Sorry again for the slightly sporadic posting… It’s not that there haven’t been lots of things to say, I’ve still been finding a bit of time to squeeze into a few projects, but finding enough of a pause to sit down and write something sufficiently composed that it wouldn’t sound like fevered gibberish or a laundry list of swear words has been slightly more difficult.
Sometimes simplicity is best. After my last batch of dyeing, I’ve been trying to work through various colours to create a ‘palette’ to be able to spin from. The nice thing about dyeing top for spinning rather than dyeing a skein of wool directly is that this still leaves a huge number of possibilities for colour blending and mixing at different stages of the process.
Dear readers, I have done a terrible thing. So miserable was I at the absence of my lovely 8-shaft table loom, missing all the justification for fancy fibres and silly spinning, that I went and bought a rigid heddle loom.
Cross the river from Harts Fabrics in Santa Cruz and you’ll come across a very appropriately named shop, Yarn Shop Santa Cruz. No prizes for guessing what they sell a lot of. Lots of lovely, snuggly, squishy wool.
Although I was really in Japan for some hardcore temari studies, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to have a look for some weaving courses. It’s hard not to fall in love with the exquisite and wonderful world of Japanese textiles, in particular the world of 西陣織 (nishijin ori), the intricate weaving behind the most luxurious of fabrics.
I’d done a weaving experience at the Nishijin Textile Factory where I made a scarf/table-runner hybrid with all the charm and textural properties of a bag of fleas. Past that, I haven’t had much luck finding short, drop-in weaving courses. That was until I had the opportunity to not only meet the creator of saori weaving but to study in her studio.
What do criminals and crafters have in common? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, quite a lot! Their definition of the noun ‘stash’ is as follows:
stash, n.1 slang (orig. and chiefly U.S.).
1 a. Something, or a collection of things, stashed away; a hoard, stock; a cache.
The meaning of the verb ‘to stash’ isn’t much better either:
When you first start dyeing, there’s an overwhelming range of colours to choose from. As well as thinking about what kind of materials you want to be dyeing, whether you are going to need any auxiliary chemicals for the techniques you want to use, you need to think about what set of dyes you’re going to use to get you started.
Now this is all a lot easier if you have an infinite budget and the cupboard space to match. You can just buy a bit of everything to try. Some suppliers offer ‘starter kits’ as well, with smaller amounts of a range of different dyes to get started. Many dyers will tell you though that all you need is a small select palette and you can mix the rest. So is it really worth investing in a big range of different dyes?
Murdering skeins is a bit of a hobby of mine. I’m not sure where I developed quite such an aptitude for transforming beautiful bundles of fibre into Eldritch horrors of the knitted world but it’s about the least useful skill a crafter can have.
Sometimes it has been clumsiness or underestimating quite what a disastrous effect travelling can have on your supplies. Sometimes it has been my notorious impatience with wanting to dive into a new project. Other times, I swear I simply turn my back and when I turn around, I’m greeted with a sight that invokes the more colourful regions of the English language.
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When you’re a child, there’s nothing more disappointing than getting some exciting new toy, only to find that it didn’t come with any batteries, they’re some obscure size you’d never have any spares of anyway and of course, it’s holiday season so you can’t just pop down to the shops either.
The grown-up version of this is having hauled some hefty piece of crafting equipment back home, precariously tied to your car, only to find you’ve forgotten some nut, bolt or screw that means you can’t fully assemble it immediately.
Luckily, particularly when it comes to weaving, necessity is the mother of invention and one of the true joys of adulthood is unfettered access to DIY stores and power tools. Plus, how often is it what you get to do is essentially crafting with a very heavy hammer?
Sod’s Law for Crafters says that, no matter how big your stash, you still will never have the right material for the project at hand. Having recently started weaving, that saying is more true than ever. All of my non-acrylic yarns are committed to projects and I don’t have quite the volume of silk I’d need for a decent sized warp.
That meant it was time to indulge myself in a bit of ‘necessity’ shopping. Shopping for weaving threads is quite an experience, particularly as a UK resident. ‘wc’, ‘nm’, ‘cc’ are all units you might see, as well as various fractions, weight per length and often, a complete absence of any useful information.
