I must report right away that after washing, the third section of the rug was about 4 inches shorter than the other two.  Dwelling on this during my commute this morning led me to conclude that I had options.  Reweaving any of the rug is not one of them.

However, I could easily remove picks from the first two sections if I were willing to remove the woven headers at the end.  This would mean that I would have to either tie a fringe at the ends or that I would have to sew on a fabric band to finish the end.  Or, I could try to come up with some method which both assures that the rag picks will not come unwoven and that is congruent with the whole.  I”m thinking about experimenting with a row or two of single crochet using two strands of warp thread together.  The benefit of this would be that I would not have to worry that the angled part of the rug was fringeless, nor would I have to worry that my headers have shrunk more in width than the body of the rug, which causes a slight deformity of puckeryness  (that’s a technical term, isn’t it?) at each end .  We shall see.

Wasting no time, I chose a draft from Handwoven’s Twill Thrills book to weave a table runner or three to test the Glimakra on finer thread.  The project as designed calls for 16/2 cotton warp (white) with 8/1 linen weft (natural).  16/2 is not an easily found size of cotton, at least not at the Weaving Works, so I am going with a 20/2.  Failing to figure out what size linen is the correct one, I settled on 40/2 linen.  Then the Dyer in me whispered “don’t you want to use some color?” and I admitted it was true.  So I ended up with a 20/2 cotton pastel blue warp, a natural linen weft for runner #1, a 20/2 unmercerized white cotton weft for #2, and a purple 20/2 mercerized cotton weft for #3.  I will sley 36 ends per inch, and experiment with treadling so that each of the runners is different.  With luck I’ll have one to keep and two to give as gifts.

My thinking is that this project will not only allow me to test the loom, but also will give me some insight into how the unmercerized vs mercerized cottons and the linen interplays.  And be slightly more colorful.

While I was in Montana I bought a warping reel, and I started winding my warp on this, using it for the first time.   It was not too bad, but the more I spun it the louder it shrieked, and the harder it got to turn.  A little bee buzzing by said “use the toilet ring!”. 

Now I’ll bet you’re wondering how a toilet ring can help a shrieking warping reel, eh?  Well, a little known secret is that the wax ring that seals the bottom of your toilet to the floor is a) very inexpensive and b) a great source for wax with which to lubricate wood on wood or wood on metal moving parts.  I learned this a few weeks ago when my yarn swift needed help.  I thought it was saying “oil can, oil can!” like the venerable tin man, but it turned out it was saying “toilet ring, toilet ring!”  I believe it knew that because of the tiling project going on in the bathroom we just happened to have one sitting around.

Sure enough, once a liberal coating of toilet ring was applied, the reel reeled happily along.  Luckily Senuhe the Egyption is still keeping me company, because at one thread at a time for a 9 yard warp, this will take a while.

You who are weavers will be asking, “why oh why are you winding the warp one thread at a time?  why not use more at once?” to which I reply, “because I don’t want to screw it up.”  If I had more than one cone of the yarn I would wind it two or four or six threads at a time, but since I only have one I think it is more time consuming to divide the supply into equal sub-supplies than to simply wind the warp one thread at a time.

And so it goes.

A complete non-sequitor:  this morning I was puzzled by an email whose subject line was “yarn sale last week”.  Of course after a second or two I understood that what was meant was “last week of yarn sale” but my goodness, don’t people think about these things?  It’s like the 1-day sale that is for Friday, Saturday and Sunday only….

The last section of the Impressionist rug is woven, and now can be popped into the washing machine. Interestingly enough, even though I wove the same number of picks in the last section as in the first two, the Glimakra does such a superior job of beating that the length is the same, though I have not yet washed this last one. Here’s hoping that the shrinkage isn’t too horrible, but even if is slightly shorter, that section will be hidden under the sofa, so only you and I will know, right? We can never advance if we do not make mistakes, so I try not to fret over them like I used to.

I have found odd moments in which to indulge in some knitting. I am using a yarn called Deerfoot, a sock yarn I bought from Judith MacKenzie-McCuin after having become mesmerized by its heathery beauty.

The pattern is the Trellis Diamond II lace pattern from Sharon Miller’s Heirloom Knitting. It does require one to pay attention but is not overly difficult. The piece will probably become a stole.

Now I must turn my attention toward cleaning up the general vicinity of the loom and then planning a much smaller project. What was I thinking when I thought I could complete a triple-wide rug in five days? I think it took three times that long! And I do have leftovers. A prudent person, wise and frugal in her habits, would use up the rest of the fabric strips. They are lovely, but I can’t stand to look at them for one moment more. If someone does not beg me for them, I will hide them away to be discovered in some distant time and looked upon with fresh eyes.

I ask leave to rant softly today.  I have two rants in mind, but I may develop more as my thoughts spill across this blog and I follow them as they roll around.  If you make it through the rants you might be interested in joining a new yahoo group.

The first is the “There Are No Stupid Questions” rant.  Really, there are no stupid questions, but only if the person asking the question has actually given some thought already to what the answer might be, and come up with no answers on her own.

For example, here is a question that anyone who attended that little thing called “school” at least through the 4th grade, in particular the subject entitled “arithmetic” should be able to answer, if not all by themselves, then surely with the aid of the modern calculator:  “If I want to weave/knit/whatever an item that is 30 inches wide, and I have 10 ends/stitches/whatever per inch, and the pattern repeat is 15 ends/stitches/whatever wide, then how many repeats will I be able to get into my fabric?”.

Honestly?  If you can’t do this simple arithmetic, you probably shouldn’t be weaving or knitting. 

Another type of question that really should be avoided is the one where you ask people to read your mind.  “What color should I use for this kalibertopic cardigan?”  Only you know what colors you like, so what you are really saying is “name for me all the colors in the universe so that I can tell you, one by one, that I don’t like it, it doesn’t look good on me, I already knit three in that color, it doesn’t go with my furniture, and so forth, and the ones remaining are the ones I’ll ponder and then I’ll make my own decision.”

A better question to ask is, “given that I must devise an ingenious textile in the perfect color to set off my antique rose and slate colored velvet sofa, do you think it would be best to go with a bright red, a soft yellow or shiny black, and why?”

Questions that make me really rant are the ones where the asker wants you to do their work for them, which includes the first question above, but also includes other gems.  In the software world, I see these types of questions on forums all the time.  “I have an assignment in my C# class to code a function that returns all the prime numbers.  How do I do that?” is a prime (ahem) example.

So, how do we learn to ask better questions?  I’ve learned to type them out with the attitude that I am the expert (even though I’m not) who would go to any lengths to solve their own problem because if the answer is not self-attainable I am going to lose some credibility in my supposed area of expertise.  Sometimes the simple process of phrasing the question forces me to think harder about what the question really is, and the answer comes before the question is entirely written.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t ask questions.  But ask them thoughtfully.

Rant #2 is all about you and what I can find out about you on the internet.  Not long ago I interviewed a woman for a position as a software test engineer.  My manager was all ready to hire her because of her enthusiasm, but my suspicions were aroused because she either could not or would not give specific answers to specific questions.  When I asked “what testing software have you used” she replied “oh, all of them.”  When I asked her to name some, she came up with one name.  So of course I Googled her, and found that she was a stripper for hire (the name was very unique, and she hadn’t cleverly disguised it for her… uh… other vocation).  Now, she could have been an excellent QA engineer and a stripper too, but… I thought not.

Now, most of us don’t have side careers that raise eyebrows, but many of you say things on the web that you may not want everyone in your life, present or future, to read.  If you wouldn’t feel comfortable saying these things in front of your boss, your potential employer, your children, your parents, your co-workers, your fellow church members, or anyone else in the world, then you’re better off not saying it.  If you think that the tattoo you celebrate and show photos of on the web can’t hurt you in a job interview because it will be hidden by your business attire, think again.  If you think that your abundant use of words beginning with “f” is just your casual way of speaking and nobody’s business it’s-just-among-friends, you may be right, but it may become someone else’s business some day.  And let me assure you, it is very, very hard to erase your internet past.  As someone recently said to me, “what you do on the internet is like a digital tattoo that you will never be able to get rid of without leaving ugly scars and that will look worse and worse the older you get.”

Truly, I am embarrassed for those people I know who say a little too much occasionally.  And every time I see the words imprinted upon the Beast With Total Recall, I cringe for those who wrote them.

Here’s another small rant:  people who have blogs and are in business for themselves should never, ever, ever, ever, ever mention their financial circumstances.  If you mention that times are hard, or you can’t afford to buy shoes for your youngest daughter, or that you had to cancel your vacation this year due to finances it just sounds like you’re begging for either business or a handout, even if that was not your intention.  On the other hand, if you mention how great business is and how much money you are pulling in, your gloating is likely to lose you business.  Be respectful of your audience; don’t talk about politics, religion, or money.

And another rant that I’ve been considering lately is that all we who create textiles must be artists.  Since we are artists, we must command top dollar for our work (if we sell it).  As artists, we are somehow above the general public and we should be acknowledged as special.  Well, I’ll tell ya… there are artists out there, some very fine ones who absolutely should be acknowledged.  But most of us aren’t them.  I am not an artist; I am a technician.  Art is all about originality and innovative forms of expression.  I imitate art; I use the principles that true artists have developed; I delight in perfecting the execution of my craft, but I am not an artist, I am at best a craftsman.  Now, if I decided to create things to sell, I would not purposely undervalue them, but I would not be so bold as to represent them as art, nor to charge the price of a gallery piece.  I love William Morris’s quote “have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful”.  The things I create fall into at least one of those categories, and that’s enough for me even if it’s not art.

Enough ranting for one day. 

I’ve created a new Yahoo group for old curmudgeons like me who have an interest in more than one fiber art.  There’s nobody in it except for me right now, and I welcome more if you qualify.  It’s called Material Thoughts (heh) and I hope will turn out to be more of a thinking/conceptualizing/sharing/innovating group as opposed to a how to/KAL/kumbaya circle.  Here is the group description:

This is a group for people experienced with fiber arts — the making of “material”. To join this group, you must have at least ten years of experience in one or more of the following: knitting, weaving, spinning, quilting, crocheting, lacemaking, tatting, needlepoint, cross-stitch, dyeing, embroidery or any other mainstream fiber art.

There is no age requirement, although you might feel more comfortable with the group if you are over 40.

Discussion on this list is not limited to the fiber arts, but fiber arts is the background “material”, if you wish– our common interest.

Humor, advice, cynicism, ideas, questions and encouragement are all welcome here. “Enablement” posts are discouraged but tolerated, and ads are only acceptable as a part of your signature line (no more than four lines). We won’t be doing ____-a-alongs, as we prize our individuality and seek to be diverse with our projects. We encourage cross-pollination, the movement of ideas from one craft to another, and the cross-training of folks into additional fiber arts.

Discussion of politics or religion is strictly off-limits.

A participation level of at least once a week is highly encouraged. At some point the group will be limited in number, so if you don’t participate, you may be dropped if the number of members gets too high.

To sign up, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MaterialThoughts/

I managed to find time in my crazy weekend (see below) to weave one third of the last third of the “Impressionist” rug, as I have begun to think of it based on the reaction of people who see it.  Pictures soon, although it is more of the same, but on a different loom. 

I’ve learned a bit about my new weaving partner, the Glimakra:

• When the beater is placed in its position on the loom, it would be wise to check that the shuttle race is facing the weaver before the reed is sleyed.  I discovered that I had hung it backward only after I started to weave.  Although I suppose I could completely disassemble the beater (which is extremely heavy) with one hand while supporting the reed (through which all warp ends are threaded) with the other, I do not wish to witness the disaster that could disprove  my optimism.  So I am weaving with the beater on backwards for this time only.
• The loom is much happier when several treadles are tied up, even though I only need two.  The sheds I get are huge and wonderful, more than twice as deep as those I’ve achieved on jack looms.  I swoon in admiration.
• If you have ever attended a weaving workshop where most everyone uses jack looms, you might describe the sound as that of several aluminum screen doors (the kind that are not pneumatically controlled by some device) slamming shut every other second, screeching and wailing and whacking the doorframe relentlessly.  My new friend weaves almost silently, the only sound a friendly soft clackety-clack, hardly enough for Rin-Tin-Tin to hear, and quite companionable.
• Because the beater is so heavy (see bullet point 1 above), the effort required to pack in the weft is negligible.  The weft sees it coming and obligingly packs in so tightly that rarely is another beat required.

So, I am quite pleased.  I now must wind 6.3 more rag shuttles, which will take approximately 3.2 hours, and then I can finish weaving this rug.  I will have used 60 yards of material (I ripped 80 yards into strips) and 10 spools of carpet warp.  Most of all, I will be thrilled to be finished so that I can put something completely different on the loom.  Yes!

In the crazy weekend department:

The company that I work for as a software developer is a global organization.  My team has counterpart teams in Houston, Chicago, Boston, etc.  In September there will be a global kickoff of the new 3-year plan.  As part of the kickoff, each team was asked to produce a 3.5-minute film that would showcase key aspects of our commitment to the customer:  focus, innovation, connection and the like.  However, we only got the guidelines two weeks ago, and only seven of the team of 25 is able or willing to participate in the film.  It must be completed by August 28th.

In the last two weeks, my idea for the film was adopted (could it be because it was the only one presented?); the script was written and edited, the actors assigned and, this weekend, we shot all of the scenes.  Amazingly enough, within our little group of seven is a former professional photographer, a director/actor of amateur theatre, and a jazz musician with his own 24-channel recording studio.  

When I came up with my idea, I was remembering what I had been told a few weeks ago at our team meeting when I delivered a presentation concerning a project at a former company that almost failed.  I introduced my presentation by telling my audience about the day a sick ferret had to come to work with our genius software architect, and how badly it smelled.  After I won a small prize for the best story, my boss opined that any story that includes animals or children is a sure winner.

So it was remarkably easy to come up with a scenario that involved… you guessed it… a poodle named Sherlock.  Later we added a Great Dane/Black Labrador mix named Max.  Getting the people to act in a natural way was challenge enough, but the dogs were more so.

I don’t know how the film will turn out from an artistic point of view, but I do know that it will garner a few grins thanks to the combined effect of a humorous script and some mad ad-libbing.  if I can, I will post a link to it after the competition is over.  The first prize is $5000, shared among the team.  Not bad compensation for a few hours of creative work, should we win it, but the real prize was the fun we had.

The book I currently listen to on my iPod while I am winding more rag shuttles is  The Egyption, a first-person fictional account of a physician in ancient Thebes.  Coincidentally, my late-night reading in printed material form  is The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, which at my current bookmark also centers around ancient Egypt.  Cue Twilight Zone music.

Have you ever thought about what clothing was like before dyeing became a part of life?  Did you know that the average yield of wool from one sheep in ancient times was no more than two pounds?  That ancient linen weavers wound their warp around pegs on the wall just as many of us still do today?  These points are made in the latter book.

Did you know that brain surgery was practiced in ancient Egypt?  That women often put their illegitimate children in rush baskets and let them float down the Nile in hopes of finding a new home, a la Moses? That there were such men as could staunch the flow of blood simply with their presence?  These points are made in the former book.

Consider how crazy one’s dreams can become when fiction (which may contain grains of truth) mixes with fact (which may contain elements of conjecture based on archaelogical digs).  One may perchance dream of sheep floating down the Nile while physicians dressed only in natural colors wind their warp on pegs that bleed until the blood-stauncher appears and dyes the linen with a two-pound brain.

Wasn’t that fun?

Switching subjects quickly:  I wonder how we could each improve our various endeavors if we applied the same focus and energy to them that Michael Phelps applies to swimming.  As NBC’s reports on the Beijing Olympics would have us know, he only eats, swims and sleeps.  It occurs to me that he is like a concert pianist…. he practices his recital millions of times, but only rarely does he perform for the audience.  That performance is the only thing that counts, though it relies upon the repetitive rehearsals that have come before it.  Perhaps we should use this as a metaphor for our fiber art and forgive ourselves all the mistakes we make in practice, knowing that when we produce an item of stunning beauty,  we have achieved our goal and furthermore, that goal would not have been achieved were it not for our constant practice and multiple misfortunes.

I am the Blackberry Whisperer.

Near my workplace there are vast stretches of spined blackberry bushes laden with fruit.  I have done my best on a daily basis to unburden them of their ripe berries, only to find upon my return that two have taken the place of each one I picked.  Whereas I once braved the thorny limbs to get to the biggest and most luscious fruit, I now have only to pick what is within easy reach.  The berries compete with each other to jump into my bucket.  They seem to know it is an Olympic year, and they have been training for both the high and long jump while their thorny parts go for the gold in the saber events

It’s a shame that blackberry plants are such a pest.  Their highly-qualified runners shoot out underground at top speed for yards in every direction, and then the little rascals sneak up through the landscape, resisting all attempts to crush their spirits.  One needs a full-time goat.

But the mouth-watering delicious goodness of a warm blackberry pie, the tangy sweetness of blackberry cobbler; the tasty pleasure of blackberry jam on hot buttered scones– these make me feel a little more kindly to the prickly parasites.

Bees like to hover on and around the honeysuckle and thistles that surround the blackberry bushes, and also on the stalks of lavendar beside the front door.  I’ve read recently that bee venom is sometimes efficacious for maladies of the joints.  I want one to sting me.  However, these bees are smart bees, or possibly just wanna-bees.  They refuse to give up their life simply because I annoy them.  I rush at them, swat them around, catch them in my palm, but they just buzz brightly and politely avoid eye contact.  So I heave a sigh and leave them to their lavendar.  I may have to arrange to visit their queen.

Life has been too busy to get back to the weaving quite yet.  With a fulltime job, a garden starting to bear fruit (or at least vegetables), the Olympic games to watch and pounds of blackberries to tend to, the loom must be patient.

The process of preparing the Glimakra loom for weaving consists of many important steps.  After threading and sleying the reed, the harnesses have to be tied to the countermarch lamms above them and then to both upper and lower lamms below.  To do the latter, I literally sit inside the loom.  I stay there to tie up the treadles to each upper and lower lamm.

If I used all ten harnesses and all 12 treadles, I would have to do 140 tieups.  Tieup is a misnomer, since I use Texsolv.   Texsolv is a polyester cord that has holes spaced every centimeter.  I’d like to hug the person who invented this system; it is easy to use and easy to measure.  Tieups are accomplished by pushing a little plastic dealie through a hole in the cord and clipping it into the hole in the treadle, harness or lamm.  Texsolv components look like this.

I spent most of Saturday getting my warp tied on to the front beam stick, and then tying up four harnesses and two treadles.  I’ll have to say that this is the best-tensioned warp I have ever beamed on.  I wove a few picks of waste yarn and then got discouraged because my harnesses weren’t going back to the correct position.  Reading more of Joanne’s book Tying Up Your Countermarch Loom, I realized that I didn’t have enough weight pulling on the lamms, so I either need to tie up more treadles (even though I don’t need to use them) or add weight to the lamms.  So, I went back upstairs to watch the Olympics.

I realize that in the past few weeks my focus on this blog (in the very few posts I’ve managed to produce) has changed from knitting to weaving, and I acknowledge that my fiber life falls victim to changes like this periodically.  Therefore, I am changing the name of the blog to reflect reality.  I enjoy any methods of creation and embellishment of textiles.  Knitting, sewing, weaving, crochet, quilting, cross-stitch, needlepoint, embroidery, tatting… all fascinating in their own way.

Knitting has enjoyed a period of popularity so extreme in recent months as to diminish my enthusiasm for it.  It seems a bit perverse, to love a textile art so much and wish that more of your friends would exhibit an interest, then to resent the fact that it becomes so popular as to be rendered ubiquitous.  But there it is; knitting has departed from being something special that sets a person apart, and evolved instead into a hobby that instigates a disturbing factor of competition in its practitioners.

The competition among knitting-related businesses is completely understandable, but the competition between knitters for bigger and bigger stashes, the compulsion to convince one’s friends to buy, buy, buy (sometimes to their financial ruin), to knit the same things in groups, to practically demand that everyone look at what you have wrought with your own hands, has made more than one formerly avid knitter shy away from the knitting community, curl up on her own couch under her handknitted afghan wearing her handknitted socks and knit in secret. 

Part of the reason for the knitting phenomenon is the fact that women have more disposable income these days to spend as they choose than ever before.  They have fewer children, and more say about where their money goes.  Some women spend money on cosmetics, plastic surgery, clothing and vacations; others spend it on yarn and knitting conferences and classes.

At prior points in history, knitting was related to the clothing needs of the family, to the needs of soldiers during wartime, or to the need to support one’s family through the sale of knitted goods.  At other times, knitting was something you did mostly for others or, if for yourself, it was an infrequent event.  I believe that in the current frenzy, knitters are mostly knitting items for themselves, but the habit of knitting is the new “church”– a handy reason to socialize and gather, whether online or in physical groups.

I have been guilty of much of this myself, and do not absolve myself, but I wonder if there are many others out there who have begun to feel as I do.  I think back upon the size I allowed my stash to attain and I am simply embarrassed.  Perhaps I am just an old curmudgeon, but all of this has turned me off from knitting (and caused me to eliminate the majority of the stash).

Weaving is also gaining in popularity, and while I encourage others to learn to weave, I will try hard to learn from the knitting experience and to treasure weaving as a craft that is stamped with my own individuality , rather than a re-creation of what others have done.

My how time flies!

The first two sections of the rug are woven. Here is the first one, the really challenging one. The first picture shows the rug before I worked in the ends, the second after (on the then-unfinished floor).

Here is the rug with the furniture that inspired it:

I would probably have been finished with all three sections by now, except that I switched looms midstream. The warp I had put on was having some problems because of its width, and I wasn’t sure that it was long enough (it turned out to be 10 inches too short when I measured it after I removed it from the other loom).

An older weaver who now has Alzheimer’s and cannot weave needed to sell her Glimakra, and so I have been learning how to warp and use a countermarch loom. I went from the loom I was weaving on in my last post to this one:

I am just now finishing the threading for the third rug section:

This has been a challenging experience for me, but rewarding as well. There have been times when I’ve asked myself if I’m crazy; times when I just wanted to walk away from this loom and pretend I never bought it. However, a recent trip to Montana allowed me to visit Joanne Hall at Elkhorn Mountain Weaving . The articles she has woven are breathtaking, and she was able to give me advice and show me several looms she had set up so that when I got back home it wasn’t nearly as difficult as it had first seemed. I am determined to get this rug finished and then I look forward very much to exploring many different types of handweaving.