Home again

My workshop last weekend went well! It was a two-day workshop on the design process. It included quite a bit of information – processes and tools from getting from idea to finished product, guidelines for good design (both functional and visual), and an opportunity for instructor critique of designs and finished pieces. It also included a juror’s tour through the Fiber Celebration 2014 exhibit, looking at the strong and weak points of each design. I added quite a bit of material to my previous rendition of the workshop, and I think they improved the workshop a lot. The only thing I really should have done is charge a materials fee! With over 20 pages of double-sided handouts per student, photocopying got quite expensive. Something to keep in mind for next time!

Anyway, here is a photo of me with some of the workshop participants:

I flew home on Monday, and immediately got to work on the color study. Work was pretty busy, but I put in a few hours on Tuesday and Wednesday, threading it up:

And this morning I got up at 5am and put in a three-hour marathon, during which I finished threading, sleying, and tying on:

I have a guild meeting tonight but am home for lunch and hope to do a bit more debugging before going back to work. It was a relatively simple threading – straight draw on eight shafts for each of three colors, plus another eight shafts for the white dividers between sections, plus another eight shafts for the selvedges. Eight shafts for the dividers and eight for selvages is overkill, but since I had plenty of shafts to spare, I decided to use them. (It’s amazing how difficult it is to use up a full forty shafts!) So I am hoping that not too much debugging will be needed.

I haven’t decided what liftplan to use yet. The advantage of threading each color on a different set of shafts is that I can control them independently, probably in eight-shaft satin to maximize possibilities for shading. The downside is that it gives me one more knob to keep track of (actually three more knobs, one for each color) in an already complicated study. I wish I could just settle on one possibility, and weave that on all sixteen color combinations. Unfortunately, I don’t know what I want to explore yet, so I need to keep my options open, even if it does complicate matters.

And the soap I made before leaving for Colorado was ready to unmold and cut! Here are photos of the unmolded soap and the cut bars:

It will need to cure for a few weeks before we can use it, but I’m thrilled nonetheless. It’s made from a mix of 50% palm oil and 50% coconut oil, and I find I prefer it to purchased soap. Usually B. makes it, but he showed me how to do it this time, so either of us can make it in the future.

Amidst all this frenzied weaving and soaping activity, I still have some time to play games. Here, for example, is a game Tigress likes to play with me: Who Can Get Into Bed First?

As soon as I turn down the sheets to get into bed, she comes rocketing into the room to try to beat me to the bed. Of course she is much faster than me (it helps that she’s 40+ years younger 🙂 ), so she always wins. But I get my way in the end: I simply toss a cat toy off the side of the bed, whereupon she rockets off to grab the toy, and I can get into bed. A win for all involved!