Midnight riff

Warped my 10" Cricket, too. Another direct warp done on my laundry room table. About 4 yards. Thought I would just do some quick small pieces.
This one, to start.
Calling it Midnight Riff.

Direct Warp Using Warp Board

Yesterday I tried something I've been thnking about since I put 18 feet of warp on my 10" Cricket rigid heddle a month ago.

 I love direct warping, but it has always been difficult for me due to the space needed. I've had to take over my dining table and the length of my living room, creating a blockade for however long it took me to walk threads 80-100 times from loom to the warping peg. Limbo skills were required to get to the bathroom.

I realized that I should be able to set up the warping board (mine is good for up to 10 yards) so that the footprint required would be much smaller for direct warping of a very long warp.

The experiment was a success! I can now warp using only the table in my basement laundry room right next to my studio space. No more trudging upstairs, shlepping an extra table, loom, cones of yarn. No more blocking living space and feeling I had to hurry to wind that warp. I can now pause when I need a break.   Behold:

Saori weavers call these 'fingers' or tabs. It's a little fiddly and slow, but I love beginning a weaving this way and I love that it makes use of what is often waste yarn.

I need to remember this everywhere

 “One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life


I need to remember this everywhere - in all my creative work.  I need to use those hoarded phrases, that holy idea, that spectacular yarn, that special fabric - now, in THIS project, not that future-that-never-comes project that is supposedly going to be worthy of such expenditures...

Weaving Bliss

 My life these days: writing in the morning, weaving in the afternoon. Sundays are for submitting my work to journals and contests. Simplifying. Also trying to make sense and productivity out of my wide range of creative interests.

Nicest spring and summer I've had since moving to Indiana 23 years ago. There was actually a spring, with many, many cool days and nights moving into moderate summery temperatures. Even on the days when we've had some heat, breezes have mitigated it.  It has been a horrible time for much of the country all around with flooding and heat. I am trying not to feel guilty at how much I am enjoying the weather here. I concentrate on being grateful.

And I'm outside on the back porch this week, weaving what is a very long (18 foot!!) warp that I managed to wind on to my little 10" Cricket loom. Outside in the warmth and birdsong and breeze. I've been listening to audiobooks. First, David Sedaris. Now I've just finished listening to Natalie Goldberg, a recording of a writers workshop she led in Taos.  It was wonderful hearing the participants read their work. There were moments that I felt that I was IN that class.

I'll be heading outside after I post this,  to continue this weaving, to take a break to write a little, to stop every so often and just be still.

Take Your Poet To Work Day

It's Take Your Poet To Work Day 2015, sponsored by TweetSpeak, a wonderful site for poetry & fun.

Sophia and I downloaded the free coloring book and had a good time.

I'm working on a contest submission today and I have a whole pitcher of poets hanging with me.

Tomorrow night will be Take Your Poet To An Open Mic!