Maru got excited while I was warping the last of the blanket warp. Given half a chance, he’d run into my studio and full-on attack the warp. Grabbing paw-fulls, and raking it with his back claws.
Needless to say, he got booted. Not only for the sake of the warp, but for his own. The barbs on a cat’s tongue mean that they can’t spit out yarn. Once they get it in their mouth, they have to keep eating it. Which can lead to wads of yarn in their stomach and other intestinal woes.
So if you have kitties, keeping them away from yarn is a very good thing. Since we got Maru, my studio has been almost pathelogically clean (yarn-wise, anyway.)
I’m currently working on the mending of the blanket. It’s taking longer than I’d like, but that’s how things usually go.
Today’s weaving tip: If a warp thread breaks, fix it immediately. Don’t tell yourself that you’re close to the end and can just weave it in after the cloth is off the loom; you’re not that close to the end.
This is what 9 yards looks like, wound onto the cloth beam.
This is the third warp. I’ve woven 27 yards for this project. The next step is mending, in which I fix any errors and skips in the fabric.
There are a non-trivial number of errors, but not as many as I feared there would be. When I started this project, an experienced weaver told me that it’d be impossible to weave — that all of the different threads, with their varying sizes, fibers, and amount of stretch would create bad tension.
There were only a few threads that needed special handling, those were easily dealt with using some additional weights.
The weights I’m using there are brass weights with hooks on the top. I got them from American Science & Surplus several years ago and find all kinds of uses for them in the fiber arts.
I’m actually looking forward to the mending. It’s symbolic of forgiving and fixing my own errors and flaws.
If you want to know more about the story behind the book, give it a listen. It’s a great way to pass the time while threading a loom, which is what I was doing when I played it.
It was tremendous fun chatting with Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood on the phone, and it reminded me how much I loved talking to other artists when I was producing Weavecast.
So much so that I’ve revamped the Weavecast website, separating it out from the now-archival WeaveZine site.
I also plan to produce new episodes, not at the monthly cadence I did before. But quarterly.
In other publication news, I recently heard from my editor at Storey that Inventive Weaving is going into a second printing! That means people are finding and enjoying the book. A big thank you to everyone who’s reading the book and recommending it to friends.
After spending years weaving and writing for a book, it’s great to have that book find its audience.
I was weaving along on the Birthday Blanket at a good clip when the right treadle cable broke. This was frustrating, but I take it as a sign that I’m now a “real” weaver. Though as soon as I type that, I hear Laura Fry in my head saying, “Not until you fix it, you’re not.” Fair point, imaginary Laura, fair point.
I ordered a new cable from AVL and the following steps show how I replaced it. My loom is an Production Dobby Loom built in 1984. If your PDL was born in another year, these steps might not work for you.
First you need to loosen the set screw on the collar holding the cam shaft in place.
Then slide the shaft out. (No sniggering, I can hear you!)
Next, unscrew the three screws holding the cam on.
It is a good idea to take a pencil and mark how the cam lines up before you remove all of the screws. This makes it easy to line up later.
Remove the cam.
The plug end of the cable is held in place by a ring of metal with a slot in it. The hole in the wood is big enough to put the plug and cable through, the ring with the slot covers part of the hole, effectively making it smaller.
It is a good idea at this point to measure your replacement cable and make sure it is the same size as the broken cable. (Ask me how I know…) And yes, I am wearing a leopard-print polartec adult onesie. It’s cold in my house; don’t judge.
Using a screwdriver and a hammer, gently tap the metal ring until the slot just barely clears the hole in the wood. Do not pound it all the way out, that would make it harder to put back in place.
Now you can slide the plug end of the cable out of the hole.
Reverse the previous steps to insert the new cable into the cam and attach the cam back onto the loom.
Take the cable up and OVER the cam.
When threading the cable down to the treadle, make sure to go over the wooden pulley. If you fail to do so, the cable will rub on the metal rod the pulley rides on and break again soon.
I had a wonderful time at the Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival. It’s a new festival, I believe this was it’s fourth year. It was small and had a great vibe, reminding me quite a bit of the Madrona Winter Retreat in Tacoma.
Friday night, there was a book signing with all the teachers and authors attending the event. I had the pleasure of meeting another Storey author, Lea Redmond.
She wrote Knit the Sky, which is about applying the creative process to knitting. It’s an innovative and lovely approach. In one project you use a scarf as a weather journal, in another you track the growth of a child. My favorite was the moon cowl. Half is white, and the other black, and you adjust how you wear it to match the current phase of the moon. Here I am wearing the cowl in the half-moon position.
Judith MacKenzie, my first weaving teacher was there. It felt full circle to have her there, sharing my journey from non-weaver to author of a newly published weaving book.
Another full-circle moment was re-connecting with Sarah Anderson. Once, traveling back together on an airplane after teaching at the Golden Gate Fiber Institute, she quietly confessed, “I just sold a book to Storey.” I leaned over and whispered back, “Me, too.”
She finished her book first, but I got there in the end.
The fun and irrepressible Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka The Yarn Harlot) decided we needed a selfie, so this happened. I’m impressed she was able to fit us all in there.
She offered to send the photo out to anyone who had Instagram, so five minutes later I had it installed and running on my phone. If you want to follow my feed, I’ve registered as @synemitchell.
In other news, I am back on the writing wagon. Today I wrote for 30 minutes.
One of the fun things about working at Google is that you get to work with smart and creative people. The photo below was created with Cloud Spin, a demo project that shows how to use Google Cloud Platform to build services for mobile apps.
The folks running the demo at the GDG conference were bemused when I showed up with my sock and a ball of yarn.
This is my representation of juggling a craft-filled life.
It would have been even more fun if I’d had several unfinished projects to juggle, but I had to work with what I had on hand.
The way the technology works is that you have a set of mobile phones arranged in a half-circle. You jump, and each phone takes a wee bit of video. The app controlling the phones inserts an audio “beep” as a marker when you jump. Then the phones upload the videos to code running in the cloud, which extracts the frame corresponding to the audio marker from each video and compiles it into a single animated GIF.
The team that created this demo did it on a nearly nonexistent budget, in three weeks. I edited the blog posts they wrote about the project. If you’re interested in the technical details and/or building your own version check them out:
And yes, seeing this photo does make me want to eat better and get more serious about exercising regularly. But you know what, if I wait until I’m thin to do fun things, that might be a long time… and I’d miss out on adventures in the meantime.
P.S. I have totally fallen down on my NaWriDaMo pledge. Epic fail. I blame the wool fumes at the Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival.
For previous book releases, I’ve made a pilgrimage to the local bookseller to take a celebratory picture standing next to the book on the shelves.
With my time almost completely taken up with working at Google and spending time with my family, I’m not sure when I’ll have time to get to a local yarn or book store. So if you see a copy out in the wild, give it a pat for me, will you?
This book is the culmination of four years of work, research, weaving that went well, weaving that didn’t, fear, day jobs, procrastination, more work, and heroic efforts on the part of my editor.
I hope you like it.
P.S. Got my 30 minutes of novel writing in yesterday and today. By the skin of my teeth today, but done!
My new book, Inventive Weaving, is scheduled to be published tomorrow, though I know that some folks who attended Rhinebeck or pre-ordered the book on Amazon have already gotten their hands on copies.
This upcoming weekend I’ll be promoting the book at the Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival, in The Dalles, Oregon. It’s one I’ve never been to and I’m interested to explore it. There are some great teachers there. Friday afternoon, I’m taking the Knit Smart class taught by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Friday, from 4pm-7pm, I’ll be participating in a book signing with all the luminaries teaching at the festival.
Saturday, I’ll demo weaving overshot on a rigid heddle loom from 11:00-11:45, near the registration desk.
Linda Gettman, one of my former students, is teaching rigid-heddle classes at the festival . I’m so proud of her! If I teach someone to weave, and they go on to teach others, does that make me a weaving grandma?
And yes, today’s 30 minutes of novel writing are done!
November is National Novel Writing Month. It’s an annual event where writers pledge to write a novel (40K or more words) in a month. There are websites where you can register and find other enthusiasts, and cheer each other on.
I have never participated in NaNoWriMo, but I’ve always been intrigued. I like the idea of committing to something, and being part of a community of writers. But the idea of writing for speed, at the probable expense of quality, doesn’t work for me.
But this year, I think I’ve found a way to participate. Instead of pledging a word count, I’m pledging 30 minutes a day.
Each day in November, I’m going to carve out 30 minutes and sit my butt in the chair and write. Perhaps it’ll only be two sentences, perhaps a whole chapter. I won’t end up the month with a novel, but I’m hoping to end up with a sustainable habit that can eventually lead to one.
I call it NaWriDaMo, National Write Daily Month.
And yes, I’ve already done 30 minutes today, on something that might, one day, be a novel.
This summer, I spent time in Seattle coffee houses and libraries going through the page proofs of my forthcoming book: Inventive Weaving.
This is the step in the publishing process where all of the photos and text are laid out as they will be in the finished book, and the author gets to go through and catch any little errors that have crept into the manuscript.
It’s an exciting time, the first time you see your book in print. I held by breath as I first opened the big envelope from the publisher. The team at Storey did a wonderful job with the layout, coming out with some innovations I’d never seen before, like running swatches of the fabrics along the outside edges of the pages to make the book easier to scan.
The photos of the projects and stacks of fabrics were gorgeous. Seeing the page proofs is the first time you think to yourself: “This book is really going to happen.”
It’s also a lot of work. As the author, you have to go through the book word-by-word and image-by-image, scanning for errors, no matter how small. This is the last chance you’ll have to fix them.
After many long hours of review, I mailed a PDF of my changes to Gwen, my editor. After Storey incorporated my fixes, I took another look. I’ve published books before, I know that no matter how careful you are, no matter how many times you review the copy, some errors will slip through.
It’s not dead, just pining for the fjords…. WeaveZine was down for about a week recently and I’ve been asked questions about that.
I was moving WeaveZine to a new host, and making some improvements to the site at the same time. There was a snafu with the DNS switch-over and the site was offline for 6-ish days, instead of the planned 48 hours.
Sorry about that. The good news is that the site is back up and stable. It’s easier than ever to navigate, and is more protected from spammers.
I think I even managed all the changes without breaking any links. If that’s not true, tell me which link is broken and I’ll set up a redirect to fix it.
This move makes WeaveZine cheaper to keep online and easy to maintain as an archive site. I made the change so I could keep this content online for the foreseeable future.
I’m proud of what WeaveZine was and of all the work the authors put into the content. Re-reading the articles as part of this update got me inspired to weave all over again.
Happy to keep the archives online for both you and me.
And I’m glad to learn that people are still finding the content useful. That’s really cool to hear four years after the magazine ended publication.
It started when Eric sent me a link in email. The subject line was “another keyboard”. I’ve been looking for a new keyboard ever since my beloved Touchstream LP began dying. It’s 12 years old, so I can’t complain.
Having suffered with RSI in my late 20s, I’ve become a big fan of ergonomics. It’s why I switched to typing Dvorak instead of Qwerty.
At work I’ve been using the Kineses Advantage LF (with the cherry key stem). It’s a lot like the Touchstream in terms of light pressure to activate the keys and putting your hands in a neutral position. I even got a pedal that I can use to press the Shift key. It’s a whify thing, I was thinking about buying one for home, until I saw this…
It’s beautiful. It’s ergonomic. It was designed by an indie husband and wife team. You can program the light show that plays across the keys (or turn it off). It’s based on Arduino.
It’s open source. They give you the source code and a screwdriver when you purchase one. Which means that instead of going obsolete over time, this keyboard can actually improve. And if you like to tinker with software and hardware, you can improve it yourself.
One of the things I love about handweaving is the beautiful tools, lovingly created by craftsmen or small companies. Beautiful woods, things that feel as lovely to touch as the things you make using them.
Thanks to a couple of peer bonuses from work, it’s mine. Or at least, it will be when they ship in April 2016.
