Moving On

On Monday, I thought I'd be productive and augment/widen this warp, wind it, and even thread it for another clasped weft. Except I'd forgotten I had the dark colors in the center of the warp, not on one side, and that felt like a game-changer for the purpose.

Because I missed the big birthday anyway, (not only the giving-of-the-pressie, but we both had reaction to our third Covid Booster,) there is no reason I need to rush this one. I started thinking: "What is it I want to make?" OK, before that, what do I think when planning/weaving a clasped weft piece? 

1) First and foremost, I notice hues and their interplay in most textiles, but with clasped weft, weft colors, (why monochromatic felt so new to me;) hues, values, their relationships, balance/proportion.  

 

2) Second, obviously the shapes of/lines dividing the two/different weft areas, (which monochromatic wefts bring to the fore;) included are balance/proportion, balance/contrast, repetition, even moods like pointy, rounded, elongated, etc., should I/viewer look for any. 

3) Then there is the underlying weave structure, which appear at times vividly, and other times not so well behind the "busyness" of the above two elements. But I'm always terribly into interesting structures/patterns, avoiding plain weave where I can, even if this hampers the precision of shapes/lines possible with clasped weft on plain weave. 

 

One thing I noticed on the Navy/Orange piece, is where threading moves quickly, e.g. 1-2-3-4, there are vertical stripes in the finished piece which weren't evident while weaving; where there were some floats, e.g. 1-1-2-2-3-3-3-4-4, the warps are covered better and no stripes appeared. This also relates to 4). This piece was woven 20EPI for cushynesss; I may revert to 18EPI but I'm not sure that will solve the problem. All three pieces have left home now and in the samples, these strips are not obvious to invisible. 

 

These were woven on four shafts, so the complexity of background pattern is limited.

4) And lastly, (that I can think of at this moment,) there is the warp hues/values. They are not as obvious or as consequential as I think I would like them to be, but if they are too manifest, they will distract from the main event, the 1) and 2) above. Hues/values obviously influence the finished look, i.e making the dark end darker and the light end lighter in the first two pieces of the previous monochromatic warp; actually, the navy in the third piece looked very nice against black, too. But it can make the overall picture murkier, even messy. Have a look at pieces I wove on a warp I made at the same time as the one I'm about to. See the dark bits in the middle? I'm not crazy about that. And the more I think about it, the closer the warp hues/values should be linked to background pattern. 

 

For now my gut feeling is, because I think this warp is pretty, but perhaps not as clasped weft background, perhaps I shouldn't make a clasped-weft-specific warp, and use this to have a pattern-focus towards the center as well. OR, is this a more challenging challenge?

Duty to my swap mates notwithstanding, this week I thought a bit of color play might yield fresh insight, so I'm doing small mixed media. Of course there is the fact I like mulling over weavy-thinky things. But then I can't get away from my Senior Brain worries my skills and abilities are only going further downhill, and the only way I can think of to combat that is more weaving. (Note to self: this did not happen to Mom until she was well into her 80s!) I'm not pessimistic. I'll go downstairs and continue to thread tied-weave; I can't wait to start sampling that one. I'll keep thinking about this warp as well as clasped weft, and try to transfer my head-picture onto something on the looms. 

 

I must also start the cool season weeding. I had a 2-week reprieve from that weird hey-fever/face/eye thing in February; it came back in March with the autumn wind; but we've had rain in April, and the wind isn't as fierce, so it's not as bad. Autumn came suddenly this year. Liquid maple turned from green to dark purple overnight, skipping all the lovely colors in between, I might have already told you, but still holding tight to the branches. It's actually been a pretty autumn, pleasant, and not cold like some years after the initial chill. There is oh-so-much to clean at our place, inside and out; annual doc appt at the end of the month; so many interesting books to read; I've no time for sulking!

Monochromatic Cashmere Warp Pieces Three and Four

In short, this piece was a (giant) flop, because of the erratic beating. What's worse, I was unaware of it while weaving, and only saw how bad it was when the remainder of the warp came off the loom. And it took me over a week to come to terms with it. But more on that later.

I had another intended giftee for the third piece. This person, with a big birthday coming up, often surprises with bold colors and patterns in their leisure wear. I wanted to weave in that spirit. First I re-rethreaded to bring in more movement, (middle sample,) but I wasn't successful, so I re-rethreaded, (right sample,) which I liked better. 

 

I struggled with the colors, too, but finding a recent photo of the giftee's new-to-me pants, I tried navy and oranges, seen at the top of the far right sample. The very top combination would have been nearest to the photograph, but they are 26/2, which would have taken longer to weave but also change the lines I've gotten used to weaving with 20/2. I could have gone either way, with the orange, (second from top), or a somewhat toned-down but closer-to-the-photo burnt orange, (third), but Ben and I thought bolder would be better. The 20/2 navy is my absolute favorite, a color I thought I might use for myself one day, but much better to weave a special pressie for a special person!

Introducing hues to this warp at first disappointed me when the delicate interplay of the achromatic yarns was taken over by the colors demanding my attention. But gradually their boldness allowed me to get a little adventurous with shapes.This portion felt particularly fresh in spite of the treadling mistake. (This photo shows the colors pretty accurately.) 

However, I must beat harder when I'm excited about what I see on the loom; this very section caused the biggest disappointment in the beat department. Witness how relaxed I felt after the "combs" and went back to the gappy beating I aimed for to produce an airier final texture. 

Clasped-weft, particularly in twill, presents a unique problem in how much give to allow where the two wefts clasp. The loops full enough in the washing to not present a problem, but in succession, sometimes the shapes can look stitched together. (Again, accurate colors.)

In rethreading, I brought back longer floats; this allows "islands" of colors depending on the clasp position. This bothered me while weaving, but in a finished piece, it's not all bad. Longer floats, though, change how precisely lines/shapes can be controlled, which is why tapestry is (usually?) woven in plain weave. I'm not sure if this is important for my purposes, or if I prefer the weave pattern to be interesting as well. (Well, of course, the latter!!)

The fourth, warp-end swatch, was woven with Mom's oddball leftover; super fat and glossy. I can't even guess the size of the yarn but something I consider a knitting yarn, with plenty of silk, not as airy as 100% cashmere after finished. Throughout, I was struggling with the white warps' tension - here I was just in a rush to finish the warp.

The next warp on the four-shaft will be the left one, although as with this monochrome warp, I will have to add a couple of inches, probably on the dark end, to weave wider pieces than I planned when I made the warp. Most colors in it are not bold, but I'll leave that to the wefts, with warp colors adding interest rather than clashing. 

 

Now to the real issue with the third piece. I am sick of each and every project being a gamble on how alert I can stay to all aspects of weaving as I work. It's hardly as if I'm slacking off and dismissing problems while I work, but I've always had a one-track mind; I have problems paying attention to multiple things simultaneously; treadling, beating, selvedge, draw-in...

I've observed some older weavers' skills or tenacity deteriorate, although many just stay the course and keep weaving beautifully and skillfully. (How dare they!) I've said many times I've always been technically weak, but I'm having to face the "is my best days over" too often. It's bad for my self-esteem, even with my usual compartmentalizing and seeing objectively matters relating to weaving. 

 

At the not-so-back of my mind is when, a few years ago, a bad cashmere warp made me suddenly stop weaving altogether, not even consciously, for maybe a year and a half. I didn't know if I would ever get back to it, I didn't care, I just walked away for a time, and I didn't feel guilty about it. Long-time readers would know how absolutely unusual that is.

I want to avoid that; the not weaving. I can only hope the best remedy is to keep weaving. At least if I keep weaving, there is a higher probability I'll make something nice, in comparison to not weaving. Had I had the presence of mind, I might have put on another warp and worked right through in time to finish another scarf. This warp came off the loom nine days ago, so it's not as if it was completely impossible.

 

In retrospect, I knew this was a no-goer the moment I laid the remainder of the warp on the floor that evening. Because I didn't have a genuine debate as to the worth of this piece; it was more a brain-freeze, a weaver-in-the-headlights week. I couldn't, or didn't, gauge how bad this was, nor think of a remedy. Instead, I ignored it, then finally wet-finished it, dried it, then moved it around the living room without really looking at it or touching it.

If there was anything good about this piece and the last week, I'm thankful it was only a nine-day brain-freeze, that since last night I see my next steps clearly. And in view of my Senior Brain, at least the steps of setting up the loom is among the tasks that can keep me focused and I enjoy. 

 

So, dear friends, onwards! (And Happy Birthday to Mr Fancypants!)

It's Official

Exactly a week ago, I got a letter summoning me to jury duty in the morning of May 15. It would have been my third time; in 1998 I got summoned twice in quick succession, and I went on the appointed mornings, but I was never picked. Ben also got summoned some years later, also twice within a few months, and he even served in a domestic violence case, but it was easy because the culprit admitted to the deeds. 

Japan didn't have jury system between 1943-2009, i.e. when I was growing up. (Since 2009 they've had a quasi-jury system where "lay judges" hear cases alongside professional ones, but I don't know anything beyond that.) Watching the telly and reading the newspaper, I grew up thinking jury system is another example of a shiny Western thing, democratic and aspirational, but I personally never wanted to participate. 

 

I've always seen the world in black and white, and whosoever claimed to see both sides, or the middle, were noncommittal, either from lack of conviction or the will to study an issue. I was so adamant it took time to reconcile with the fact I was starting to see gray areas in my "old age" (mid-40s??), and was noncommittal on sometimes. Totally not suitable to take part in deciding someone else's predicament. 

 

More recently, as the world seem to move faster, so much information being readily available, I became less engaged from the general goings on, and more easily swayed, relying on persons who I believe know better. I also see how little I know of most anything, and I've become less confident.

 

Then there are other, "real" considerations: my body aches more/often; my hearing is considerable worse; my comprehension slower and incomplete, if not misdirected; one hip is semi-permanently dodgy and I can't sit in the same position for long; I can't lift my right shoulder in a certain angle; my muscles don't stretch as easily and can't reach the "high" shelves which didn't use to be "high"; the newly acquired face/eye problem I thought was just temporary this summer may now be a recurring thing. 

 

Once in a while, nine times since the 2020 Lockdown, I've had instances of thorough confusion about mundane things I usually know/do without thinking, the sort of things I read about associated with dementia. Worse, while being confused, I'm fully aware it's the sort of thing I don't have usually have to think about. My attention and endurance are measured in nano-seconds. As for the forgetting, I've arrived at a place where some of it doesn't appear so bad, because I'm not so angry or embarrassed about forgetting so much so soon. 

 

And while not all of this relates to jury duty, I'm not sure how outdated my values are in comparison to the social norm/common sense. I genuinely don't feel comfortable being responsible for someone else's predicament, when I have enough problem deciding things for myself.

 

Esther thinks older generations' opinions are just as important in a jury, and I agree in general, but I'm going to leave it to healthier, more confident 65s and over for this particular task; I'm declining all participation. (There is also provision for Covid-related issues, as I imagine most every other jurisdictions.) 

You might have guessed; I'm 65 today. Mom has said in the last decade of two, "insert_my_age is nothing, wait until you're insert_her_age!" But it's is not a competition, and today I am the oldest I've been in my life. Oh, boy, do I try not to say this to folks younger than I! Worse, I've mentioned this a lot here, I'm a heck of a lot less fitter than she was at this age, and looking around I've been aging faster than folks of the vintage. Which is a little disappointing because until my early 50s, I looked much younger than my chronological years.

 

I imagine my life getting even smaller each year. I'll get further left behind by technology if/when Ben looses interest; I've noticed since smart phones he's not interested in all technology, just some. I imagine weaving less and slower and less accurately, but I'm also less worried about speed and have time for the fussier. Sometimes. The number of things I wished I could/would do will increase; I'll finish reading fewer books; I'll be longer-winded, repeat myself more, and ask others to repeat and speak up even more; annoy more, add value to less. And, yeah, I'll probably be more acerbic, rather than mellowing, and less self-aware. And fat.

I am not self-pitying, not grumpy, but realistic. Later today I'll keep weaving a significant-birthday present for someone else. And I'll give my 29385604th try making a pie crust, which has been a bane of my kitchen existence since 16, cranking out Baked Alaskas on ready-made crusts. In the evening, I'll LINE with Mom, opening with my standard joke of the last few decades: "Thanks for your contribution on that auspicious day, Mom!"

Like Ali told me the day before my 60th, I got up, and it's been another day.

The Way I Read (Some) Books

Having friends who think deeply is a gift; that I have some with knowledge of not just literature but psychology, sociology and the business surrounding books is an undeserved treasure, for which, (or whom?) I don't express appreciation often enough. I know in my head I should be careful not to exhaust them with my flippancy, but I can't shake Mom's motto she raised us with, either: it's rude to just sit and not take part, (which, strangely, my sister was allowed, but not me,) that we must all participate to the fullest extent to show appreciation of everyone's company.

Crikey. 

The other day I inadvertently shared something I've never shared with anyone, ever. We were talking about the benefits of good books, their ability to make us "think", but that thinking manifested in different ways to different people, at different times, with different books. And I blurted out, "I insert myself into the book."

 

I'm talking about fiction. But not all fiction. And sometimes I don't get to choose. I am an extra: an apprentice fetching a pail of water; one of the many old ladies squeezing fruits while gossiping at the market; a kitchen maid; even a weaver emerging from the dark house, shielding my eyes from the afternoon sun. I am a daughter, a spinster, a widow, but usually an invisible someone who can move around unnoticed within a limited area. And I see, and eavesdrop! Too often I think the central characters are risking great danger and being silly, except, heavens, if they ever listened to me, there will be no story, so it's a good thing I don't have the chance to go anywhere near the center of the story. But the spaces and situations I occupy or encounter by chance are vivid. They are the "other side" of the story.  

I love to read historical fiction and magical-realism, especially for young adult. Sometimes while I'm reading, I see me in the crowd; other times I create a wee backstory, and I slip into the role. Try as I may, it's not up to me to know which books I can get into, and I sure never went anywhere near Harry Potter because the magnitude, and the speed, of Rowling's imagination was more than I could handle. Discworld, on the other hand, I'm so there, all over, everywhere, loitering, being one of the many in the noisy, roudy crowd.

And here's where it gets a little weird. I am in Vincent van Gogh's biographies, too, but only in the post-Paris years. I'm a rank amateur drawer/painter, a working class female of indeterminate age. I have a tiny raggedy notebook I made myself, maybe a feather or reed and some ink, maybe a stick or charcoal I picked up from the fire, and I sometimes like to watch that strange Dutchman paint outdoors. I've never spoken to him, because I'm afraid of him; I can't tell when he's drunk, and he smells bad. Sometimes I look in the same direction as the Dutchman, and try to draw something, in secret, but he never notices me. Sometimes I stand some distance away and watch him, painting flowers and haystacks and stars and Montmajour, so quickly, with so many colors, like he can't stop the pictures sputtering out of his hands.  

Sometimes there are other men watching him; they think they are so cleaver hiding behind a tree, scribbling in notebooks, though some boldly walk back and forth behind the painter. They never notice me, and the Dutchman never pays any attention. I heard someone gossiping these men are called "biographers", and in years to come, they all make up their own stories about the Dutchman and make more money than the painter ever did from his paintings.

Ah, to be alive in this world!

A Little More on Stephen's Farewell Scarf

This is the second, longer, piece on this monochromatic warp.  

I had never "seen" the thickness of anything I wove in cashmere until earlier this week when it hung on the back of a chair, and I glanced at it from the other end of the hallway while hunting for a suitable box. I should have taken a picture of it instead of just sighing loudly, but it was a sight to behold. In the end it went inside a beat up computer part (?) box Ben had, suitable to house a piece for his restructured-out, (don't get me started on this,) boss. I now realize how yarn-hungry the current projects are; on the third piece I chose a big ball and a particularly heavy cone, and still I'm going to be able to manage just about 170-180cm, using up both. This will be a big issue if I ever decide to weave to sell clasped weft pieces.

After I washed it and it finished up much nicer than I anticipated, (because that's usually my primary and only concern,) I started to worry if I chose this look/technique for my own creative ego rather than suitability/taste of the intended. Ben had said he wore conservative colors and always had a suit jacket. I wanted to make something special. So though the colors were conservative, but the overall look? Hardly.  

 

Ben brought it to work yesterday and gave it to the boss during morning tea, and texted me that it was well-received. There was some mention of the piece's versatility in casual and formal/work situations, for which I was glad because it wasn't just in my imagination it could go "outdoorsy or opera," the two ends of the spectrum of fanciness in my mind. OK, opera in NZ, where women don't wear lovely silk gowns. I've no doubt it also helped yesterday was the first cold day of the season. 

 

I'm having similar doubts about the current, third piece's colors, too. This is unusual as I was always pretty confident my giftees would like my pieces as long as I "got it right."I know. It's me, me, me. I'm not sure if this emerging doubt relates to my decreasing confidence in technique, aging, or something else.  

 

Clasped weft as a technique has pitfalls, and at least one of the biggie I know is built into the fact I use twill. I'm trying to make notes on all of them before I can decide how to improve/eradicate, or ignore; I'll write about them in future. For now I'm trying to concentrate on the third piece, and possibly another, short piece after that. 

The box was snug, and trying to fold the scarf as few times as possible, it turned out looking wrinkly all over, but it's a solid piece; I can be happy about that.

EDIT: the box actually contained car parts, says Ben. Even better, Stephen loves cars so much, he even brought his father's MGB GT from England. But I must add, it was a clean one, no oil stains or the like, just badly bashed in three corners.

Monochromatic Cashmere Warp Piece Two

Ben chose the second set of wefts, a blue-white and the same dark gray. I decided not to rethread because of time constraints; also because I wasn't confident if rethreading will necessarily result in better design/texture, and I didn't want to kick myself thinking I ruined it again. 

 

I didn't know this at the start, but apparently I wanted to create bigger shapes. It's much easier to do fussy zig-zag lines, while patience, dexterity and the ability to predict shapes/lines, are needed to make bigger shapes. Restricting myself to weaving 20-30cm a day, (which felt like a terribly bad use of time,) was a big factor in giving me headspace and practice smoother lines/bigger shapes.  

So I don't jinx myself, I started treadling 2-3-4-5, then changed direction twice, so a great majority of the piece was woven with this treadling. (And I'm still not sure why this is easier after all the years of preferring 5-4-3-2, but never mind, it works, I'll stick with it.)

I still don't have the ability to foresee where the line between the dark and light wefts go, and many, many times, I moved them, opening the same shed twice, thrice, or more adjusting. I never understood how changes in angle, (how far left/right the intersection of the two wefts are in relation to the previous pick,) will reflect in the longer curve of the line, so sometimes the move was too acute where I wanted more gentler curves, while other times the angle was too obtuse, or even not moving at all. I tried drawing lines on paper to see if I could understand better, but it didn't help much. I'm going to do some more drawing on graph paper, but also, I might start drawing cartoons, not for whole scarves but in sections where I want to reuse the shapes. For e.g. I liked this section, which looks like Casper and his unfriendly cohorts, or sharks' fins.

For variety, I did include some zigzags.

Towards the end, however, I was adamant I was going to tame the smooth lines, making the last quarter (bottom) boring in my eyes. Except... I got a cute hippo as a result. I know, now you can't unsee him, either, can you? Anyhoo...

First piece, right, washed/agitated again. Second piece, left, washed/agitated vigorously. Color sample, also washed/agitated a second time. Though both still wet, the texture is fluffier than the first piece after one wash, although still nowhere near the initial sample. White weft of the second piece is striking, but the light mid-gray of the first is nuanced and attractive. 

 

There is one problem, also, of weaving with clasped wefts in twills, which I learned when I wove in this style a few years back, but I haven't considered it in any depth. I'll show you in the post discussing the next piece. 

 

I got 213cm on the loom this time; 205cm in above pic, 204.5cm at completion. Just in time for Farewell Do on Wednesday.

Monochromatic Cashmere Warp Preamble and Piece One

Early this year I discovered I might need a farewell gift in march, and the potential giftee being a conservative/casual English dresser, I thought monochromatic cashmere scarf would be nice. To make it a little special, I had clasped weft in mind. And to make the fabric thicker and the weaving faster, I planned to weave in the "return trip" clasping, (I just made that up - is there a proper name for it?) i.e. two wefts come in from respective selvedges, are clasped somewhere in the shed, and return to their selvedges of origin, and beaten; i.e. two-weft thickness in each pick. 

I put on a monochrome warp I made a while back. It was too narrow so I added more black at the right; in my mind this ruined the delicate original intent, a mostly white and two pale grays with just enough black to keep the piece from floating away. Never mind, the purpose is a man's not-short (180-210cm) piece, and upon consulting some of Ben's scarves and the man himself, Ben and not the intended, 18-20cm-ish width was more desirable than 15cm-ish that was the original plan for the warp.

I threaded in a make-it-up-as-I-go undulating twill and sampled, but did not like the parts where two and three ends were threaded in the same shaft in succession, e.g. 1-2-2-3-3-4-4-4-3-3, so I rethreaded, varying these to, for e.g. 1-2-2-3-4-4 or 1-2-3-3-4-1-2-2-3-4, etc. I also left only one set of three ends in one shaft. In retrospect I'm not sure if this mattered; long floats fluff up wonderfully, and it might have been nicer to leave them, so there remains a possibility of rerethreading. 

For Piece One I used my favorite weft combination in the sample; the pale gray is so pale I had a hard time distinguishing it from white while in a ball or weaving. Soon realized I may not have enough of it to weave 180-210cm, and I tried to make it go the distance, using very little in some parts. I was ready to make this a short, 150cm piece, but in the end it grew to just 179cm off the loom. (I'm amazed how much darker the pale weft looks in the finished piece.)

 

I found the weaving labour-intensive, and on Day One, managed only 18cm. Days Two and Three I wove twice that much, which gave me all kinds of muscle aches, but worse, mental fatigue. On Day 3 I kept making treadling mistakes, (it's only 5-4-3-2; how could I go wrong?,) some of which I didn't see right away. In once instance I even liked the mistake and decided to leave it in, but now I'm not sure. I wove in that weird autodrive I mentioned in the last post. Around the middle of the piece, I changed the treadling to 2-3-4-5, creating a diamond shape; I was going to do this a few times, but since I made so few mistakes treadling in this order, I didn't dare change it back. This is peculiar, considering I've always woven one-directional twills 5-4-3-2 as long as I had this loom.

 

Days 4 and 5, it was better as I wove about 20cm each day. With both the body and mind in better condition, I felt nimble and wove more precisely. On Day 4, my design brain was working well, so I was making more interesting patterns. I also caught nearly half a dozen treadling mistakes, but I saw them and was able to fix them straight away. On Day 5, the mind-body synchronization was good again, but not so much the design brain, so I felt less exuberant, but thankfully not stressed. So the lesson here was, she shouldn't persevere. Which doesn't really go well with my temperament, but I'm sticking to it for the time being because it's a lot better than mending afterwards.

 

I dwell on mind-body synchronization, because I know this relates to aging, especially re. my mind, although I really prefer the word "senility" because that rings truer to me. Muscle fatigue from weaving, I have experienced for some years, (though hardly every time I weave,) and to some degree weaving consistently improves the situation, especially when weaving similar techniques on the same loom. It's purely a muscle/fitness thing. But the mental fatigue is new; it's not just being tired or bored and not wanting to think/write about it, but more like weaving and other thoughts wiped out cleanly on a chalk or white board! With my mother's lucidity fluctuating, (it's definitely weird more often, but she hides them so well, Sister and I can't quite pin down where she is at any given time, but only in comparison to other recent occasion.) I observe myself in the same psedo-objective eye, and can spot lucidity varying, the most annoying when having to think of how to do things I usually do automatically.

Lordy, I feel old.

This piece also became an experiment in the shapes/lines/motif, and instead of going for one or another kind of a look, I went for maximum variety. This "research" is on-going, so I'll write about it when I finish the warp, with better pics of the pieces.
 
Note to self: 179cm off the loom, 172cm after resting, and 166.5cm washed. Weaving width is 20cm; washed, 18.5cm. Shrinkage 93% and 92% respectively.

Two Blocks on Four Shafts that Weren't - Or Were They?

I was going to delete this post/draft as the outcome from this warp was disappointing, but in my continuing interest in, urrr... interesting four-shaft weaving, (if nothing else, I like weaving on my four-shaft jack,) I decided to keep it.. 

 

* * * * *   

This is the Nth piece in what was my for-Ukraine phase on the four-shaft loom. I got tired of Dornick, so I looked up Davison, and found two twill blocks on four shafts, ....., something I never thought about, and modified it to to make the pattern appear bolder.

It looked great on paper, or screen; Mom was impressed she could clearly see the pattern over not-exactly-clear Line App connection. 

In reality, it's not that the blocks are not there, but it's not as bold as I imagined, although in this pic, I like it better than in real life. After considering what I was happy to do, I settled on resleying and changing the treadling, rather than re-threading. In addition to the pattern not appearing clearly, my objection was the texture was akin to weaving done in thicker yarns in looser sett.

So this was the plan as seen on screen. After resleying from 18EPI to 20, I didn't sample but just started weaving. The weft is 2/24 mill-end merino in taupe, plied *3. It was still skinny and I couldn't see the pattern/mistakes while weaving, (so weird the "stripe" appears in the pic,) and this warp/weft combination turned out sticky. I could weave at most 25cm/day. Ben thought it was "plain", but more my style; I understood to mean it's an all-over pattern without a visual focus. 

Then I discovered a treadling mistake, unwove, tried to fix it, only to find out it wasn't a mistake??? So I wove on, but it still looked like a mistake, and tried to go back but the warp was so frayed it was impossible to mend. This was in September, and I thought to leave it for the time being, and then I did the cottolin warps, and... didn't get back to this until February!

By this time the weaving had become so onerous, I decided to cut it off and weave with another weft, a combination of two mill-end merino in navy and one variegated merino (??) a then-regular vendor sent it to me by mistake instead of my usual stuff. Weaving this was faster and I could see a little more of the pattern, but by this time reserve joy depleted, I was in a rush to finish. And this piece ended up not at all as soft and drapey after weft-finish as I had imagined. Also when on the loom I could not see the "stripes" that would have appeared because of the threading; these came to the fore only after washing/drying.

Never mind, at least it's in the shape of a big scarf. 

Still, the original taupe fabric had an unimaginably lovely, heavy-silk-like drape, so I decided to weave the rest of the warp to make warp end fabric, which turned out to be a bigger disaster. (And for once, I'm not exaggerating.) Also, no matter how gently I washed these, the weft turned fuzzy worn by the time they were drying. I like the taupe color, and I have tons of small mill-end cones, so I must experiment more to preserve the drape of this yearn in the finished piece. 

* * * * * 

As I mentioned, this warp was slow weaving, and I was very tired. Some days I was on what I can only describe as autodrive, but I wasn't sure if it was my body, head, or both. In the past, in washing my weaving I've been taken aback at the inconsistency in my beating, so much so that at times I wonder if I used yarns from a different cone/dye lot by mistake. Often this happens on Ashford table looms, so I blamed it on the short distance between the Shaft 1 and the breast beam, where I can see the cloth already woven to determine the beat of that particular cloth. So is it me, and not the loom? Looking back I can also recall at least two staggeringly inconsistently beaten pieces on the 16-shaft to my utter disappointment; one was intended as a present to a dear friend, another had silk weft and a fabulous hand. (I kept the latter.)

While weaving the warp end fabric with the skinny taupe weft, I notice one time the beat was much too tight, and the resultant fabric stiff on the loom. But as if in those fables where folks cannot stop dancing, my body refused to change the MO, and I kept beating hard. I thought a break may help, so I wound some cashmere wefts on the bobbin for the next project, and returned to weaving. This time the beat was so soft it was almost lacy on the loom. At this point it became not weaving, but the battle of the mind and the body, "me" reduced to a spectator. So weird.

I can recall once or twice in the past when I'm really tired, possibly after having been under the weather for a wee while, when the act of weaving felt just wrong. It wasn't good to persevere, unless I was working on a sample/experimentation, or a goofing-off project. I had made a mental note of it then, but had forgotten because I guess it'd been a while since I last persevered.

The only good things to come out of the body-snatched day was, this old wool warp and the skinny taupe weft combination produces the best drape woven in the super gappy, softly beaten way. Lordy, I even see the pattern! 

* * * * * 

I did enjoy the May-September mad weaving, though; I realized if I tried, to some degree, I can still weave one after another in quick succession. I never found/researched further how I could send these to Ukraine, and it's spring there now. But Esther, who always has calm, sensible answers, thought I should donate them to Women's Refuge where they will be handed to women (and children) directly, instead of Salvation Army, (usually my preferred charity,) where they will be sold to raise funds. With the cooler season coming up, this is a good idea, so I'll be contacting them in April/May, I think.

Good and Bad being Relative

Yesterday, I wasted a lot of time playing computer games, loitering in the kitchen, but I managed to wind the new tied-weave warp at the end of the day. And that got me back on the figurative loom bench, encouraging me to tidy up the basement a little, assessing my downstairs stash, (I brought down a lot of my default merino and all cashmeres so I can think ahead, and also keep busting Mom's wools and some silks in combination with them,) and generally look forward to weaving in the next little while.

 

Today, I wasted more time gazing at an art supply store's 20% off everything sale, even though I have enough for now and honestly had no intention of buying anything, but I managed to go downstairs to either start threading the warp, or continue weaving a brown piece I abandoned in September. 

This is the brown piece; it's on the four-shaft. In real life it's less gray, true taupe; pretty but unremarkable, more like fabric; very fine I can't see the design well; slow at 25cm/sitting; and the wool warp is sticky. It was Number-something in the series I was weaving with the intention of sending the whole lot to Ukraine, until I stumbled upon the issue of whom/where to send, and postage. But this piece broke my inertia. I didn't even want to look at it for a while. 

 

I tried to get back to it today because I need the four-shaft loom for a possible leaving-work-thank-you present in March; I'm about 83cm into this piece, hooping for 150-180cm, and there is another piece planned for this  short warp. I had "good" notes, so I didn't think it would be a big deal getting back, other than the slowness.

 

Well, sometime before or during my for-Ukraine phase, I gave the loom some TLC, and for whatever reason, possibly because it suited the project I was about to weave, I changed the tie-up. Not a great idea, when I've had the same tie-up since I got the loom in the first few years of this century. 

 

Strangely, I can't remember how it used to be tied, but a) I changed the plain weave treadles either from the outside treadles 1 and 6, to inside 3 and 4, or the other way around; and b) I changed what I call my twill treadles, which was always 1&2, 2&3, 3&4, 1&4 from the left, but stupidly I changed it to 1&4, 1&2, 2&3, 3&4. On top of that, in my notes I always write only my twill treadles. So with the current piece, the order is 4-3-2-3-4-1-2-3-2-1, which would be Treadles 5-4-3-4-5-2-3-4-3-2 if the plain weave sits on the outside, or 6-5-2-5-6-1-2-5-2-1 if it sits in the middle. See what I mean? Of course you don't! I was confused, too. Whereas when I was younger, I would have laughed out loud at my stupidity, in my dottage, (I've been collecting information to apply for NZ pension this week as well,) I couldn't see right away what the difficulty was.

 

And I couldn't remember what I had changed; I vaguely remembered switching back the plain weave to where it should have been; and instead of lifting to see where the plain weave treadles were, which would have taken 10 seconds, I kept weaving to see if the cloth looked right. After some weaving and unweaving, I wove with orange and yellow cotton in the treadling I thought was the correct one, so I can see the design better, but by then I was so frustrated I had to walk away. I want to re-tie to the way it's always been, but my body isn't telling me how it was. 

I thought I'd thread the cotton instead, and I knew the scheme for this project by heart, 1-P-2-P-3-P-4-P-5-P-4-P-3-P-2-P and repeat. Except I started looking at some old tied-weave drafts, thinking about how I wanted the diamonds to appear, and I found an anomaly there, too. This is an easier hole to climb out of because the main thing is to choose the appearance of the diamonds from the drafts I created some years ago. Oh, goodness, what is she on about now?? Well, I'll talk about this more later, but here are some pictures where I hope you see some diamond shapes. 

So, all in all, I made no progress today. Nada.

 

* * * * *

You may have seen the weather has been wreaking havoc on many parts of our North Island. They had one of those once-a-century rain and flooding, and a few earthquakes, and then came Gabrielle. There have even been death this time. Terrible! Meanwhile, we've only had some intermittent rain in Nelson when North Island was flooding, plenty of warning for 100km+ Gabrielle wind, but got a few showers, otherwise eerie quiet. 

 

Now let me move on to the title of this post. Hay fever started early in August this season, and aside from four or five days in August we had the rain and flooding, and an afternoon or three since, we had dry weather with more than usual wind. 

 

Symptoms started mild, which is why I didn't go off caffeine or dairy as I do some years. I was uneasy it started much earlier than usual, but with default meds at the ready, this was going to be an easy year. Until it wasn't. I noticed sometime in October/November the meds stopped working; again this has happened before, but usually much later in the season. The symptoms were still relatively mild, but I couldn't get rid of them regardless of the weather. And then the itchiness of the face, especially around my eyes, started to feel like a dozen paper-cuts; my usual non-descript face cream stung a little; and at times one or both inferior lacrimal puctum (lower tear duct) was/were red, hot, and kind of bulbous and a little painful to touch. That was a first in my 50-year career as a hay fever patient. 

Long story short, the wind kept blowing, the face kept itching, I kept scratching, and the areas around the left eye looked and felt horrible almost all the time. But it's hay fever, right? Sooner or later it's bound to quiet down with the season, yes? Do I really need to go see a doctor? Well, I'll go talk to the nurse next door, but she said the next step may be steroids. Ummm... No! 

 

I got in the habit of washing my eyeballs in the shower, like I used to as a kid after a day in the swimming pool. I hate that, it hurts, but I did. I knew it had something to do with the tear duct, so several times I chopped onions and stuck my nose right into the mound on the cutting board, but be it the eyes or the onions, nothing happened. I swallowed a huge chunk of wasabi paste, too, a trusty emergency hay fever remedy in dire cases, but that only gave me a stomachache. Meanwhile, other I think we had a relatively mild spring and a pleasant start to the summer, weeds growing everywhere and fairly robustly. 

Sometime in December, when my left eye continued to look, at times but not always, dreadful. One morning the right eye decided to match the look, which is when I told myself I needn't feel bad about the weeds, but to stay inside until this thing cleared. That was after another morning I had a hard time opening my left eye in the morning. This decision was a little disheartening but plenty freeing because as bad as our garden always looks, it's been ever so slightly better since Covid with marginally more year-round TLC dispensed. Now it's back to pre-Covid badness. I did contemplate seeing the doctor, but decided against it, again, because after all, it's just hay fever, isn't it? (If it happens again, I might reconsider, though.)

Anyway, last week, we had some rain; this is when North Island had the once-in-a-century rain, before Gabrielle. The air was moist with intermittent showers, temperatures high-ish with little wind; I noticed my left eye had been OK for a couple of days for the first time in six months. The paper-cut like feeling was gone, my face wasn't so itchy. I even worked outside for half a day, though I decided to come in before I overdid it. And it was like that for nearly a week. 

 

Then wind came back, blowing all the moisture away, and with it, my usual symptoms of less concentrated itches, stuffy nose, and sneezes returned. But the eye drops work again! I've never been so appreciative of run-of-the-mill hay fever symptoms, but hurrah for small wins! 

 

And when I chopped onions yesterday morning, at least the right eye filled with tears. 

Still, not a bad life when I find serendipitous harmony: a piece of paper I decorated in January to try to use up some paint and a ceramic bowl Esther gave us for Christmas a few years ago both prove I like blue-and-orange together.  

Further Thinking of Syrie

In early- or mid-February 2020, I hunkered down to reacquaint myself with the long-on-hold Syrie project. I imagined it would be a great 2020 project. I spent a week hunting down my notes, posts, and relics connected to the project; read; relearned; sorted loose ends to keep/discard; re-label relevant posts; and finally started a draft post.

At first it was a good distraction from the yet-named plague, too, which I didn't think would be a big deal in New Zealand, like the others in recent times, but with a lockdown imminent in Italy and the constant reminder diabetics were in increased danger, my attention moved away from the project.
 

My life-long interest in the plight of the Palestinians has remained, but news, and especially still photographs of refugees everywhere, wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Rohingya genocide, the Southern border of USA, and Ukraine, Türkiye/Syria earthquake, and the plight of women in Iran and Afghanistan, strengthen my resolve to work on this project, maybe more than one, while my focus/attention shifts from war to refugees to women's place in society.  

 

For whatever reason I revisit the project, and the draft, this time of year like clockwork. In 2021, I did a massive revision of the draft, ending up with a skeleton of what I had deposited in 2020, erasing the many segue identifying the meandering paths I had taken. To avoid  further culling of my thought-history, I'm posting what's left of the Feb 2020 draft for the record.  

 

* * * * *  

 

 "Syrie" has been on my mind, without urgency but making its presence known, hiding but also making sure I see her face in my periphery vision, or right in front of me blocking my way, sneering at the neglect it suffered, in the form of a small angry girl. I need to record how we got here in order to progress the project.

Origin:
Middle East was often a topic at our dinner table due to Dad's interest in this history and politics of the Middle East, the Holocaust, Palestine, Gaza, Golan Heights. As a kid, I was aware modern turmoil was never discussed in my convent school, even as we studied biblical Levant. As a youngish adult I was for a year a translator at the Syrian Embassy in Tokyo, a month after Syria ousted Palestinians to Lebanon.

I've wanted to work on a project based on all Dad taught me, what I've subsequently learned, how history continued in that region, but I wasn't sure what to focus on, and what to make on a loom. Then came Arab Spring, when I genuinely thought we were witnessing one giant step forward, but it was instead followed by a spate of government retaliation, military coups, and civil wars. Which as you recall lead to explosive numbers of refugees in all directions, citizen groups helping as well as opposing them, but in the worst instances, the media reducing their plight to a handful of photogenic children. 

 
Buildings and Windows:

Early on, I was irate when image search of "Syria" yielded photos of eerily silent, almost interchangeable achromatic photos of city scape, buildings and rubble. (I should have kept screenshots, because in 2021 the situation is different.) Not that I wanted to see them, but I found so few of crying, screaming, bleeding, fleeing, and dyeing people; only the bombed out buildings.

I observed how the media covered Syria and the subsequent refugee crisis, and began contrasting what they reported vs. what they showed. I didn't record what I observed, but I grew more aware of the emotional manipulation and twisting of the coverage. 

 
Silent photos of the charred buildings stuck in my mind, and this is how I started developing my first idea of tall buildings with gaps where windows used to be. Rather than a monochromatic, monolithic, clean version in the news coverage, I wanted to use all the colors of flames/fire for the walls of the burning building, and gray and black for the windows for the absence of humans and noise. I also contemplated inserting shadows of humans or ghosts in the windows, or spilling out of them.  Not all the panels/buildings would stand straight up, some would be falling uncomfortably on top of the viewers, while others will have fallen and crumbled and obstruct the viewers' path. The media went with the silent photos, I was aiming for the bloody, sooty, loud, messy, smelly uncomfortable version.

This would also be an easy transition from Pillars visually and technically; the buildings could be in fancy Syria-inspired twill, (Umayyad Mosque, shell-inlay, Damascas Ware patterns, Palmyra archeology...) which would have taken some time to work out, but all structural elements, panels and the windows, would be rectangular.

Refugees:
Following the Middle Eastern and African refugee influx into mainly Europe, (as covered by MSM) came refugees on the Southern boarders of the US, child separation, families divided, records "lost", separate deportation, babies on trial, sicknesses and deaths, "undocumented", dreamers, aliens, (I was a legal alien for a decade,) documents, testimonies, words, how law categorizes/labels humans. How the heck does a babe in diapers testify in court in a foreign language? However you categorize, each and every human has a life story. How do we record them?  

I started to see another option for the project. I became obsessed with visualizing a two-year-old's testimony in court: how does the court stenographer type it? What does it look like printed out? I see a lot of spit, /m/ and /b/, blank terrified stares, chubby finger pointing, perhaps. I smell milk and pee and maybe even a little sick. 

I tried to visualize ways I could represent great number of refugees' stories, their testimonies. A big red, (blood, but why?) scroll with text lines in charcoal/black, sometimes mixed with childish doodles. And drools. Perhaps maps. Texts/lines in different languages, sizes, orientations. Maybe many smaller "pages", perhaps even bound in a "book". Perhaps with torn/burnt, or missing parts. For exhibitions, I do like to submit whopping big pieces, as large as the venue allows.

How much research am I willing to do to learn other languages and scripts, albeit in a narrow context?  *Do I search the Internet for real stories?

*How about the bureaucratic intermediaries' influences? 

*How accurate are their recollections? Have the stories changed in the retelling? Have details been forgotten?  

*Have the stories been colored by other factors, like difference in perspectives, influence of accompanying adults, interpreters and other government workers? 

*Border/social worker/interpreter/bureaucrat may not have the cultural understanding, in part or as a whole; have they maliciously changed the stories?

*What about the untranslatables?

*What constitutes the true testimony? 

 

Does the languages/scripts need be real? How about acemic writing?Is it still true if only represented in acemic writing?

 

What about that old idea of hiding codes in the structure of weaving?

The Name:
I wrote previously I call this project "Syrie" temporarily to get away from the 1980s American "Syria/Libya=Bad" mentality. Of course, Syrie is French; France colonized the country, which brings a whole different set of baggage, but for now, it's a handy, symbolic label that covers all kinds of thoughts/ideas/feelings associated with this project, so I shall keep it until I need a different one.