Checked Off

Day 97: This band was another one of those interminable projects. I wove it on my Leksand loom, and struggled with warp tension almost from the start. I've tried several different warping systems, have changed the loom's rollers and brakes around to achieve a different angle on the warp, have tried using the equivalent of "angel wings"...in short, I've tried everything I know to try, and I still have warp tension issues nine times out of ten when I'm weaving more than two yards, three at the very most if the band is narrow. I've analyzed every aspect, and have been unable to figure out why the issue occurs, but in any event, end-of-the-year meant I was going to dedicate myself to finishing "hanging" projects, and this was one of them. It measures 150 inches in length and about 1 1/4" wide. I used 16/2 cotton for the ground, 10/2 for the pattern and coloured threads. More to the point, it's done, and I don't have to think about it any more.

Record Keeping

Day 96: As a young weaver...that would have been shortly after the mass extinction event which wiped dinosaurs off the face of the planet...as a young weaver, I didn't see the value of keeping a record of what I wove. Indeed, I didn't think about it at all. Later, I began keeping samples of things I'd woven with new patterns or new threads, but even so, I was not keeping track of everything I wove. If I used a rigid heddle loom, I didn't bother at all. Consequently, I do not have a full record of 50+ years of weaving, but I'm a bit more diligent now than before, and I try to make a card for each weaving, even if it doesn't include a sample. There have been many times when I knew my files didn't include notes for a project telling me how many ends I'd threaded, what sett I'd used, what shrinkage had occurred when the piece was wet-finished, and I'd have to start from scratch, calculating for width and length of a warp. Hindsight, they say, is clearer than foresight, and had I known then what I know now, I would have kept better records. It just takes a minute to weave that little extra bit, maybe not even the full width of a warp, and to put all the pertinent information on a 3 x 5 card with notes like, "Boring pattern!" or "Should have used a wider sett." We learn from experience, to be sure, but when possible, I strongly suggest backing it up with a hard copy.

Bob-bob-bobbin Along

Day 95: This was the part about weaving with boat shuttles which I thought was going to drive me crazy: changing bobbins. I had stick shuttles down to a fine science. Given the width of my project, I could calculate the number of wraps it would take to complete it, and in the case of hand towels and placemats, I could usually wind enough for a whole one onto a single shuttle. Bobbins don't hold nearly as much, and of course there's no way to know how much you've wound onto one unless you're very good with a gram scale and mathematics. Also, having to change them out often seemed to me that it was going to be an enormous pain in the neck, but as it turns out, it goes quite neatly. Fortunately, I have a bobbin winder for loading them with thread, and I can do a pretty fair imitation of a level-winder if I pay attention to what I'm doing. You still need a lot of them, but with a dozen, I'm like the red-red robin, just bob-bob-bobbin along.

Second Memory Wreath Block

Day 94: From the onset, I decided I was not going to push to complete a 12-block Memory Wreath lap quilt in a particular time frame. Rather, I'll work on it when the mood strikes me. I completed this second block yesterday and already had the pieces cut for a third. I glue-basted them to the paper forms this morning, and have started stitching the large triangles to the center. The unifying factors in this semi-scrappy quilt are the white bits and the dark green outer triangles. The centers will lean strongly toward green, and the interior triangles will be in two shades of a colour also represented in the center. Here, I chose aqua to be my "B" colour. The third block picks up yellow/gold for "B." This design doesn't stitch together quite as easily as Ring Cycles did, but it doesn't present any major issues with assembly.

Max Goes Home

Day 93: For all of having enjoyed the quiet, smooth operation of a countermarch loom, the time has come for Max to end his stay here, and go home to daddy. When Daisy arrived, I discovered why weaving on Max had been harder for me. Daisy's breast beam is a full two inches lower, and although I've enjoyed having more space in which to work, Max is significantly deeper between the breast beam and the shafts. I am a small person. No, that's an understatement. I am a very small person, and consequently, when I sat at Max, I had to keep my elbows raised to pass the shuttle. Likewise, I found myself stretching too far forward as I tried to squeeze one more motif in before advancing the warp, and that action taxed my back. While I had originally intended to keep Max, working with Daisy convinced me that he needed to be returned to my weaving partner Ed who, at 6' 4" has no problems with either height or reach. I finished the eighth placemat last night (wait...I thought I'd warped for six?), and today worked the little sample for my weaving files. That said, I'll miss you, Max. We had some good weaves in your short tenure here.

Zanshiori

Day 92: Anyone who weaves a lot eventually winds up with a collection of thrums, i.e., those long bits of thread referred to as "loom waste." Since I am thrifty and can't bear to throw them away, they go through various stages as I put them to best use. If they're long enough, they go on a rigid heddle loom or an inkle loom as a short warp, or they can be card-woven. If they're short, they get tied together and rolled up in balls until I've accumulated a sufficient amount for a zanshiori project. What's zanshiori? Literally translated, it means "a weaving made from waste thread." That's pretty definitive! Similar in philopsophy to other Japanese "waste not, want not" methods like boro, the idea is to use what you have to make something useful or to extend its usable life. The flaws and imperfections in the resulting pieces add to their character.

I've been using a lot of blues and greens lately, and my thrums jar was getting full. Since Daisy has a bowed midsection in her warp beam, I have to leave the raddle in place after winding on. This means her "loom waste" is about a foot longer than usual. After taking my last project off, I was left with a handful of thrums two yards in length, ideal for making the center section of a runner. I doubled them for visual interest, and flanked them on either side with leftover end-of-cone, end-of-dye-lot bits for stripes, using shorter thrums knotted together as weft. The sticky-uppy knots will fuzz out over repeated washings to become cute, random textural nubbins of personality in the finished piece.

Hellebore

Day 91: When a plant is advertised as having "black flowers," it's advisable to take that description with a healthy grain of salt. "Black" in the plant world is the darkest shade of blue or red which can be achieved genetically, and nursery photos likely have been taken of specimens in optimum growing conditions, and may even have been enhanced to emphasize the dark hue. Soil pH can play a strong role in maintaining the "blackness" of a variety, as can the mineral content. The most striking example of that phenomenon in my personal experience has been with the iris called "Superstition." The first few years after I had planted it, its deep purple blooms were as black as I could have desired, but iris tubers are notoriously hard to weed, I eventually dug it up, separated the roots and moved them to a new location. When it flowered the following year, the blossoms were a dark mahogany red! When I realized what was going on, I moved it to a new spot again. It was much happier there, and now produces flowers as dark as those it first bore. My "black" Hellebores are another example. For the first few years, they were as dramatically "black" as the photos in the nursery catalog. As they have depleted some nutrient in the soil, they've faded to purplish-red.