A Small Bump

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Diane

Last week was a busy week. I wove off nearly 2/3 of the warp that’s on the AVL and the cloth beam started to take on that pleasing plumpness that means progress is being made. The bouts in each of the sections were getting noticeably smaller and I had already gone through three colors of weft (at five towels each color, that’s no small number) and was branching off into the greens and blues. What a great feeling.

Then, yesterday, blammo. Catastrophic hard drive failure on my laptop. For my fellow Mac users, you know it’s bad when there’s nothing but a grey screen on boot (not even an Apple logo to kindle a bit of hope). The computer isn’t new – I bought it as a refurb three years ago – but I didn’t expect that it would all happen so suddenly. And the proof in *that* pudding is the fact that my last backup was on April 12th. Thank goodness it was this year, at least.

Enter the best husband IN THE WORLD and his posse of IT dudes. They gave me (and him) a few things to try and by this morning there was a glimmer of hope. Six hours, two external drives, a SD card and lots of effort later, I’ve got line-of-sight on a few key things that I did between now and that last backup and hopefully we’re performing open heart surgery tonight to put in a new hard drive. Then it’ll be restoring, copying and rebuilding as much of what’s likely gone as I can.

Since I left the tech world, I’ve embraced all the low-tech things that I love – fiber arts for sure, but also cooking, sewing, reading, and just being outside. That said, there’s a not-small part of what I do that makes heavy use of that laptop – writing, designing and keeping in touch with friends who are far away. So, when it all went to pieces yesterday, it was unexpectedly disruptive.

Anyway, now that things are (hopefully) on the way to being ok, I could get back to doing things that are more low-tech:

The warps are wound and ready to paint, colors checked using sample skeins and that trusty calculator was just the thing for working out dye formulas for each color.  And yes, that’s the guilty party just off to the left.  It’s on life-support but just functional enough for me to get this post out.  Oh, and the spindle is there because it’s once again July and time for the Tour de Fleece.  That’s my second spindle’s worth in process (Polwarth, undyed, in case you were wondering) of singles that are destined for weaving.  Another welcome distraction when the laptop is kaput.

So, wish me luck y’all.  Fortunately, the AVL has it’s very own computer and I’ve plenty of other looms to keep me company.  I can wait it out if need be.

Posted in Dyeing, Spinning, Weaving | Comments Off on A Small Bump

The Work of Many Hands

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Diane

Back in April (I think ..) a group of us went to see a friend talk about her new book. It’s not your typical summer read – this book is about torture. About how our nation has institutionalized it and what that means to us as a society. Listening to the amazing Rebecca Gordon talk about Mainstreaming Torture was one of the most educational, and uncomfortable, hours I’ve spent in a while.

Once we’d hit the Q&A part of the talk, my friend Sara leaned over and remarked that Rebecca was going to have a tough time doing this day-in and day-out. Being on the road and having to continue to grapple with this subject was pretty likely to be both physically and emotionally draining. Rebecca’s wife would be joining her on the tour but we wished there was something we could do to help lighten the load. So we hatched a plan.

Sara is an amazingly talented spinner, weaver and dyer so she agreed to wind and dye warps that I would then turn into a shawl for Rebecca. Something big enough that she can wrap it around herself when in a cold car or cold airplane – but also something that would remind her of all of us; and perhaps give a bit of comfort when away from home. Four silk warps arrived in a box a few weeks later – one black, one gold/red, one red/purple and one blue/purple – along with some suggestions for a design. Now it was my turn.

I spent a bit of time thinking about how I wanted to combine things while up in Canada and even asked Jane for a bit of advice. Many pages of scribbling and faffing on the computer got me close. Then, After I arrived back from Salt Spring, I figured out all the details and got to threading the loom.  I had to do it front to back (not my usual way) and that slowed me down a bit, but eventually the loom looked like this:

Beamed and ready for threading.  I knew that I wanted to tone down the big gold stripe a bit as well as soften the black so I fell back on my favorite M’s and O’s structure – but on six shafts so that I could easily decide where I wanted blocks as well as how large and the unit is easy to remember so threading went quickly and then it was time to weave.

The weft was a very fine silk jaspé noil – it lent both structure and texture to the final shawl and, after finishing, added the movement and shine I was hoping for.

This is before pressing, but you can see the deflection of the warp due to the bands of floats – my favorite aspect of this particular structure.  Curved but not, visible but not.

Anyway, this afternoon the shawl went to it’s intended recipient.  Along with all our love and best wishes.  I think she’s happy with it.

A powerful woman doing powerful work.  And we’ve got her back.  If you’ve made it this far, please have a look at her tour dates and attend if she’s coming to your town.  If not, you can listen to her radio interview and then go Buy The Book.  It was work to make the shawl, but the real work is yet to be done.  Please pitch-in.  Together, the work gets done.

Posted in Books and Reading, Dyeing, Weaving | 3 Comments