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