Change and Anticipation!

First of all, changes.  Maggie's job changed a month or so ago and she found that writing on Monday just didn't work for her any longer. She asked if she could change to either Wednesday or Thursday. Well, I've been Wednesday since I was switched from Sunday months ago. Monday would work even better for me, so I was glad for the switch. So, starting today I'm Monday and Maggie is Wednesday. Change is good. Keeps you on your toes and hopefully I'll remember to post each Monday!!

What's on the loom right now? I have a peach, lemon and jade combination. It's kind of unusual but I like it. I try to see what I can work out colorwise that is a bit different and still works. This will be a jacket, couple of tops and 3 vests. Finding buttons for them from my stash will be fun. That's another interesting time. Finding buttons. I recently put buttons on my pink pieces that I"d woven. I found that all the pink ones I had were wrong, too shrimp, too something. I had added a very pale pink yarn to the warp and because of that, white worked the best. I hadn't expected to use white but the vests look nice this way and I used some interesting white buttons that I had.

On the peach, I may have peach ones that work but I can also use  any jade buttons as well if they're a bit softer color since the jade blends with the peach in the middle of the warp. I've just begun to weave this warp so I hope to have it woven by Wednesday evening. Tomorrow is Tuesday, you know!

 I did wind a warp for my other nilus leclerc that I named Thelma after the lady that owned it before me. However, it's not on there yet. Still on the warping board! I have a mental block with this loom. It's got a sectional beam on it and I'm vascillating between removing the sectional part and adding an apron or just tieing the warp on the cords that are there or should I add some mental rods and pretend there's an apron on it by joining the rod to the beam with cords?? So I've been kind of frozen with that loom. However, the warp is wound and has to go somewhere because once the peach warp is done I have to wind another one for the Nilus.... The  warp I wound is for placemats and I will be using some of that stash we got from the mountains last week. I did come home with the back of my van covered in rolls of the strips of fabric!!! Found homes for all of them in the house too!

Anticipation is for this weekend. I leave Thursday for the Southeastern Fiber Forum Association conference at Arrowmont. I am taking Catherine Ellis's class on Woven Shibori. I am soooo excited!! My wolf pup is almost threaded. We had a choice of about 6 threadings for our loom. I looked at all of them and wimped out and did the monks belt one. The reason? Most of the others had a ton of thread on one harness and I would have had to shift a ton of heddles to do it. As it was, I thought I would be short and added 25 heddles to each harness. I didn't want to shift around heddles and then have to change them back for the next warp. This threading had equal numbers of heddles per harness!
This is just a workshop, learning the process. When I add this to my production pieces, I will add heddles as needed but for just a workshop I thought this was easier and I know I'm going to learn a lot!!

If you're in the Gatlinburg area on Saturday, come to Arrowmont. The vendors are open to the public that day and they promise to have lots of goodies to choose from!  I am sure some of it will come home to my place!
Another reason I'm excited about this conference is because there are at least half of dozen of us older weavers attending. By older I mean, having woven for a long time, used to go to conferences together or have been around the weaving world for ages. Some of them I haven't seen in quite awhile so it's going to be good to rejuvenate, see what's new and catch up on life!
I will do my best to take pictures of the process. I am not the best photographer. I forget to take pictures. That's why there aren't many in my blog. I'm not like my Dad who used to take pictures all the time we were on holiday. I used to think it was a huge distance between Jasper and Banff in the Canadian Rockies because it took 2 days for us to get there, stopping at every lookout spot and between for pictures. It's only when DH and I drove it years later that I realized you can do it in just a couple of hours!!!
So, I am heading back to finish threading my pup and getting things together for the class.
Until next Monday!!
Carol