A Final Farewell to Phoenix

Yes, I know. You all have seen the struggle. Phoenix has been through a lot of ups and downs, literally. This final time of resurrecting her and giving it one more try was eye opening for me. I have to finally admit from the heart, this big loom really doesn't work in my life anymore.

I got about half way through putting a warp on her and the challenges began. In the past, I had no problem working through the challenges, but now things are different. At first I thought it was because it was summer. Summer means I am outdoors painting or gardening. The weaving guilds always took a break during the summer months as we were all so busy.

Fall came along with storm after storm. Perfect weaving weather but, it just wasn't meant to be at this time. It is also perfect weather to work in the art studio, catching my breath and honing my art skills.
Phoenix takes up so much room and I am always tripping over her or squeezing around her to get to my drawing table. Alas, she crowds my art making. I have come to a fork in the road where I have to make a choice, art or weaving. I do not have time to do both justice, only one. Art will always win out.

So, this is it. The final attempt to sell her. If I don't sell her, she will be re-purposed into studio furniture. In fact, I already have ideas in mind. While it may seem a shame to turn a rather expensive loom into furniture, it will still be used to further my creativity plus, have you seen the price of art studio furniture these days? I will be getting good quality handcrafted furniture for a decent price! There will also be bits and pieces that will be sold or given away separately.

I still have my 8H-Jane table loom. I am not through with weaving forever. I love it too much.

Here are the details complete with my lowest asking price yet.

For Sale!

 

AVL Modular Loom: 60 inches wide

$1,000.00 firm

Please note: This is not a dobby loom! It is a modular production loom that can be converted to a dobby loom with additional equipment from AVL.

Loom includes the following:

 

·      8 Harnesses

·      60” Single Box Flyshuttle Beater

·      Fly Shuttles and Pirns

·      60” 1 Yard Sectional Warp Beam

·      Tension Box for Sectional Warping

·      Track and Mounting System for Tension Box

·      2-60” Reeds, 15 and 12 dents/inch

·      Yarn, misc. accessories and more!

     The loom currently lives on the Northern Oregon Coast and would need to be picked up (Sorry, it isn’t feasible to ship). The loom is currently assembled and will be disassembled as needed for transportation. 

The loom could be delivered to the Portland Oregon area for an additional $500. 

If interested please contact me at rdelight_latorre (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Finally, the loom will be for sale until the end of December 2015. Not much notice I know but I really need to have the space back. 

Thank you all for your kind support of my journey over the years. It has continues to be a joy.
-Renee

Phoenix

Phoenix rises again!

Well, she is back. After many attempts to sell her, threats to make her into furniture, contemplation of cutting her down to size, Phoenix has risen again! I do believe this is the third time I have rebuilt her. This time was a bit more challenging as I had disassembled this loom into the smallest pieces it would go.

She is currently standing empty due to me having a sprained foot but the first warp is all planned out. I have completely cleaned my studio and have gone through every nook and cranny. After the bit of moving around a few times, there are still a few things that need to find new homes. I will be posting yarn and fiber at bargain prices soon so please do keep an eye out for future posts!

Weaving time will be interwoven with painting time. Looking forward to it as I have missed it.

-Renee

AVL Loom Update: An Aha Moment

My 60" AVL Modular loom

I have listed and re-listed this beautiful loom and even lowered the asking price. I even recently contacted AVL about the possibility of a buyback and got a polite "thanks but no thanks" and advice to try selling it elsewhere. I resisted sending a detailed reply to their advice. I have been trying to sell this loom, on and off, for the past 5 years or so.
As I sat pondering what to do next, I kept thinking in "if only's". If only I had a place to set it up, if only it was smaller, if only...
Then it hit me. If I was prepared to make it into furniture at one point, why couldn't I just make it smaller, say a 36" width instead of 60"? I jumped online and did a bit of research. I found manuals on AVL's website for some of their home looms. Looking through manuals and thinking outside of the box, my conviction grew. Yes I can!
So, I have a summer project! I will resize the loom and restructure my studio. I really do miss weaving. I won't have a lot of time to devote to the fiber arts as painting and fine art takes up the biggest chunk but I have an hour a day I can sew, spin, or weave. I just have to organize and make sure things are easy to get to and I can jump in and out of the fiber projects quickly.
One of the reasons I did so well with this loom, even though I had never woven on a loom when I bought it, is because I love to tinker. I am in for a major tinker on this one! At this point I feel I have nothing to lose.

I plan to start in June and will be posting the progress!

-Renee

A New Kind of Fiber Blog

Woven Shibori

As many of you know, marine painting has taken over my life. There is still room for fiber but not as a focus as it was in the past. I have a new blog that all things fiber will be posted on. That will be spinning, weaving, dyeing, sewing, etc.
You can find this blog at The Artful Stitch. I hope you all join me there as I start on a project to create a much needed and long overdue wardrobe for myself.
I am also starting an Etsy store which will be announced formally when I get a recent glitch fixed. The store will have a lot of supplies for a while as I am cleaning out and refocusing. There are also a few handwoven and handspun items such as the woven shibori above that will be for sale. I am even going to post a painting or two. Most of my marine paintings for sale can be found on my website R.L. Delight Fine Art.
The big AVL loom is still intact and still for sale. I will occasionally post announcements here but not much else. Thanks to everyone who enjoyed this blog. I am leaving it up as there is a lot of weaving and dyeing information. Please come visit The Artful Stitch blog!
Yours in Creativity,
Renee

Radical Creative Surgery

Free clip art from: http://vintagefeedsacks.blogspot.com

Sometimes a road block can be a handy device, even when it is annoying. It slows you down and makes you think. My tie up cords came and I can proceed but I have done some serious thinking. Let me back up a bit and explain. One of the joys of being a fiber person is collecting fiber stuff. There are plenty of opportunities to do so, usually presented by our fellow fiber persons. I must admit I have been guilty of presenting these opportunities myself and will probably do it again in the future! You all know what I am taking about, someone decides to sell of part of her stash or, sadly, a weaver or knitter has passed on and their family enlists the help of a guild or group to sell off the piles of yarn. I am no different from any other fiber collector. I have yarn that I have gleefully scored for an insanely low price of fill-in-the blank dollars. Then once it is home and resting proudly on its shelf or in its bin, you start to think. You realize that you have just purchase 10,000 yards of a yarn in a size, color, or fiber that you don't use! "But, it was such a good deal!", you think. Of course, not all the yarn is like that but, well, you all know how it goes. It all secretly multiplies when the lights are off until you suddenly find yourself under a pile of cascading cones of yarn when you open the cupboard door.
So what does this have to do with the cheerful lady with the big scissors? You probably guessed. I have this giant cone of cotton yarn, good stuff too, only I have always preferred to weave with fine yarns. In the giddiness of resurrecting my loom I have fallen pray to the "got to use it up, after all it was such a good deal" mentality.  Time for some radical creative surgery.
In the few years that my loom was dismantled and quietly sleeping, my life shifted, rather dramatically. My priorities shifted as well. My focus, which was temporarily softened by the excitement of getting my loom back up, has snapped sharply back, whacking me along side the head in the process. I can't do it. I can't weave 10 yards of something I really don't want to weave and therefore really don't have the time to. So, after making sure the loom is indeed running well, off it comes. In addition, I am going to go through my greatly diminished stash and purge anything left that does not fit in with my life. More on that later.
What do I want to weave? Well I mentioned it before, linen canvas for painting. My intent is to weave enough to sell to a rather exclusive market so that I can supply myself as well. It will be a large learning curve but I have been riding that curve for the past three years now and I am rather getting to like it!
Here is the final element of that sharp focus. This really is the final chance for such a huge loom to fit into my life. If it doesn't fall into place, with the proper application of elbow grease of course, I WILL sell the loom. I will miss Phoenix of course but I will still have Jane.
Hope this doesn't sound too gloomy or dramatic. This is just what happens when your life takes a sharp turn round a corner.
I do enjoy reading the weaving blogs!
-Renee