Time Out to Give Thanks...

These days, I am giving thanks over and over for friends and area church members willing to help their neighbors. The wood delivered here for this winter turned out to be freshly cut maple, not dry, and delivered right before school started. A couple art shows and the Fall Art Tour on my calendar along with problems with the log splitter delayed working on the wood to the point of keeping me awake nights wondering how we would get it done.

A good friend, Nancy, called to tell me her church has a crew that enjoys helping people out, and they were more than willing to come here and take care of our wood. This past Saturday at 8:30 AM, ten members of the St. Germain and Conover Evangelical Free Churches arrived here, and in six hours, using chain saws and two log splitters, had cut, split, and stacked 5 loggers cords of wood.


The job was finished at 2:30 PM, and a few minutes taken for photos (four adults had had to leave earlier) before loading up the log splitter and chain saws they had brought.



Also helping were my daughter, Linnea, and Nancy's daughters, Anna and Emilie. They worked hard all day and kept up with the men. Keesha kept everyone company and was always up for some petting. I also spent some time at our log splitter (now with a new motor put on a few days ago). Nancy had arrived early Saturday AM with chili, homemade cinnamon-apple sweet rolls, and a big coffee pot, and I made two pans of cornbread and served the food. The weather was perfect on Saturday, sunny, around 60 and a light breeze.

I still have half of the left half of the woodshed with dry wood from last winter, now being burned on colder evenings. On warmer non-burning days/nights the thermostat is kept at 64 or 65 degrees. The new wood will need time to dry and likely can't be burned until at least January (maple dries faster than oak). For now, on nice days, the wood is uncovered so sun and wind can help the drying along. When rain (or snow) is expected, tarps cover the tops of the woodpiles.

So, my continuing thanks to everyone who gave up several hours of their Saturday to help a northwoods neighbor. You are, and remain, in my thoughts and prayers.

I have had a couple weeks of dealing with home, family, and recently making the decision to move back to southern WI, hopefully next summer. I love our home here in the northwoods, and very thankful for 17 years up here, 13 years in this house. However, with my husband gone five years now and my last two children leaving home in less than a year, I've reached the conclusion that this house is too big and too much maintenance for me alone. The time has come for to move on and start a new life. I've been making lists of what to keep, give, toss, and take to thrift stores. Now, the work of moving begins.

Today I am working in the studio sewing strips for rag rugs. Another shuttle is filled and waiting at the loom, and several more sheets are waiting to be cut into strips and sewn together. While working, I am wondering how I will get everything done and still be able to do MY studio work. Somehow, I will make it all happen. A new adventure begins.

Loom Maintenance

It's a clear, sunny day in the northwoods, a fair amount of light coming into my (log) studio space, making it a good day for some loom maintenance.

I sat down to weave on the rug late yesterday afternoon and could not get a clear tabby shed with my left tabby treadle. I finally discovered some Texsolv heddles had fallen off the bottoms of some shafts, and when that happens they often catch on moving neighboring shafts, causing problems. I recalled having to move heddles from one shaft to another, and now noticed I had not replaced the long strings going around the bottom shaft bars.

This morning, I sat down, put all the heddles back on each shaft, making sure none were twisted. Then, one shaft at a time, replaced those strings, going around the bottom of each shaft bar, outside of the heddles, and making sure I had not included the long Texsolv cords from jacks to lamms.

As you can see in the photo, the Texsolv cords on the top shafts bars keep heddles from working their way off the ends. Adding a string around the bottom shafts bars keeps heddles from dropping off and causing problems while weaving. I highly recommend this, and based on my experience today, can tell you it is much easier to do before your loom is warped, beater is on, and weaving is in progress. I learned this tip long ago from Ken Colwell.

As long as I'm doing loom maintenance, I'm also checking the wedges that hold the loom together and tightening up any that can be pulled out or feel loose. With the woodburner being used daily, the air in here is getting dry. When that happens, beating can cause damage when loom parts are not tight. This is something I check throughout the winter months. Reminder to self: add a huge pot of water to the top of the woodburner for the rest of the winter.

I've checked the tabby sheds and they are clear. Now I just need to move my loom back into place, and sit down to weave. Life is good.

Drawloom Issues

Loom mechanics are something I am paying attention to at the moment. The drawloom warp was tied on, pins pulled out of upper jacks, warp tension increased slightly, and...

when I depressed treadle #1, one shaft went up, one went down, six stayed neutral, all as should be happening. The first shed was okay, I took my foot off the treadle, and nothing changed, the treadle stayed down, shafts did not move, counterweights (above) are not pulling shafts back to "rest" position. It's a mystery.

So, I have spent a day or two trying to sort this out, checking the loom over from back to front, top to bottom, and still have no idea what is wrong, so back to checking every detail again.

I've written to weavers in the Complex Weavers Double Harness Study Group, posted photos in an album, and asked for ideas, suggestions, and/or experiences with this, and replies are starting to come in.

Meanwhile, in-between getting ready for weaving guild members meeting here tonight, I'll be going over the loom again, trying to discover the problem and how to fix it. I'll keep you posted.

Studio Days and Inspiration

Today and tomorrow are studio days, for working on and at looms and sock machine. My time to work here has been so broken up the last couple weeks, that I have not getting much done. Too many interruptions lately, demands on my time, errands, appointments, and I've called a halt.

This morning the drawcord warp was trimmed where each cord is tied to a pattern heddle. There were approximately 3"+ tails left on each when they were tied awhile back, and pulling the cords was causing those ends to wrap around themselves and their neighbors (above).


All I could see to do was cut those ends off, so they were trimmed to 1". So far there has been no further problem. The old drawcord warp was a thicker linen with a slightly waxy finish on it, and the knots were tight and held. With the seine twine, I have not been able to tie good tight knots, so hoping they will hold.

The next task today, when I'm done here, is lashing the tie-on rod onto the apron, so large-eye needle, string, and pliers are standing by. When I'm done with that, I'll tie the 20/2 cotton warp on, then be able to pull the pins out of the upper jacks and check to see if I have a shed and how much adjusting needs to be done (next post).

I have always enjoyed visiting artists studios, seeing how and where they work. It was something I did each summer when going to The Looms. Now, living where I do, these opportunities are rare, so I turn to books like...



those of Rice Freeman-Zacher, author of "Living the Creative Life, Ideas and Inspiration from Working Artists" and her new book, "Creative Time and Space, Making Room for Making Art."



I also enjoy publications like American Artist's "Studios" magazine (left), for fine artists, and "Studios" (right) by Cloth.Paper.Scissors, for artists working in paper/collage/fibers/art quilts.

WI weaver Dawn MacFall is featured in this issue. Fun and interesting reads that give ideas for my studio that may work for me here or in the future.



While ordering "Creative Time and Space" on Amazon, I suddenly remembered an article that had been in an issue of Shuttle, Spindle & Dyepot (Winter 2008/2009), "Kimono as Art: The Landscapes of Itchiku Kubota." This book and the work of Itchiku Kubota is incredibly beautiful. Pure inspiration! A treasure!

Every Day is an Adventure

Yesterday I was UNtangling pattern heddles under the drawloom. Here you can see the pattern heddles and lingos are now hanging straight, not the tangled mess shown in the previous post.

Half of the tangled heddles on the other side of the loom were also straightened out last night, and now have only 50 or so to finish up today.

This silk weaver in Cambodia has an interesting double harness loom, with the ground shafts in back and 16 pattern shafts in front. I would love to know more about this loom as well as see the weaving she does on it. I found her last night on Kiva.org, and made another microloan. I am SO enjoying this!

Like elsewhere across the country, WI is having unusual weather for this time of year. Last night the weatherman said it is usually Nov. 24th when we have a couple inches of snow. Well, we have the couple inches of snow on Oct. 12 and as I wrote this it is only 32 outside at 10:15 AM.

Bringing wood in this morning, from the wood rack on the porch to the woodbox in the kitchen, I noticed the icicles on the remains of a hanging plant on the porch, with a backdrop of birch leaves that have not yet fallen.

Postscript: The above photos were taken about 9:15 AM; by 11:30 the snow was melting and it is now looking more like our usual fall. I'm on dial-up, loading photos to Blogger takes TIME, and circumstances change!

Wool Socks & First Snow

I'm busy working on socks orders, seven orders to do yet for a total of seventeen pairs of socks, plus Artistree Gallery, and the on-line shop. Whew!

Jewel tones had been requested for one order, shown here. I noticed these three colors sitting together on a loom bench and thought "why not?" They worked up very well though at the time I wondered what possessed me. Take chances!

I'd put "The View" on one morning and what struck me was the stage set, blue, green, and white or silver. SOCKS popped into my head, so I sat down and made them up. Inspiration comes from all kinds of places!

During the fall art tour, a friend was here and requested socks. Being busy with several people I suggested she go to the shelves and pull out three colors. She did, and I made them up. Not being entirely certain she would like them. I made up a second pair, substituting a lighter gray for the dark gray she had chosen. This is the lighter pair. She really liked both and had a hard time deciding. In the end she took the darker pair for winter wear. I didn't get a photo so will need to make them up again.

I need to work on sock names again as I've been coming up with more new color combinations. When you have over a hundred names on your list, you tend to start running out of ideas!

I woke up to our first snow this morning, it was snowing and blowing! I went out later and snapped a couple photos including snow on the pumpkins. By afternoon the sun was out, the snow had melted, but it is still quite windy tonight. We usually don't have snow until near the end of October, so I'm hopeful we'll still have a week or two of our normal fall weather before it gets cold and stays cold. Because of the wind, though, I did start a fire in the woodburner this AM, our first this fall, and oh, how that wood heat warms you through.

Give Me Patience...

The pattern heddles on the outside, both sides, of the drawloom are a terrible tangled mess! Do you remember Kylie, our dog who had to be put down the second day of the Summer Art Tour? She had the canine version of dimentia, standing and staring into corners or at walls. Unhappily, she also would often get under one of my looms, and was unable to figure out how to get back out. I took to parking chairs and stools in front of any openings along the sides and ends of the drawloom I thought she could get through, and still she would get in there. The tangled heddles are the result.

You can see, on the right, a few I managed to untangle this morning. Over two hours working on it and I still have a ways to go. The larger tangled group was much, much worse when I started. The other side of the loom is nearly as bad. I have my work cut out for me!

Do I need them untangled to weave? No, I'll just be a much happier weaver when this is done!