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Friday, September 28, 2012

Cherry Blizzard and an Apology

Whatever petals that remained after the rain on Wednesday is blowing away today. Moments before this, there was a strong gust from the lower side of the hill, (right) which caused a pale pink cloud to dance up in the air. Strong wind during the cherry blossom season is called Sakura Fubuki, or Cherry Blizzard, in Japan and we share a regional, collective sigh with the joy of the season, (depending on the year it's the mid-March graduation season or early April start of the new school/work year,) and the disappearance of something so fleeting and lovely. Which is probably appropriate for my mood of the day.

It pains me to have to post this, but I apologize I am most probably unable to make a Friends(hip) piece to include in the upcoming exhibition.

Because of the variety of width of your gifts, I decided to weave the piece on the 16-shaft Louet Klik, so I can modify the number of pattern picks to suit the inlay weft. The idea was to do some fancy threading on 16 and use a simple lifting more or less in twill. This loom is 16 inches wide, so I thought I could weave a 14.5 - 15 inches; my first mistake; it's too wide and I don't have a good handle on the beating. (And not a good time to recollect I've only ever woven up to 8 inches on this loom.) The second mistake was to use all 16 shafts: the shed for shafts beyond, say, 10 is but a sliver and with the slightly sticky wool warp, I have to pry open every pattern shed with my hands or a stick, which is not only time-consuming, but rough on the warp. 

With that in mind, I simplified the draft, narrowed the width to 12 inches, rethreaded, and tripled the weft for faster weaving, and sampled. The design is now so dumbed down, it looks like a school project, and elementary school at that! It doesn't have the gift inlay wefts sticking out like relief against a flat red background, and the "chin" shapes look like badly balanced undulating twill with jagged bits. After seven samples, I can't make it look like something I wove, like something I'd like to put my name on.

I have half a day tomorrow, half a day Monday and 3/4 of the day Tuesday to do something about this if a light bulb lights up, but I've felt totally defeated the last 24 hours I'm not sure if this is going to happen. I've considered a cotton warp, using the Warp of Shame still sitting on the big loom, took out my RH and Mom's frame loom, but haven't come up with anything. Yet.

So, I apologize. They are not coming off the cork board because I know I can do this, and it's got me very interested in designing with multi-layered weave, but it's just not happening right now. And I'm disappointed because though in a different shape this was something I wanted to do when "Beginnings" was still "WYSIWYG".

Now, I'm going to hem and finish the pillars. And try not to feel so bad.

5 comments:

  1. Meg, don't think I ever remembered anything that I did right the first time. Keep up the spirit, girl. You'll get it figured out and you'll be doing something others can't. Glad you are still picky about only putting out the best of your work. I don't really know much about how you do your magic, just like the looks when you are done. Think how proud you will be when you do get it to work.
    Bill

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  2. Thanks, Bill. I'm sure I'll appreciate it later, but for now, I'm feeling very sorry for myself. VERY...

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  3. This is an opportunity to slow things down and really think about what you are going to do without having a deadline hanging over your head. It will happen when it is meant to happen. And then you will be so happy! Getting everything done at once is highly overrated.

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  4. Time to relax Meg! Let this piece have the time it needs, save it for another special time. It's a celebration of friendship after all, and that's something on-going, without deadlines.

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  5. Ah, Dot, well-put. I hate not doing something I promised I'd do, but I see your point. Thank you.

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