More progress

The OPEN sign is up, the e-mail was sent out last evening (after considerable struggle to Get It Just Right), a few people have stopped in today.  In the end, I decided to have Open Studio both Wednesdays and Saturdays at least through the end of September.   The studio is neat and clean for the time being –- it took considerable discipline to keep nose to grindstone to accomplish it, however --  and I love it like this.  Orderliness may not be virtue, but I feel virtuous, and there’s no question that I function better when the accumulated clutter is removed.

The first section of hanging racks was installed two days ago, and there are a number of scarves and shawls hanging up now, looking dang good.  Marcia will be here tomorrow to put up the second section, which will be configured differently from the first.  This will give me the opportunity to rearrange both the racks and what’s on them when and as I wish, which makes me happy.  There are also pegs included in the design, so scarves can be draped over them or garments on hangers can be hung on them.  Lots of possibilities for display!

And it’s now time to quit fiddling around and get back to serious and steady production so that I have even more good work to put on these attractive racks.  Beulah (Big Loom) has a dusty teal rayon warp on her, with enough to weave off five scarves six feet long each.  Sally (Small Loom) is getting dressed with an earthy hand-dyed rayon/cotton warp I’m calling African Savannah, which will also produce five scarves.  I’m in the process of designing and planning a run of dish towels (which, in nearly thirty years of weaving, I’ve never done before), striped in about five colors of 8/2 cotton.  I want to have on hand some small, relatively inexpensive items which will still have my characteristic style of color and patterning.

It’s quiet here now, and I’m so enjoying it.  The first real Summer day here in the Maritime Northwest is bright and breezy outside my windows.  I’m glad to be alive and working at what I love.

Things Are Moving

It's yet another in a series of mixed-bag weather-days. I love this time of year for that reason. We get grey clouds, then some light rain, more cloudiness, and oh so slowly a shift as the day progresses to brighter light and by early afternoon or so the sun breaks through, making the last hours of the day a rich spectacle. With the grey light and the cool temperatures (high today will be in the upper 50's), there's a lot of kvetching around these parts (though certainly not in this studio) about all the dang rain and why can't we have summer now that it's June??!! For those who are unfamiliar with the Pacific Northwest, it's important to note that the reason that the predominant color here most of the year is green is because of the soft, grey, quiet rainy days for many months. And for me, those days form the perfect background for the deep and bright colors I prefer to use in my work.



Some of the decisions I've made lately are beginning to appear as done deals. I now have signage for this studio, which is located in the business district of this tiny town but is hidden away off the street. Yesterday Mikie-the-signmaker installed three signs for me which I hope will direct folks here now and again to see my work process and to see and buy finished work which will be on display. I'm calling it RainShadow Textiles, and the signs say there's a showroom. Fancy term, but hopefully intriguing. The signs look great.



The next decision was to nail down one day in my work week when I'm officially open to the public; it's going to be Wednesdays from 10:00 to 3:00. I'll also be available for visitation by appointment. My hope is that this will encourage visitors, but discourage frequent unannounced interruptions. If it doesn't work well, I'll change it. I'll send out a notice this weekend to my list of interested supporters, and invite them to come have a look.



By next week, Marcia will have the first of the wall racks designed and built. I'm hoping at least one can be installed by the end of the week; it's going to be MUCH nicer than the old clothes-drying rack that I'm using now! After all, if I'm calling this "studio and showroom" I want it to look a bit classy. Keeping it tidy but not messy will be an ongoing challenge, and above all the work at the looms needs to move forward apace.
(Image is of Bargello #2. Michael Stadler photograph)

Best-laid Plans

The day after writing the previous entry, I took a nasty tumble smack on my butt on hard asphalt pavement.  Whacked my head too.  (I’ve had a sore head, not been one.)  Primary result, after a few days of no problem, has been a painful lower back.  It’s taken considerable rest and going easy, and several treatments from my friend Bob-the-chiropractor, to put me back in normal working order, largely pain-free.  This has not been fun.  I’ve managed only abbreviated studio time, and no time at either loom.  My only productive work has been continuing progress on a lace shawl I’ve been knitting for a few weeks.  It’s nearly done.  Today, for the first time in ten days, I felt up to a short beach walk, and am hoping for another tomorrow, but must be watchful about not doing too much too soon.

It’s a quiet rainy day, and being here in my studio, mentally revving back up to my normal level of productivity, feels dang good.  Being significantly incapacitated for ten days brought up frustration, discouragement, and sloth.  It’s not pleasant dwelling with those items taking up space in my mind.  Not my natural habitat.

Tomorrow I have a couple of long-distance phone calls scheduled, one of them with my creativity coach.  I’ve been working with her for a number of years; those sessions always goose me up to a new level of excitement and purpose about my work.  This one comes at a most opportune moment.  I plan to put in a full day here, and spend part of it at the big loom, just weaving.  Merely throwing the shuttle and beating in the weft.  It should help to settle me.

Things are looking up

After several weeks of whining and wimping around about the difficulty of warping the small loom in my usual way, and being partway into the process so I couldn’t back out of it, I talked yesterday with my friend Janis Saunders (The Braider’s Hand) about her technique of getting a warp onto her AVL production looms.  Front to back.

(It should be noted here that I’m a self-taught weaver, have always warped my looms FTB because it seems logical to me, and am extraordinarily reluctant – as long as I’m working with a plain, not a sectional, warp beam – to change this practice at which I’m quite proficient.)

(It should also be noted that the reason I can’t do the warping in my “normal” way is not because I’ve suddenly become incompetent but because of the structure of the loom itself.

Janis gave me a description of how she does the job, and we discussed some further variations, and I laughed a lot and felt more than a little foolish and embarrassed.

AND ~ now I can see how to do what I want to do, in much the same way I have previously, though I’ll need to make a few adjustments to my technique which is not necessarily A Bad Thing.  Even at this stage of my weaving life (nearly thirty years in), it’s helpful, even sensible, to be flexible about certain elements of the work.

So Monday I’m going to blast away on that warp and make substantial progress.  Really.

 

Photo information

It occurred to me that readers might be curious about those two scarves -- fiber content, process, and the like. So here 'tis ~

The warp is a hand-dyed bombyx silk from The Drop Spindle (in California); the warp was 7.5 yards long, enough to produce three scarves each six feet long (plus approximately two inches of fringe at each end) by about ten inches wide. The first scarf above is woven with a fine hand-dyed silk noil, the second with tencel. The patterns are my own design, created using WeavePoint software. The threading is a 16-shaft point twill; the first treadling is a variation on an advancing point twill, as is the second but with a shorter repeat.

After the weaving is done, the finished scarves go home with me for washing and partial drying, then back to the studio for "detailing" -- ironing, trimming of threads and fringes, and making hang-tag labels.

That's it. Simple.

Making Progress

After a number of warm sunny true-Spring days, today we're back to a quintessential Pacific Northwest pattern of cool, breezy, drippy morning morphing into a windy, sunny afternoon. Two days in one -- it's a good way to enjoy the idea of living twice as long.

Progress on several fronts last week -- with my friend Marcia-the-woodworker I worked out the design and most details of wall-mounted racks here in my studio to hang finished pieces, as well as free-standing, portable ones to take elsewhere for shows. Made the decision to name my business "RainShadow Textiles" instead of merely using my name which says nothing about what's involved or what I do. Now I need to attach that name to my website, and get the site itself updated almost entirely. Beginning that this week, which entails substantial re-writing of text and selection of new images.

Loom work itself seems to be on hold while I complain mightily about probably having to change my warping process for the new loom. Front-to-back isn't going to work, due to the structure of the loom. I've always done it this way, and am feeling whiney and petulant at the likelihood that I'm going to have to learn a whole new process (back-to-front) that seems quite frankly illogical to me. My only hope right now is a friend here on Whidbey who I believe mentioned some time ago a front-to-back method she uses which I vaguely remember was different from mine. I'll phone her tomorrow and find out.

I'm going to emulate Laura Fry's practice of noting in her blog books she's reading; it's given me interesting things to track down. My hope is that mine will do the same for others.

Right now, I'm either reading or have just finished:

The World Without Us -- Alan Weisman

Claiming Ground -- Laura Bell

Listening Below the Noise -- Anne LeClaire

Somewhere Towards the End -- Diana Athill

The photo is another Peacock series scarf. Both images by Michael Stadler.

Now Spring . . . . fresh beginning

Four months have slithered by since I wrote here. It turned out that with internet service only at home, being able to sit and write in the evening with distractions, interruptions, and fatigue to impede my thoughts, nothing happened. It was simply too challenging. But NOW I have internet service here at my studio (yup, extra cost), and writing in this blog, messing around with Handweaving.net, and doing business research and correspondence can all be accomplished as part of my work day. Much better!

I'm coming out of a creative slump, aka "fallow period". Not an unfamiliar situation, but one that I am not fond of while it's in process. The best part is this phase, when the slump is shifting and I'm suddenly (it seems) full of fresh ideas and a renewed sense of direction and goals. Already I'm mostly unable to conjure up the internal sense of the slump-time, for which thank goodness. Truth be told, I've gotten a lot of reading done -- some good, some pure lightweight -- and I've spent many hours happily knitting on a number of complicated large lace shawls, some of which are finished. Eventually, I'll have some photos of some of them here and on my website.

The new reconditioned loom I referred to previously is up and running, with a handsome scarf warp going onto it -- a five-scarf series I'll call African Savannah, which should indicate the kinds of colors. Rayon and cotton, hand-dyed by The Drop Spindle. The Big Loom is still sitting with a light teal rayon scarf warp partly woven; I think I'm bored with the colors, which merely means it's been there too long and I need to get it woven off. Both looms are threaded to 16-shaft twills, and each scarf is woven with a different pattern and a different weft, so each piece in the series is unique. (In nearly thirty years of weaving, I have never done the same thing twice.)

In January, I took a three-day workshop (sponsored by my Whidbey Weavers' Guild) taught by Bonnie Inouye, whose work I've admired for years. I spent most of the time working at my computer using her information to develop a lot of new advancing twill patterns. They're all stored in this computer, which is the one that runs my Big Loom, and gradually they'll be used in a wave of new work, some of it luxury fabrics for clothing.

The photo is one of the ones taken in late December; it's a hand-dyed silk scarf, in the Peacock series.