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

What to Weave?

Progress is being made in getting my hybrid weaving and painting studio up to full speed. I am painting again and that part can be found on my "Art = Life" blog. I have been getting things put away in the weaving part of the studio and re-configuring my spool rack to work in the new space. It is a bit of a tight squeeze but it is working so far. I also need to find my electric bobbin winder!
In the meantime, I have unpacked my two bins of yarn. I hadn't seen the contents for a few years and I groaned when I saw this huge, and I mean huge, cone of cotton yarn. I vaguely remember getting it at one of those weaver's yarn stash sales thinking that it would be good rug warp or something. Don't laugh when you read the next part...I don't weave rugs! Oh, I thought I would try to but never could get into it in spite of how much I admired the rugs woven by my weaving friends. Here is what I mean:

The cone is about 16" tall and probably weighs 2 or 3 pounds. The cotton looks to be about a 5/2 weight. The two cones in front are some of Jane Stafford's lovely 8/2 cotton. I have a few cones of some odd colors of that in my stash too.
So, I have been debating what to put on for my first welcome-back-to-weaving warp. Common sense says I should put on something easy to get reacquainted with my loom and the weaving process. However, what I really would love to put on is a linen warp to try to weave my own painting canvas! So do I play it safe and sensible or do I throw caution to the winds? I have to think about it, and what in the heck am I going to do with that huge cone of cotton yarn?
Oh yeah, the weaving the painting canvas part. I am sure there are some who cringe to think that I would weave this gorgeous linen fabric and then...paint on it. So, I will explain a teeny bit. One of my favorite old master painters is Diego Velazquez. Rob Liberace, an artist I took a painting workshop from this summer, is teaching a workshop next summer on the painting techniques and materials that Velazquez used in his work. I did a little online research of my own and the canvas he used is mentioned. It is different from what you can buy today and well, as a weaver, you can probably see the attraction of the idea of weaving something like what is described. Apparently some of his canvas had a weave that had little crosses. Not only that but thinking on it, there was a time when all painting canvas was handwoven! There are some rather intriguing possibilities here.
Back to my relaunching warp, I have been thinking that I would start with simple tea towels. I have the 8/2 cotton which I have used for tea towels in the past. I also found these samples from a Jane Stafford color workshop:

They will be a big help when trying to figure out how to use the odd colors of the 8/2 cotton I have.
What am I going to do with that huge cone of yarn? One idea I had were to weave cloth for rugged shopping bags to sell. Honestly, I like to weave with much finer yarns. Perhaps I will experiment and sample since I have plenty of yarn. I might even have to get out the dye pots. Sigh. I do want to use up as much of my stash as possible before ordering any more yarn. Fortunately it isn't a large stash, just challenging. I have some very nice linen yarns for some fine table linens and a painting canvas or two (oh yes, I will weave a canvas and paint on it, just watch!).
Well, I will have to decide this week or as soon as I find that errant bobbin winder. I would love to hear any ideas for using that huge cone of cotton out there. Perhaps a contest? The winning idea gets a something woven from it? Will think about that too!