Monday, August 26, 2024
And Now, Twill
Saturday, August 24, 2024
Under Pressure
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Reflections on Failure
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Failed Experiment
Monday, August 19, 2024
Reflection
Maybe it's all the health issues I've been having for the past while. Maybe it's the fact that the high school reunion will be happening next month (and I'm not going, even though I still live in the same town I grew up in - because I don't 'do' large indoor gatherings - because Covid), maybe it's just that I've reached 'that' age.
Maybe it's the fact that I wrote a 'memoir' last year and published it this year. Maybe I just never grew out of the 'what's it all about Alfi' stage and I've always kind of, sort of, wondered why I'm here and what I'm 'supposed' to be doing.
I certainly have not chosen a life that society deemed was appropriate for me. And even now there is a huge slice of the population trying to tell me again that - because I'm childless, old, and broken - I'm useless.
What value do we put on life? Anyone's life? Is ours the most valuable? Maybe. Mine is certainly of value to me. But is it of value to others?
Covid has caused a lot of people to ask themselves how much they care about themselves, and others. And some of them just don't.
Climate change is another turning point - literally. On the news nearly every night there is a litany of 'unnautral' disasters - flooding, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, landslides, sinkholes, diminishing glaciers, rising seas. And every single night, the big 'news' is how governments are going to mitigate the damage, and never, not once, does anyone say 'wait, maybe, just maybe we should be working at fixing the problem instead of the symptoms'. Instead one politician is stumping around Canada (and why is he doing that, he's not supposed to start campaigning until the writ drops) chanting Axe The Tax!
I'm far too old now to care much about what others think of me. Maybe because I chose a different path while in my 20s and abandoned society's expectation that I would have 2.5 children, keep a spotless home, have a 9 to 5 job that was killing my creativity/soul.
I watched my father die slowly from a nasty cancer, far too young. And I asked myself, was I willing to put nose to grindstone and do what was expected of me or was I going to feed my soul and do what *I* wanted.
It didn't hurt that I could joke about it. After all, you have to be warped to weave, right? So I embraced that.
I chose the road less travelled. What I didn't expect to find were so many others who also found that road less travelled more interesting than what society had deemed imperative.
As I look back on my life, I have done more, accomplished more, met more people, been more places, than a blue collar kid growing up in the middle of the province had any reason to expect.
Regrets? Well, I have a few, but I suspect that had I NOT chosen the road I did, I would have been a very unhappy person. Instead I have helped, encouraged, and promoted others. I have tried, in every way I could think of, to teach others, point them in the direction of more information when I could not provide an answer myself. And every day, I get to create something new. Something that has never existed before. I focus on creating things, not destroying them.
And all in all, that seems like enough, even if I have to do it at a much slower pace than I used to be able to maintain.
Stay warped, my friends.
Sunday, August 18, 2024
Picking Away
Am making my way through the current warp. Today I will cut off and re-tie and then it should take about 5 more days to finish the warp off. So, it's time to start planning the next.
I have enough fine linen for about 6 warps and the current warp is #2, so I have some leeway to experiment and explore more of the fancy twills I enjoy so much. This draft is a fairly plain one (so to speak) because I'm still dealing with uncomfortable pain levels that interfere with my sleep and therefore my brain is a leaky sponge. No point in doing anything particularly difficult and invite catastrophic 'mistakes'.
This is based on a counter change kind of motif although changed somewhat in order to make it different from other iterations.
One of the things I enjoy doing is designing cloth with motifs that break out of the linear - undulations, to my mind, give a flow to the cloth. And of course twills are more flexible than plain weave.
The challenge right now is that the linen is stiff and a lot thinner than the 2/16 warp, so I have been adding a bit of plain weave into the tie up which gives the cloth more stability. So far I'm liking the results, so we'll see how this new one does.
The colours will be the darker blue and the green for warp with the white linen weft.
On the writing front, I will be reviewing the 2nd article in the next few days. I find giving myself some mental space before I try to do revisions gives me better perspective. And another reason why I'm trying really hard to not run myself headlong into the deadline but get everything done in plenty of time. Then the editor can decide if they are satisfied or if they want more changes, or more samples, or...whatever.
I also need to do something about a current headshot for the magazine. I truly dislike photos of myself but the only ones I have are years old by this point and it's time I did a new one.
In the meantime, I have one more towel to weave today, then cut off and re-tie. And then if I have spoons left, I had a light bulb moment about how to illustrate what happens to the cloth when it gets compressed in the wet finishing. Perhaps I will have the energy to begin setting that experiment up?
TBD.
Friday, August 16, 2024
Clean Up Time
Writing several articles on various topics over the past 2.5 months means I've pulled a lot of resources out and now need to put them away again. As part of my dive into my library, I had a stack of Handwoven Magazines that also needed putting away. This morning I sorted through the pile and pulled out the ones that had articles I'd written in them and set the rest aside. I may offer them for sale. We have some new weavers who may want to beef up their libraries. Or not.
I'm letting the current article 'rest' for a few days so that I can have some perspective on the text. I've already read through it several times, plus had a friend alpha read and catch more grammar oopsies.
Yesterday I got the contract to write another article. The due date is December, but I'm not going to wait very long before I start on that. It's short (400 words) so I'm going to have to be really concise and clear in what I write. Plus I've stuck my hand up to write a 4th.
We continue to have a smoke pall over us. It's 'better' this morning after some rain, but still not great. I have zero plans or incentive to leave the house. I have library books to be picked up but Doug will likely do that for me since he has to be out and about today.
It's halfway through August and frankly I'm ok with autumn arriving whenever it does. I rather suspect that this winter will be a repeat of last - zombie fires that sustain themselves over the winter and spring back into life when the warmer weather comes. At least we are below 400 fires now, but still...
We are truly well into the 'find out' part of climate change. Weaving may become a survival skill again?