El Capitan and the luddite

Okay, I am far from a luddite. I love my Apple machines very much. But I love my wooden fiber tools even more. Those wood and metal tools constitute much of the range of my post-apocalyptic survival skills.

I am committed to pushing my machines as far as I can. The iPhone 4 lasted four whole years. Apps started dropping off about a year ago. They were simply unusable and unable to be updated. Who needs Facebook on your phone anyway? It is more interesting to talk to the eccentric lady with the poodle in a bag in the post office line than scroll. But when my bank app was unable to be updated, that was the last straw. A new iPhone was in order. Fortunately when you go years beyond your last contract, it doesn't cost that much to get a new one.

The results of waiting did become apparent fairly quickly when I brought the new phone home and tried to load the information from the old one from iTunes. Because my computer is also four years old and I hadn't updated the operating system, well, ever... my MacBook couldn't talk to the new phone.

So overnight, Lion was replaced with El Capitan. That is a four generation jump in operating systems for the Mac (Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan). It has challenged my brain--remembering all the different passwords you need to update everything, hoping against hope that it all wouldn't go up in an ephemeral cloud of 0s and 1s. So far so good. A few programs are still stumping me, but I'm returning to some baseline function here. I'm just proud that I realized the initial problem was my operating system and not some unknowable electronic mystery... and that I could fix it myself.

Isn't that what we do when we create things out of fiber with wooden tools? Figure out how to do things ourselves? The electronic gadgets are fun and very useful, but I'd give them all up to keep my Schacht Ladybug spinning wheel or Harrisville Rug Loom. After all, in the apocalypse, I won't be able to charge that iPhone anyway.

Turkish spindle or iPhone? Or both?

Maggie was right... knitting with handspun

I have been spinning for about a year. Maggie Casey is my teacher.

If you know her, you won't be surprised to hear me say that Maggie was right. She told us from day one that we had to actually use our handspun, but I have been blithely ignoring her for about a year now. I have used some of it in tapestry, but when you pack the yarn into a weaving, the exact character of the yarn might not be quite as important as when you're knitting a garment.

I had some balls of handspun piling up, so I have had to institute a personal policy of no yarn store stops. A visit to one of the great yarn stores in Fort Collins is something that I am always tempted by if I'm having a rough day. But, the balls of handspun...

So I started my first project with a Malbrigo braid I spun during Spinzilla last October. That braid was hard to spin. But I didn't know it then because I was such a new spinner. I thought the drafting was supposed to be that difficult. So the yarn is dense. It is heavy. This hat is going to weigh quite a lot.

Spinning this yarn last October

The pattern is Wurm. It is a hat with a lot of yarn in it.
Heavy it will be.
I have 8 ounces of it... what to do with the rest?

I'll let you know how it comes out.

So Maggie was right. I didn't realize how dense this yarn was until I started knitting it. I think it will make a fine hat for the mostly moderate weather in this part of Colorado. But if I wanted a very warm hat with perhaps fewer hair-crushing properties, I would definitely work on a long draw or more woolen spun preparation. This yarn ended up dense because the braid was so difficult to draft. Had I knit this up before spinning ANOTHER 8 ounces of the same fiber (in red!), I would have known that.

From now on I will try to listen to Maggie sooner.

The land of Garrison Keillor... crankers and all

I've spent the last four days in Minnesota which I affectionately think of as "the land of Garrison Keillor". I haven't seen much of the city except for the airport terminal, the Textile Center, Pizza Luce, and Bobbin House Studio. But I feel that was enough for this go-around.

I met a dog named Huey. He came with a marvelous introduction to both an Aino Kajaniemi tapestry and an Erlbacher knitting sock machine. I'd take all three home if I could. Unfortunately I took no photos of the tapestry, the dog, or the knitting machine.

My trip started with a very very close call on I-25. I was within a breath of being rear ended badly and the quick thinking of the school teacher in the car behind me (I pulled left, she pulled right) saved me that. She was rear-ended by a big truck and her day went much worse than mine did I am sure. (Little reminder that life can change in an instant... be grateful for every moment.)

I made it to Minneapolis, gave my Sand in my Shoes lecture, and met some fantastic fiber people. There was a three-day Color Gradation Techniques for Tapestry workshop to follow and some lovely time in the best little vacation rental I've ever seen. Bobbin House Studio comes highly recommended by me and everyone else who signed the guest book.

The Textile Center completely blew me away. I've never seen such a marvelous resource just for fiber. They have a couple galleries, a big space rented by the Weaver's Guild of Minneapolis (for whom I was teaching), meeting space, classrooms, and an amazing dye lab. All of that was incredible, but it was the library that really impressed me. They have a huge collection of fiber books--bigger than I've ever seen. In case you don't believe me, here is a photo for evidence. All of those books are about fiber. All of them! And it is a circulating library. If I lived there I could have taken some of these treasures home with me to read at my leisure.

The Textile Center library, Minneapolis

Here are a few more photos of my Minneapolis tapestry adventure.

Textile Center of Minneapolis

I bring as much yarn in as many colors as I can fit in two huge suitcases. This is especially important for classes like this where we are working on value and gradation.

We had Mirrix looms, a Glimakra, a Schacht tapestry loom, a Schacht Baby Wolf, some copper pipe looms, a picture frame loom, and a Louet table loom that made me change my mind about my "all table looms are bad for tapestry except that great one I saw in Michigan" stance. The Louet Kombo definitely holds its own in the tapestry loom department. (FYI, the Michigan loom was a Kessenich.)

Some of my samples including warp size samples, simultaneous contrast sample, vertical gradation samples, and a new thing I'm working on with four selvedge and shaped pick and pick.

Kaz and Carol concentrating on their weaving

The Glimakra loom. Despite the small beams, this loom works great.

Kristin's beautiful hachure piece. Isn't the blending of the orange and salmon colors lovely? Value people, value.

Just some of the colors I brought.

You can find many more photos of the workshop on Robbie LaFleur's blog. Thanks for this wonderful post Robbie! http://robbielafleur.com/2016/03/09/rebecca-mezoffs-tapestry-workshop-variety-was-the-theme/

I stayed at the most wonderful place, Bobbin House Studio. I loved this place. It was so comfortable and my hosts Tom and Steve taught me so much about fiber and art in Minneapolis!

Bobbin House, sculpture by Tom Skogstrom

One of the most fascinating things I learned about from Steve Pauling was knitting machines for socks (there are a few photos on his website). One of Steve's many fiber pursuits involves repairing sewing machines. He is the best of the best at this. He also repairs sock knitting machines and is a sock machine knitting aficionado. He has an Erlbacher that he uses himself and he let me crank it. It was marvelous. What a beautiful piece of machinery. I would love to have one of these and I don't even like knitted socks that much. It was just so mesmerizing to see the little hooks do the wave around the canister.

I had no idea that there were whole groups of people called "crankers" who were into sock knitting on machines. They congregate in places with lots of sheep and fibery stuff going on. I'm fairly sure there must be such a group somewhere in Colorado given the high sheep numbers and the high population of fiber folk here. Crankers.  (giggle)

I managed, once again, to maneuver this luggage through a rental car return and into the airport and then back to my own car in Denver. I have to figure out how to teach classes that don't require me to bring any materials. Ah, who am I kidding. I can't imagine teaching a tapestry class where I didn't bring at least some of my own hand-dyed gradations for students to use.

My next teaching gig is at YarnFest in Loveland, Colorado. I still have a little room in all the classes. If you're going to sign up, now is the time! I'm finishing up the samples for the Simultaneous Contrast color class this week. The yarn table is going to look even better than the one pictured above if that is any temptation at all.

More info on my website here: http://www.rebeccamezoff.com/workshops
and in a set of blog posts linked HERE.
See you there!

Is it procrastinating if you're waiting for an electric ball winder?

In my last post I talked a little about Steven Pressfield's book, The War of Art, and the difference between Procrastination and Resistance.

My question today is, is it procrastinating if I'm waiting to ball that pile of yarn because there is an electric ball winder on a FedEx truck somewhere headed my way? (Did you catch my use of the word ELECTRIC?!!) I have been working with one ear alert for the thunk of a package hitting the porch. You see, I have to have two suitcases of yarn ready to go for a date with a plane to Minneapolis on Thursday morning. If the ball winder was here now, the last balls could be done in a flash. But alas, FedEx tells me that its last known location was somewhere near Barnhill, Illinois which is, in fact, nowhere near my doorstep.

It will be here tomorrow. How far can I push the procrastination waiting?

Perhaps the best thing is to start with a survey of what is actually wound. My dear friend and helper was here last month making balls and it could well be that she nailed this workshop and the pile sitting beside the swift downstairs is the lot I have reserved for my YarnFest workshops the end of March.

I'm going downstairs to see...

Ugh. The pile of skeins was so big!

I really thought I had a whole collection of yarn balled up and ready for this workshop. I spent ten confused minutes wandering around the studio and house wondering where I might have left the yarn or perhaps my mind. Finally, it hit me.

I put the yarn away after the Atlanta workshop. As in, on the shelf where it belongs.
Once I inventoried that stash, I only had twenty or so balls to wind. I think I'm going to make it.

Oh, and the answer to the taxes was that it took me a day longer than I'd hoped. It was 10:27 pm Monday instead of the 5 pm Sunday finish I was hoping for. I reached the point where I was spending hour after grumpy hour trying to figure out how to deal with a couple issues. Finally Emily convinced me that unsnarling the things I just don't understand about accounting was actually the accountant's job. I believe that is called wisdom (or perhaps she couldn't take one more minute of the grumpiness).

It is a Nancy's Knit Knacks electric ball winder with yardage counter. Tomorrow it will be here. Never again for THIS:

Procrastinate

When is procrastination really resistance? Most of the time, I fear.

I am a big fan of Steven Pressfield's book, The War of Art. In it, he talks about the ways we prevent ourselves from making art or doing any other number of things we feel called to do in this short time on earth we are gifted.

Today, I am determined to get my taxes ready for the accountant. I have too many things to do to get ready for a trip this week to drag it out any farther. So instead of reconciling the numbers, what am I doing? Writing a blog post. I believe that is resistance right there. At least I'm resisting something that I can't possibly be expected to enjoy instead of avoiding making art.

Here is a little classic Pressfield for your Sunday:

Resistance feeds on fear. We experience Resistance as fear. But fear of what? 

Fear of the consequences of following our heart. Fear of bankruptcy, fear of poverty, fear of insolvency. Fear of groveling when we try to make it on our own, and of groveling when we give up and come crawling back to where we started. Fear of being selfish, of being rotten wives or disloyal husbands; fear of failing to support our families, of sacrificing their dreams for ours. Fear of betraying our race, our 'hood, our homies. Fear of failure. Fear of being ridiculous. Fear of throwing away the education, the training, the preparation that those we love have sacrificed so much for, that we ourselves have worked our butts off for. Fear of launching into the void, of hurtling too far out there; fear of passing some point of no return, beyond which we cannot recant, cannot reverse, cannot rescind, but must live with this cocked-up choice for the rest of our lives. Fear of madness. Fear of insanity. Fear of death. 

These are serious fears. But they're not the real fear. Not the Master Fear, the Mother of all Fears that's so close to us that even when we verbalize it we don't believe it. 

Fear That We Will Succeed.*

If I don't finish my tax preparation, I risk that success, don't I? But if I never sit at the loom, I risk it even more.

I run into this resistance all the time. Every day in fact. I suspect we all do. It helps to be able to label it. I do forget, over and over again. It is a hard lesson to learn, to recognize resistance. I think that is because it is propelled so strongly by fear. Fear of not making a living. Fear that the tapestry that took a year to make is going to be complete crap, fear that my life will fly by without me paying attention. Fear that I won't be able to go back. Back to the comfort of a regular paycheck and health insurance from a job I was good at. (I can't go back, but that doesn't stop the fear or my continued license renewals. At least not yet.)

So today was a good day to pull out Pressfield. If you haven't read this book, get a copy. It might just remind you to move past the fear and do something you knew, underneath everything, you could do all along. I thought for seventeen years that I had to work in health care because that is what I trained so long to do. I wanted to be an artist, but that particular career comes with massive piles of fear, self-loathing, and resistance. Not to mention the constant question from society, "Can you really make a living making art?" My spouse frequently gets asked what I do and the next question, 99% of the time, is, "can she make a living doing that?"
Seriously, that is what they want to know.
The 1% who want to know what my medium is, what I am working to express, whether I am in love with the world... those are the people to get to know.

Wishing you courage for a day of creating. I'm off to finish the taxes, struggling against the resistance at every turn.
Ask me tomorrow if I succeeded.

Bobbin by Bobbin Boy; tapestry by yours truly... see it woven in THIS video.

_________________________
*Pressfield, S. (2002). The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. New York: Grand Central Publishing. (p. 142-143)

Getting ready. Staring down the runway at a fresh set of teaching trips.

Today is one of those days I'm doing the background work for the workshops I teach. The in-person, I-get-on-a-plane-and-come-to-you workshops. This involves a lot of paper shuffling, but it really makes me feel good when I'm finally ready for another trip. It isn't like I can just hop on the plane and go after all. There are lectures to tweak, handouts to update and print, looms to warp, folders to put together, lots of yarn to choose and pack, and if I've been really crazy motivated in my proposals, sometimes new classes to create. The last trip I took I even bought some new clothes. (And for my online students in the know, they didn't come from Eddie Bauer!!)

And of course there is the luggage. I like to think of myself as a traveling light kind of gal, though my spouse would disagree if you saw our car packed for a camping or road trip. But when teaching, I have to max out the luggage. This was the last trip with the old luggage system.

Last trip with old bags. Michigan, June 2015

I have since taken the great advice of an experienced spinning teacher, Beth Smith, and bought myself two of those swivel wheel roller bags that stand upright. What a difference!

I'm headed to Minneapolis for a Color Gradation Techniques workshop next week (if you still want in, there are a couple spots left--contact me as registration has closed). Also, if anyone has an in with whomever controls the weather (God, a meteorologist, the Air Force, United Arab Emirates...), can you put a good word in for no snow in Denver or Minneapolis late next week? I have a lecture to give on the same day I'm flying. Gulp.

After that trip to the hopefully un-snowy north, I'm headed to YarnFest 2016. This is the second year of Interweave's YarnFest in Loveland, Colorado. Since I live just up the road in Fort Collins, I can vouch for the beauty of this part of the country. True, you'll be out on the plains at the edge of the Rockies, but if you leave yourself an extra day or two, Rocky Mountain National Park is only a half hour drive up Big Thompson Canyon.

YarnFest is a conference with a fantastic vendor hall, an amazing line-up of teachers, and some fun extra activities. Clara Parkes is the keynote speaker, just for example. Some of the classes are full, but many are not yet. You can take classes from spinners, knitters, weavers, and a few other techniques.

All the details are HERE.

I am busy putting together handouts, tracking down and warping looms, and winding balls of yarn for you to use. My old ball winder finally gave out, so there is a Nancy's Knit Knacks electric winder on the way. I'm quite sure those of you who saw the video at the bottom of the page will be pleased by that. I'm sure I'll have a nice plug for my new piece of equipment in my Creating Without Pain lecture. Who winds hundreds of balls of yarn by hand anyway? (besides me)

I am really excited to teach one of my favorite classes at YarnFest. It is called Tapestry Answers: Do I Want to be a Tapestry Weaver? I get piles of email from people asking about looms and yarn and how tapestry really works. These are questions that are difficult to answer for yourself. This class is meant to address them. We look at what you can create with tapestry weaving in slides, diagrams, and some actual weaving (yours and mine). We try out different looms and I show you photos of even more possibilities. I talk about why some looms work well for tapestry and some don't. And we talk about yarn and tools. Some people are surprised that using the old (or new) knitting yarn in your closet isn't the best way to be successful in tapestry. There are good reasons for this! I'll tell you what they are.

I will bring various tapestry yarns with woven samples so you can actually see what the differences are between them. And you can make your own weft yarn card with small samples to bring home for future reference.

This class is for anyone interested in tapestry. I usually get a good number of people who have woven tapestry for awhile but have not gotten these kinds of questions answered. If you'd like more information about this class, take a look at THIS blog post. And here is the secret about this particular class. Because I am driving there from my studio, I am bringing stuff. I can bring all the examples, tools, and looms I can fit in my car. This doesn't happen often! Usually I'm limited by the bags pictured above.

I am teaching two other classes at YarnFest. The other tapestry weaving class is called Simultaneous Contrast: What Color is that Really? This class addresses one of the most amazing properties of color. Colors next to each other interact with each other and the color you perceive changes. Sometimes the effect can be profound. We'll play with this both with paper examples and with weaving. There is more information in THIS blog post.

And for all of you fiber artists, I'm teaching my class, Creating Without Pain: Ergonomics for Fiber Artists. There are more details in THIS blog post. I recently wrote a guest blog post on the Mirrix blog and gave an interview to Wellness for Makers. This class starts with the ideas I present in these two examples and goes into much more depth. We all need to be careful to take care of our bodies so we have a long and healthy making career. This particular class is FAR down the list of classes on the Interweave website, so keep scrolling! I'll send you home with concrete things you can do to improve your studio situation and make sure you are taking care of your body.

We are now past the cancellation date, so all the classes you see listed are going to happen. There are a few spots left in my Tapestry Answers class, so act fast on that one. There are a handful of spots still open in the Simultaneous Contrast class. And in the name of all that is healthy and good, I can take as many people who want to sign up for the Creating Without Pain lecture. Just do it!

Come to a beautiful place with a lovely view of the Rockies. Take classes in tapestry weaving, spinning, or knitting, and make some new friends. I'll see you there.

That first four-selvedge tapestry triumph and the subsequent fall from grace

Of course I've heard a lot about four-selvedge tapestry weaving over the years, but it took a demonstration and blog post by Sarah Swett to get me to try it.

Susan Martin Maffei is often cited as the genius behind four-selvedge weaving. She didn't invent it. The Navajo have used this kind of warping for centuries. But Susan is definitely a master. What is marvelous about the way Susan and Sarah warp is that you can get a shed to the very top of the piece. No needle weaving (or swearing) necessary.

Sarah taught me a little different approach with some modifications of her own and Michael Rohde's. She describes it perfectly in THIS stellar blog post.

After a trip to the fly shop and hardware store, I had a jig and some fly line backing.

I headed home, and computer beside me, I used Sarah's post to help me set up for my first little four-selvedge piece (with a few modifications of my own as I was using a Mirrix).

The jig came right out, I tightened the tension, and I was weaving.

Four-selvedge weaving from the back.

Four-selvedge weaving from the back, almost complete.

The thing turned out square and the warp loops were almost perfectly even.

Thinking I'd like to use a colored warp that wouldn't show at the edges so much, and not being up to dyeing that particular day, I pulled out some 12/6 cotton seine twine in blue. I wanted to make a much narrower piece that was also shorter. I made some new pieces for the jig and warped up again.

This time I used another piece of rod at the top of the Mirrix to narrow that top beam. I also added very long extensions to the loom. As a final touch, I installed an electric treadle.

Disaster. I don't even have a picture of it it was so bad.

I don't know if it had to do with the extra length of the loom (probably not), the thinner rod on top (probably not), or the electric treadle's speed and force in shifting the shed (probably), but the warps "walked" immediately making the cotton warp I was intending to weave very uneven after the first change of shed.

I warped up again. The same way. Didn't change anything.
Guess what?

Same thing happened. Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

This photo is the one I took after I tried to even out the warps again and right before I turned out the light and walked away.

I will try again tomorrow. But this time, I'll modify some variables in hopes of a better result.
It just goes to show you that we might look like a freakin' genius on the first run through, but we shouldn't get too cocky! Expertise comes with practice, not luck.

Have you tried weaving a four-selvedge tapestry? Do you weave Navajo-style or do you use some variation of this idea? Leave a comment below!