Weird and Beautiful Dreams

I conked out early last night and went to bed before 10:00 PM.  I think I really needed that sleep!


Slept mostly through the night like a log.  I woke up about ten seconds before the alarm went off at 6:00 AM from a very velvety sleep.  I had been asleep on my side and woke up with Stella purring while curled up on my hip, with Frank lying next to me purring and making biscuits on my lower back.  Not too shabby, waking up while being massaged by a kitty!  It's true that they're really there to wake us up to give them their breakfast, but it's much nicer to wake up to a massage than a claw to the face!


I had dreams last night which I recall only in little disunified bits floating through my head this morning. 


In one dream Carlos and I were setting up some big art colony in Wales and were tending to the adaptives such as ramps and lifts.  There was a sense that something very beautiful was happening there.  In another dream I was seated at my AVL loom weaving some amazing cloth made of green silk and gold thread.  It was damask weave (I had actually fallen asleep reading a structure analysis of a piece of very old damask; hence the dream-weave!).  The pattern wasn't distinct, but it was damask and within the dream there was the knowledge that I had been working on a series of rich silk-and-silver/gold fabric lengths using lampas, samitum, and damask weaves.  Nice.


I've been thinking of a learning track - I think it would be better for me to actually take a course with someone in order to grok the more complex weaves.  Learning by doing is by far the most productive learning mode for me. A possible 'bucket list' of learning needs might comprise:


1) Learning to use the weaving software that will run my Compu-Dobby.
2) Taking a course in drawloom weaving at Vavstuga some summer in Massachusetts.
3) Joining a study group in Complex Weavers.
4) Learning double-weave.
5) Adding 4 additional ground weave shafts to the Cranbrook loom, and then building an extension on it to convert it into a drawloom (single-unit draw?  shaft-draw?).
6) Becoming adept at designing weaves.


I credit my weaving friend Tien with propelling me into complex weave structures; it was because of her that I was able to purchase my beloved 16-shaft AVL dobby loom last year, and that has made all the difference.  I had only dreamed of being able to make some of the stuff I've been able to produce on that loom.  Up until then, I had only ever woven on 4-shaft looms; I think I was rather stuck on that.  Nothing wrong with four shafts, of course; but how much I have learned to love diving into the complex weaves.  The part of me that believes I'm incapable of math and of logical thinking haunts my mind still, telling me that I'm too stupid for complex weaves, but I know this to be incorrect, because I've already proved to myself that I can do it.   Old tape playing.