Friday, September 22, 2017

Crunch Time Once Again

It is that time again, The Tuesday Weavers participate in 2 shows annually, the Museum of Appalachia's "Homecoming" is not even 2 weeks away.  That means that I have a dozen irons in the fire and not nearly enough time to do everything!  It is time to concentrate on a couple of things and get them done and then move on to the next couple of things.

Today, I set my timer for 30 minutes and worked on project #1 until the timer went off.  When it went off, I stopped what I was doing and moved on to project #2, once again I set the timer for 30 minutes and worked without stopping until the timer went off.  Then it was time for a bit of break which included lunch.



After my break I went back upstairs and set to work on project #3, setting the timer for 30 minutes once again.  I don't get as much time in the studio as I would like, but yesterday I happened to have a couple of extra hours free that I put to good use.  I was able to get the floor loom with the new inserted eye heddles, warped and ready to go with the hand spun Romney Lamb/Alpaca  shawl warp! I was so thrilled and I even managed to weave just a little bit before my time was up.

The shawl is project #3 today,  my first 30 minutes on this project, I ended up having to unweave a little bit.  Weaving with wool is entirely different than weaving with cotton.  I have almost no tension on the warp and I have to barely lay the weft in with the beater to get the cloth that I want.  The weft is hand spun Corriedale, not as soft as I would like but a good match for the warp just the same.


The second 30 minutes on the shawl, I managed to weave 14 inches before the timer went off, this gives me an idea just how long it is going to take me to finish the 96 inches that I am shooting for.  If I can speed it up to 20 in 30 minutes, it will take no time at all.

The other 2 projects are: #1, Jacobs batts for fleece rugs (new product), and #2 is 100  souvenir (tiny) packets of clean fleece from the Museum's "Sheep Shearing Day".  This is another new product for me, kids are always wanting bits of my fleece, so I thought if I package it up and charge a little bit for it, maybe they will stop asking me for it, and I will make a penny or two.  Who knows!

I got through my rotation 2 times this afternoon, and would have gone longer but it was time to work on dinner.  I hope to be able to work a good bit tomorrow morning, to finish at least the "Bits of fleece" packages.  I have a few other things to label and inventory  as well, that will become one of the rotation as soon as I finish up something.

Working on three things at a time, three different activities, three different movements does several things, it keeps me on task,  keeps me from getting bored and keeps me from being so caught up on a project that I ignore the rest.  I still have a lot of projects to do, but I am taking stock and saving a few of them to work on after the "Homecoming" as they will be more suited for the Foothills Craft Guild show in November.

Until next time, Happy Weaving, Tina


1 comment:

LA said...

I'm getting my timer set right now....off to the studio!!!! You're getting a bunch done!