debor049

Someone asked me why I chose to use the Leclerc Fanny instead of the AVL for the place mat warp. Looms, like cars, have different features - different advantages and disadvantages. When I design a textile I generally do so with which loom it will be woven on in mind. Let's take a look at the two looms and compare them. The AVL is a 16 shaft loom, 60" weaving width, has a computer/dobby interface, four box fly shuttle, auto cloth advance and two beams, both of them sectional. The Leclerc Fanny is a roller type counter balanced loom with four shafts, six treadles and 36" weaving width with a plain warp beam. This line of place mats lends itself more to the Fanny than the AVL partly because it needs to be firmly beaten, partly because I wind warps 10.5 meters long, using two different hues/values in the warp.  I change things as I find appropriate, given my 'taste' on the day I'm winding warps, partly due to what has been selling.  Each warp produces one table ru...

Someone told me that my last blog post didn't make any sense, so I will try again. If, as part of tying off your warp chain you tie the four 'arms' of the cross (X), untie them before you begin spreading the warp chain to the width required in the reed. In this photo you can see how I've tied in four places, one on each side of the lease sticks on the 'top', one each side of the lease sticks on the 'bottom'.  (If you can't see the entire photo, try right clicking on it and open in a new tab to get the full version.  Blogger seems to be cropping photos in ways that don't show the entire picture.) If these ties are not removed, they will prevent the threads from spreading out to the width needed in the reed. Hope this makes more sense.

View from beneath as I rough sley Just a reminder that if you tie off all four 'arms' of the cross to remove all four ties before doing anything about spreading the warp to the width in the reed. I don't tie the waist of the X because I find it compresses the yarns and makes it more difficult to select the yarns in their proper order for rough sleying.  So I tie the 'arms' of the cross instead. Yesterday I finished weaving the samples for Tien Chiu  and will be sending them to her next week.  This completes the weaving I have been doing for her.  The last colour blanket was woven in 1:3 twill on my roller type counter balanced loom.  Yes, you can weave an unbalanced weave on such a loom, even without the shed regulator, if you sink the three shafts.  The shed was large enough I didn't even have to change to a low profile shuttle, just used my usual standard Leclerc shuttles. I seem to be more or less recovered from all the travelling I have been doing and w...

One of the aspects of the Olds College Master Weaving program is being able to mentor the people going through it.  Mentoring students is just an extension of teaching.  It is a loosening of the student/teacher relationship, offering guidance and feedback.  A recognition of the fact that they are growing, learning, becoming independent of the student/teacher aspect of two people, both passionate about this craft we call weaving. As part of my role in the program, I have made the decision to teach myself out of a job, so to speak.  Preparing the soil for other seeds to take root and grow.  As such I have agreed to mentor one student through the fifth level - the independent study.  Apparently the college is very close to publishing the requirements for that study, so hopefully those people poised to enter this final stage will be able to get the bit between their teeth and dig in.  (Mixed metaphors, but oh well!) The older I get the less and less I am c...

As a child I wanted to write.  I dabbled in fiction, poetry, but nothing really gelled.  Not until I started weaving.  And realized that my 'story' was the story of textiles. One of the advantages of the Olds program is that we get to tell each other our stories.  We get to share our experiences.  We get to know each other as people, as well as weavers (spinners, felters, etc.) My opus major was Magic in the Water , but I have been writing for publication for many years.  Perhaps too many?  I recently told someone I'd been doing this for almost 50 years, but I was wrong.  It's only been 43 years.  I was tired and my brain blipped.  But however many years it has been, weaving has been part of me for many more years than I wasn't a weaver.  Or maybe I always was, and just didn't know it. Weaving is integral to my well being.  My mental health.  My core as a person. As we finalize the details for the conference , I am beginn...

Remember this from a while ago?  There is no longer a heap of boxes, bins and suitcases on my living room floor. Well, there wasn't - until Doug unloaded the van.  Now the pile is heaped high again and tomorrow I will try to sort, sift and hopefully put away as much of it as I can.  At least it is less than it was - the class materials were handed out, the seven boxes of homework returned. Last night I could not, for the life of me, get to sleep.  I drove home today on about 2.75 hours of sleep.  If I could have slept in I might have gotten more, but everyone had to be up 'early' to begin their journey home. What with one thing and another I wound up taking very few breaks and managed to stagger in the door in just under 12 hours from the time I left.  There was rain (not too hard today) there was road construction (Canada's second season - winter and road construction), there were delays due to several large (huge) oversize loads - all of which slowed traf...

All over but the packing. Once I get home I have a ton of stuff waiting to be done.  Time to plough through them, one at a time. I am so looking forward to being at home for a while.  Conference, book, inventory, all have been waiting patiently for me to get through to this point of the year.  Time to tug on the bootstraps and dig in.

Another class, another hump day. One nice thing about the Olds College is that it is a nice campus with gardens and a wetland area where students can go to pause, reflect, refresh themselves. The first few days are chaotic and overwhelming.  I'm throwing a lot of information around, and some of the students have not encountered my firehose of information before.  It takes a while to sort out in their minds what they need to do and it all feels like too much, in too little time. But bit by bit they are working on the in-class assignments and - in spite of what they think - they are making good progress. I watch them work, explore, discover and revel in the light going on as they begin to understand the immensity of the craft and begin to feel they can grasp the principles. Since we are always hardest on ourselves, they may not see the progress that they are making.  But I do. The language of weaving is often confusing, too.  There are inconsistencies between authors....

Mary Lessman  is a master spinner (Olds College Master Spinner program), weaver and now - as of today - a blogger. She has been toying with the idea of starting a blog for a while now and today I 'forced' her to sit down at my desktop and get 'er done. Mary is also one of the instructors for Confluences .  She will be doing a two day workshop on dyeing with nature dyes, plus seminars. Tomorrow we hop (crawl, maybe) into the van and head for Olds with stops at the Ancient Forest and Mount Robson along the way.  Stay tuned for more of her adventures as she travels the US teaching spinning.  And maybe a wee bit on her adventures as a student in the weaving program, too. 

Olds Fibre Week, here we come!   Well, soon.   We will be staying in the condo unit, four of us sharing a kitchen.  Problem is, the kitchen doesn’t have anything in it other than the standard stove, fridge and a microwave.  So, in addition to this heap of student homework from last year, class materials and supplies and my personal stuff, I will be packing dishes, cutlery and some food staples.  We will buy produce when we get there.  What you can’t see in the photo are the small flat bed press, because wet finishing, and the portable warping valet.  Which reminds me, I need to add warp packing for the group warp.  Details, details! Mary is traveling light with her large suitcase, small carry on and...her ukulele.  She has joined the fraternity of players and enjoys her practice time in the evening. (She keeps trying to get me to sing, but...) Several of my guild mates are attending this year, too, and will be promoting the ANWG conference we...

The level two students at Cape Breton were obviously well indoctrinated during level one and very quickly on day one someone suggested that every time I answered a question prefaced with the words "It depends" that everyone got to take a drink. We very quickly increased our caffeine intake! Because almost every weaving question requires those words, it depends, before the specific circumstances of what the question is asking is defined. Almost every part of weaving lands on a spectrum.  Indeed, sometimes the distance on that spectrum is large.  Very large.  Because change one thing and everything can change. The Cape Breton level ones are threatening to have my 'Laura-isms' tattooed as a way of remembering.  Not something I suggest, by any means, but... And this is what I really love about teaching the Olds program - I get to delve into all the 'it depends' aspect of every question.  I am heartened by the people interested enough in the program to invest their...

Three flights to be exact.   My first flight leaves Sydney at around four pm.  First hop to Toronto, then Vancouver, finally home at midnight, or, as my body will feel it, 4 am.   I only have 50 minutes in Vancouver so I am anxious about a delay in the first two flights.  But if all goes smoothly I will crawl into bed ASAP I stagger in the door.   Mary should be waiting for me at the gate in Vancouver so we will be on the same flight.  Sunday will be a rest day.  I’m hoping I can get more than six hours sleep, which is about what I’ve been getting for weeks.   Both classes seemed to go well and dates for next year have been chosen.   The program continues to grow as more people find out about it.   I have a pile of emails waiting for action regarding the guild and the conference, medical appointments, repacking my suitcases, loading the van with class materials and kitchen stuff for our stay.  Then hop into the van and drive to Olds...

Today completes day three of five.  I’m trying to not lecture too much and let them weave as much as possible.  But there is so much ch information to convey, and when people want to know all the ‘whys’ it’s hard to say no.   Another great group, digging into the meat of the craft! We have sorted out dates for next year. Now to settle with Olds College.  Stay tuned.   Dianne already has a list of names for level one next year, plus two and three.  I simply cannot be away from home for three weeks, especially right before the conference next year so we are working on how to make this work.  Tomorrow we will do two more fairly short lectures, they will wrap up their weaving (they have until 9 pm) and then Friday the oral presentations and a review of the homework to be done.   Saturday I will fly home, arriving around midnight with five days to pack for Olds.   Busy, busy, busy!

I had planned on walking down the hill for dinner, but...plans change.  It’s not far, maybe a 20 minute walk.  But this morning I woke to rain pounding down, and while it isn’t as hard now, it is still wet and windy.  And I just don’t feel like heading down the hill and then hike back up again, getting chilled.  Today I was supposed to be combing through the level two manual again, sorting out the daily lesson plans.  Instead I kind of crashed and burned and fell into bed for a little (ahem) two hour ‘nap’.  Tomorrow I will dress the double Weave group warp on one of the studio looms.  And see if I can get my thoughts about how and when to present the class info sorted out.  Even though every day is a potential work day, apparently today was a day off...