Monkey wrench

My hip was hurting worse and worse, so I wound up going to the doctor this afternoon.  She thinks it’s likely one of two things: early arthritis (aackpfft!), or a pulled muscle.  X-ray results and more tests tomorrow.  Cross your fingers for me!

In any event, she prescribed industrial-strength ibuprofen and told me to lay off weaving for at least a week.  You can guess how enthusiastic I was at that prospect, but it makes sense.  So I think I will delay threading the loom until this time next week, because a fully-dressed, ready-to-weave loom is just WAY too much temptation.  (I have willpower, but not where fiber arts is involved!)   It will delay me a week, but once I get going I think I can weave it off pretty quickly, and the pattern is simple (no complicated sewing), so I think that will still be OK.

And meanwhile I can work on pattern drafting!  I spent some time studying dart manipulation this evening and think I more or less understand what is going on.  I understand the “slash” method and the “pivot” method for moving darts.  I am now “graduating” to graduated darts, radial darts, and other exotica.  Once I finish the darts section I think I will set myself some design challenges and then sew up some of the designs in muslin, just to make sure I got it right.  Expect some real “Frankenstein” muslins soon!

Sheila asked what fabric I use for my muslins.  It’s just plain old cheap muslin, 44″ wide, that I buy on sale from JoAnn Fabrics.  Costs me $1.50/yd with a 50% off coupon – I typically buy an entire bolt at a time.  25 yards of muslin sounds like a lot, but it sure goes fast when you’re having fun!

If I have time after all that – which is pretty unlikely since I am spending all day Saturday in a project manager’s training workshop – I think I will start playing with some of the techniques in Colette Wolff’s book.  I have this crazy dream (but don’t we all have crazy dreams?) of combining her techniques and methods with the flat pattern drafting I’ve been studying.  So as soon as I think I have a decent understanding of pattern drafting, I will start trying to combine it with Wolff’s concoctions.  Once I understand how to merge pattern drafting and fabric manipulation, of course, it will be time to merge them with handwoven fabrics.

One last route to temptation – my friend who works at Adobe handed me CS5 Design Premium today.  Whoopee!  Gotta go try out the latest in seductive software.