DONE!!

Eight months and twenty-one days after beginning, I have finished weaving off the Infinite Warp – thirty-seven yards of 60/2 silk.  I feel like the little girl in the Shel Silverstein poem:

Melinda Mae

Have you heard of tiny Melinda Mae,
Who ate a monstrous whale?
She thought she could,
She said she would,
So she started in right at the tail.

And everyone said,”You’re much too small,”
But that didn’t bother Melinda at all,
She took little bites and she chewed very slow,
Just like a good girl should…

…and in eighty-nine years she ate that whale
Because she said she would!

Here is the lovely sight I saw last night:

I actually was not able to weave to the very end because some warp threads mysteriously wound up one turn of the beam shorter than the others:

I’m not quite sure how that happened, but I suspect it was when I had to cut off a chunk of warp after an unsuccessful attempt at advancing the warp to screen print on it.

At any rate, I am now done done DONE! and I will never put on that long of a warp in fine threads again.  Eight months is a bit too long, even for me.

The other bit of good news is that I wove a total of seven patterns for CNCH’s Special Sample Service.  Here they are, before wet-finishing:

I’m not sure the last one is going to work (the last two photos are front and back); I can already see portions ominously collapsing in the first photo of it.  I think it will blur out when it hits the water.  But you never know…!

(Most of these are variations on drafts from Handweaving.net, with modifications to make them weavable without a ground.  The draft number is in the photo title (roll over the photo with the mouse), but I have made (sometimes extensive) modifications, so if you want the wif file, drop me an email or leave a comment.)

And that concludes my pre-move weaving.  While it is possible to disassemble and move the loom with a warp on it, I’d rather not – particularly while working with fine, delicate threads.  My next warp will be some 140/2 silk that Lillian Whipple was kind enough to sell me – much too fine to risk the rigors of a move.  So my next warp will happen after we move.

Nothing directly creative on the slate for today – the plan is to go over to the new house, and figure out how to put in the dye sink.  We are having a contractor put in the sink, but to do that we have to have the sink ready to install.  Currently there is bare dirt (and lemon tree roots) where the sink will go; we will either need to pour more concrete or put in pavers to level the surface.  Which takes time and research.  (But at the end of it, I’ll have a dye sink!  How exciting.

After that, I’ll investigate sealing and finishing the concrete floor of the garage.  We’re not sure we want to do this yet (it depends on the hassle/reward profile of the job) but if we’re going to do it, we’d better do it now, before we move in a gazillion boxes of stuff (not to mention the loom!).  This will be my project, if we do it at all; Mike’s going to be busy putting in electrical wiring and the dishwasher.

The painters are coming at the end of next week, but the flooring people won’t be able to get us the flooring until a week or two after that.  So it looks like the move will happen sometime in early June.

Off to the farmer’s market!  When I get back, if we don’t head directly for the new house, I’ll wet-finish all that fabric.