Slothing...

I haven't totally finished winding on the very fine silk organzine warp yet.  I have just one more bout to wind, but for this entire week, probably because of the exhaustion brought on by the fallout of something that happened at the medical center last week that came out of nowhere like a stealth asteroid and hit us all directly in the emotional places, I have been massively tired. 

After all the pieces were picked up, no one had been physically injured, but it has taken me more than a week to get over it.  Even my usual solace - playing with string - wasn't helping.  I just needed to sit and process and get over it.  It's good that I have had the opportunity to do so, and to recognize the need for taking time to recover. 

This weekend I'm planning to return to the warp.  One more bout, and then it's onto threading the heddles again.  I'm also going down to Tien's this Sunday where we will try to mount the new fly shuttle mechanism onto Emmy, her loom.  It'll be good for me to see this through, especially concerning the micro-adjustments that will undoubtedly be necessary.   The AVL loom I bought from my weaving friend in Oregon has a fly shuttle, but I haven't yet attached it because there is not quite enough lateral space in the garage to accomodate the extra width and the allowances it would require.  One of these days, though.

I confess that I have also been slightly depressed after the completion of the last project - the altar runner commission.  I had so much fun doing it.  It was also a project that involved collaboration with my family, which was especially nice.  After it was off the loom, I had the kind of feeling that I used to have in high school after the Drama Club would strike set after a play - sad for the dissolution of a wonderful momentary collaboration, happy to have been lucky enough to experience it, and then sad because the 'set' was 'struck'.  An empty loom is a sad thing; an empty loom when you have neither energy nor drive for a little bit is even sadder. 

The solution, of course, is to move onto the next project.  This of course is the crimson (cochineal-dyed) bombyx mori organzine warp, which will be a sampler for using various wefts for satin weaves.  I'm also planning to weave in a bit of the silver and a bit of the gold from John Marshall. 

Another upcoming project is to make 'a little something' for my childhood pal Terri for her wedding in September.  She's given me quite a lot of leeway in figuring out what it should be, and I've decided to weave a nice silk to be used in making a petite reticule bag for her to carry in procession.  While I'm not decided firmly on that, I'm playing with color ideas.  One idea: White bombyx mori organzine warp with wefts of white bombyx mori tram and either the silver or gold threads as well for parts of the weft.  Or, in the guise of 'something blue', a medium-light blue (indigo) warp with the silver weft.  Small item, but made of the very best materials. 

And this is my favorite approach to a project: making little heartfelt things for people I love.  And one always wants to use the best of the best materials for that. 

On another note, and speaking of the best of the best, at CNCH I bought a little bit of yarn made from the bast bark of the linden tree from Ryukyu Textile.  It is quite rustic and quietly gorgeous, and has a sublime, subtle beauty even more beautiful than the finest gold thread.  I *could* weave it as weft for something, but it occurred to me as I looked at it that it would also look very nice worked as netting, or perhaps I should learn to make Sprang.  A netted grocery bag, like the ones used in France, is a neat idea, and I think I have just enough of the linden yarn to make one.  I also bought some very handsome indigo-dyed ramie at  CNCH, from the same folks, and it might make a nice combination with the golden-brown linden yarn.  We shall see...

 

 

 



I did get a lot of fibery things done this weekend, though they are mostly of the invisible variety.  Well, not entirely invisible, but...

 

From the kilogram of 30/2 I got from Tien on cones, I wound numerous smaller hanks.  Each hank is 400 yards.  This is a significant though manageable size; Diderot mentions in his Encyclopédie that the skeins should be kept 'mince' (thin) in order to reduce tangle and loss, so I'm trying this out as a method.  It's not much work winding into the 400-yard skeins.  They are piling up, glossy and beautiful!

 

I also started warping the satin sampler warp onto Millicent using the AVL Warping Wheel.  Amazing.  While it's true that I was using the WW in what may well be the least advantageous way, that is, winding a very short warp with a very high epi with a single cone, even in this way it is still the best way to go simply because the warp stays under tension.  The same steps would be used to beam a warp of 25 yards that would be used to beam a warp of 3 yards, but the design of the WW is such that I get to totally skip the scary uncertainty of moments during which the warp is not under tension.  With slippery and fine silken warps, this is of utmost importance.

 

Below is the draft I've decided on for Noemi's green scarf.  I've also decided that since I have enough silk, I am going to weave a run of these scarves - five in all, for now, and see how they sell.

 

 

Finally...a photo of young Tom Jones.  Just because.

 

 

The Runner is Finished: Next Project!

The silk dresser scarf/table runner is completed.  I finished weaving it the other day, and took it with me on a brief trip to Drytown (!), CA this weekend and worked on it in our motel room.  I darned in ends, basted a fine silk thread at each end to prevent raveling, wet-finished it, and pressed it. 

 

Of course, I could not help but weave a couple of samples near the end of the warp, as I always like to: more gold thread, more pretend gold thread, etc.  The gold thread samples came out sumptous, of course.  Particularly nice was the interaction between the gold thread and the bright green moegi color, which I hadn't expected.  And of course it looked royally beautiful with the madder red silk.

 

 

 

Over the weekend a friend asked me if she could commission something small for her upcoming wedding this autumn; of course I said yes - to be asked to provide beauty for such a wonderful occasion is always a privilege and a pleasure.  She has asked for 'something small, something that can be hidden in or attached to my bouquet-'.  I'm thinking a tiny reticule purse, or some such, or even a fine silk ribbon.  Perhaps...white silk shot with silver thread, or gold!

Of course, now that the most recent project is completed, I am feeling happily impelled towards the next project.  Next will be the attempt at making nice silk satin, and after that, Noemi's scarf.