Back after a week or two to report material progress on all fronts!
On Grace, the heddles arrived, I finished threading, sleying, tying on, and debugging the warp. She is now fully warped up and ready to go:
Of course, that means I actually need to design something to WEAVE on her. That’s the next step. I am still figuring out the logistics of designing warp color gradients in Arahweave (jacquard design software)…I won’t bore you with the technical details, but let’s just say it’s a complex brain-teaser of a project. While I’m figuring that out, I may take a simpler route and weave weft color gradients in plain weave or twill. That will allow me to experiment with other color combinations and weaving techniques that will be useful for the Color Gradients classes I’ll be teaching in the fall.
Meanwhile, tying on the warp on Maryam continues…slowly. I’m now about 56% done. Here’s a picture before I started yesterday (I’ve since done a little more):
I’ve already found two spots where I tied on the wrong color, but I’m not going to fix them until I’ve pulled the tied-on threads through the heddles and reed. I think it will be easier to fix those threads after pulling through.
I still have no idea what I’m going to do with that warp. I confess that I’ve kind of “fallen off the wagon” when it comes to reserving time for my own creative work…things were so intense with teaching a 4600-person class while trying to prepare for launch of another class that I simply didn’t have time to do anything else! But I am planning to get back to it now that things are a bit less crazy. For a month or so, anyway. Stash Weaving Success starts in early June, so I imagine I’ll have much less time starting in about three weeks. Better weave while the sun shines!
I’ll leave you with some of my favorite flowers…I found lilacs at the farmer’s market this past week! I’m super thrilled…I LOVE lilacs and they are hard to come by around here – the climate’s too warm for them, so I wait every year and hope to find someone selling them at the farmers market. Wonderful fragrance. I could stick my nose in them all day long. (Actually, I do! Good thing nobody watches me while I’m working.)
