefts overlapped. The fact that it was at the selvedge should have clued me in, but I had been wool-gathering. I had to laugh at myself even though I spouted a new geyser of profanity at that moment. After all, I had once made a sampler for my husband showing "The Faceter's Cuss-Code." One of the lines read, "Fixed a mistake that wasn't a mistake." Now back on track, I am halfway through the fourth towel, and the last to be worked in blue. Next up: red.
For my next project, I will be doing something I've never done before: weaving an item with the specific purpose of putting it in the Puyallup Fair next year. I will be using the same draft (it's a favourite), but expanded and with a colour change in the warp to accommodate joining three panels for a coverlet. The coloured pattern thread will be heavier, 3/2 against an 8/2 tabby. It will require 22 feet of warp, only six feet longer than what is on the loom presently. Given that I've only been working on these towels for two weeks and am almost two-thirds of the way done, the coverlet should only take a month or so to make. It won't be ready for this year's Fair, but I have plenty of time to get it done for next year.
Labels:
Faceter's Cuss-Code,
mistake,
summer-and-winter
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