Author: Laura Fry
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Why I Loathe ‘AI’
This morning I received the following email: “I’m XXX, founder of XXXXX. I came across your site, laurafry.com, and your work as a weaver and weaving teacher. I’m writing because I think there’s a useful way to turn your teaching method into something your students can use on their own. Here’s the idea: a student…
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Moving On
Yesterday I finished the linen and made a start on the blue weft. The photo might be a little hard to see as the values of the warp and weft are fairly close, but I wanted to show 1.5 repeats of the pattern. The motif is based on the ‘star’ formation of the sequence, which…
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Little By Little
Today I ‘finished’ the linen yarn – and by ‘finished’, I mean that there isn’t enough left to weave one more towel. I will offer the few bobbins left over to a new weaver and let her experience weaving with linen if she wants to experiment with it. I see the difference between the two…
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Good Information?
AI seems to be having a good time generating garbage information for weavers. Sometimes it is hard to know, especially if someone is new to the craft, and generally the ads now are getting really ‘polished’. Doesn’t make the article being sold any good, unfortunately. This morning I was confronted with a very polished ad…
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Position and Posture
Figuring out the ‘best’ way to weave can be a challenge. I see lots of different people suggesting different ways and they all ‘work’. The problem is whether or not they will continue to ‘work’ if the weaver weaves longer, as in order to meet a deadline. And doesn’t stop and take breaks. I’ve talked…
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Good or Perfect?
After I ‘proofed’ the treadling, I started weaving. It’s not ‘perfect’, but…good enough. The linen weft is stiff, and the relative humidity in the studio is ‘low’ (around 32% at time of writing) so the linen isn’t very pliable and doesn’t want to bend ‘nicely’ at the selvedge. The weave structure is a ‘fancy’ twill,…
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Tension Issues
At last! I got the warp done and was able to test the treadling sequence to see how it was going to weave up. Since I’ve used this combination of yarns before, I had drawn upon my experience and decided on 32 epi and a twill of some kind, chose a pretty bog standard tie…
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Next Warp
Yesterday I finished threading the warp and this morning I sleyed and tied it onto the apron rod. The ‘test’ treadling draft is ready but I have dentist today and massage tomorrow and I’m thinking I better not weave for a couple of days. 🙁 If I don’t feel too bad after the dentist I…
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Making Progress
Yesterday I was able to clear the decks, get set up for and begin threading. Threading can be a bit of a challenge, especially as threading progressions get more complex. As a new weaver I worked out a system that worked for me, mostly. It was when I bought a computer (based on the operating…
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WEFT ‘No Waste’ Issue
This morning the mail consisted of my two copies of WEFT. I subscribed ‘early’ so I have ‘my’ copy, plus I get a physical copy of the magazine when I have an article appearing between the pages. I chose to write about the things we ‘waste’ when we practice our craft. I chose to talk…