debor049

One of the ways I have 'survived' as a starving artist is to be very clear about what outcome I hope for, and what outcome I expect.  The two are - at times - wildly divergent.  I was disappointed so many times in my early years, hoping and expecting a show or project would be great.  When it wasn't a great outcome, I would second guess myself and be disappointed.  I learned to have high hopes but prepare for the 'worst' - whatever that meant in the context of the event. So when I ploughed ahead with The Book, I had hope that it would be of value to people and that it would be well received. What I expected?  That eventually it would pay for itself. With my expectations firmly in the forefront of my mind I set up a system to track orders.  I had a small filing box and as the orders came in I filed them alphabetically so that if there were questions I could easily find the orders.  As the number of orders grew I set up two filing folders: A-M and N-Z. T...

Orders are starting to taper off and I had no appointments today so I determined to finish setting up the AVL and at least weave one towel. It's been ages since I've woven and as a result, I've lost muscle tone.  As with any physical activity, the best strategy is to begin slowly and re-build the strength I've lost over the past couple of months. These towels are destined for the shows in 2019.  The first show is the Hospital Auxiliary conference in April.  Next is the ANWG conference .  Since I am taking a booth at the conference to sell The Book I figured I might as well have some tea towels.  These are in the Snail's Trails and Cat's Paws design, a perennial favourite of weavers. I put 30 turns/yards on the beam with the goal of using up the cottolin in my stash.  And then I (ahem) acquired 5 kilos of single 16s linen.  The colours aren't great, but they will do for tea towels.  So whatever warp is left once the cottolin is used up will be wove...

What a roller coaster ride! Poor Ruth finally managed to wrestle the website to the ground and get the PDF version of the book up and running and lo!  Here 'tis! Both versions are now officially available from blurb.ca .  You can also get Magic in the Water - just scroll all the way down the page.  The introductory offer is only available from me personally.  There has been some confusion so let me run through it one more time: Purchase the print version of the book - from me directly - and you will receive in the new year a signed copy of the book.  You will also, upon payment, receive a link to collect the PDF from Dropbox.  Yes, the entire file, not just a sample.  Yes, I am actually giving it away, free, with the purchase of the print book.  Truly.  BUT!  The introductory offer is just that - an introductory offer that will end on the winter solstice, Dec. 21, 2018.  (I am making this entirely clear because many of my blog post...

I was born and raised here near the 54th parallel and as such I have spent my life watching the sun come and go in the sky.  Over the years the winter solstice has become a much more important day in the year to me than any other.  The winter solstice is when the sun stops its slow slide to the horizon and begins its gentle journey back up, bringing with it our longer daylight hours. Humans seem to be bound to the sun and the moon in ways that we can't really articulate.  Fire no doubt felt magical to early humans.  It brought heat but also...light. Recently I had a conversation with someone about being supportive.  My life has benefited in so many ways by others helping and being supportive of me.  At one point I was feeling guilty after picking the brains of another weaver and apologized because I had no money to pay for her time. She looked at me - hard - and said "Pass it on." Her words sounded prophetic to me, as though I had suddenly found my calling....

The sample print copy of the book should be ready tomorrow (be still my heart!) and hopefully it will arrive in a few days. In the meantime, members of the weaving community are beginning to read their PDF files and write reviews, sharing on their social media (cockles of my heart most definitely warmed!) Tien Chiu did a blog post this morning reviewing the book I have now prepared an ad for the book and if anyone is interested in placing the ad in their guild newsletters, email me and I will send a Word document that can be used as is, or the information can be used as appropriate. The PDF that is being shared as part of the introductory offer includes the back cover of the book with two cover blurbs - one from Janet Dawson, the other from Syne Mitchell. On the technology front - the introductory offer PDF is available through Dropbox but two people have not been able to access the file that way so I have a work around.  If this is the case for you, email me. In this age of the in...

Confession time. I'm a wee bit of a Luddite and don't really know or understand the technology, even though I think it's great - it's still a bit 'magical' to me! However I have been told that some people have not downloaded the complimentary PDF for the introductory offer of The Intentional Weaver but have been reading it on line. Which is all well and good, but that file will go away after the introductory offer closes so people really need to download the file to their desktop or whatever platform they want it on. Last night I went back to Dropbox and there is a 'download' button and when I poked it (again - I'd done it a couple of days ago but I wanted to make sure of it) the file downloaded in about 1 minute. Yes, it's a large file - about 39 mb. Thank you to all who have expressed interest. It was a bit nerve wracking to complete this project because one never really knows how it will go! The printer should be shipping my 'proof...

After being stuck in technology 'hell' for the better part of a week, we seem to have battled our way through the 'worst' of it.  This quote from Churchill helped me carry on, because there was simply no point to flinging myself to the ground and flailing.  The only way was forward, even if it felt at times more like a 'creep' than a 'march'. Talked with Ruth today who is still up to her ears helping Tien get her on-line class up and running but she promises to go poke at the PDF file on blurb by Monday.  I wanted to offer a PDF version for those people overseas who would be faced with a huge shipping charge for a print book but could maybe just work with the cheaper option of downloading the PDF.  So - I promise - it's coming! Over the week I've worked out a system to deal with the fact that the print copies won't get mailed out for a while.  I needed a fool-proof system to make sure everyone who has paid gets a copy sent whenever I get them...

One warp, four different colours of weft Many weavers have difficulty with putting colours together because sometimes they do unexpected things. Tien Chiu has developed an on-line course Color Courage for Weavers  which has launched this week. She has a mini-workshop that is free and which will introduce people to the concepts she will be tackling in more depth in her workshop. My editor Ruth Temple has been juggling editing duties on my book as well as Tien's workshop and it has been a busy time for all.  Yes, I am involved in Tien's workshop, too!  Last year I wove a lot (and by a lot I mean a LOT) of samples for Tien to illustrate what happens when weft crosses warp, how the interaction of colours changes when the ratio of each to the other changes when the weave structure changes. I am not an intuitive user of colour.   What I know or understand about colour in cloth is based on years of trying (and sometimes failing) at putting colours together in a way tha...

Seems like with every step forward, I either slide one back, or at least to the side. I came home with a copy of the PDF version of The Intentional Weaver loaded on my iPad, thinking that all was well and I would be able to start sharing the link immediately with people.  It hasn't worked out that way.  The link opens perfectly in Google, but when I try to open it in Google docs to share?  The file becomes corrupted.  No cover.  Page breaks not where they should be, throwing the entire document out of kilter. After a couple of hours last night and a couple more this afternoon (when I was supposedly fresher!) I cried uncle and asked for help from Ruth.  Who is busy on another critical deadline on a project that is not mine but which I fully endorse.  Since I am stymied on getting the PDF ready to share, I figured I could at the very least acknowledge the orders so far received and send out Paypal invoices for those who want to pay that way. So that is w...

This photo shows the difference between an 'ordinary' 2 ply cotton yarn and seine twine.  They are both yarn.  They are both cotton.  But they are - quite obviously - not the same. Writing a book is one thing.  Selling it is quite another. A couple of people have asked me if I'm happy now that the book is a real entity (it can be purchased from  the website  *** directly or from me on the special introductory offer I announced on Dec. 2). We are still trying to get the PDF version 'live' and Ruth will continue to work on that over the next few days and see if she can figure out what is happening that it won't go 'live' like the print version. So, am I happy?   Not really.  I would say 'relieved' rather than 'happy'.  Because the next step is now up - that of getting the word out and - hopefully - selling lots and lots of copies. I got home this evening from San Jose after a very busy and stress inducing week of the final polish, re-reads...

Photo of working copy, with post it notes marking edits to be done.   Seems mercury was in retrograde and after much thinking, additional editing (where we found more typos and minor formatting issues) and a last ditch ‘let’s try once more’ attempt to upload the manuscript...the website took the file (YAY!) and voila, we have A Book.   We also have an Introductory Offer.  The Intentional Weaver: how to weave better Until December 21, 2018 order a print copy of The Intentional Weaver by master weaver Laura Fry and receive a free PDF version of the book.   Print copies will become available in the new year, but you will be able to download your PDF copy immediately.   Books ordered directly from Laura on this introductory offer will be signed and mailed as soon as they are received from the printer around the end of January.  A link to download your PDF version will be emailed upon receipt of payment.   Price is $68.00 Canadian plus shipping of $20.00 a...

...o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley...    Robbie Burns So everything was going pretty much as expected.  Files were edited, fine tuned, corrections made, photos tweaked.  By Friday afternoon, Ruth was about ready to make the appropriate PDFs and begin uploading the files to the website.   From there on, things did not go smoothly.  Ruth worked all afternoon trying to get the files to accurately load but there seemed to some kind of glitch in the upload.  When she finally contacted support, it seems their business day was over and it was the weekend.   We had thought to have the files safely and successfully loaded Friday afternoon, then test the files on Saturday at which point I would have the rest of the information needed to announce the introductory offer.  Instead we are in limbo until Monday morning.   However, we have the files.  We are ready to offer The Intentional Weaver in print and PDF formats.  I have an offer for th...