Category: efficiency
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Finesse
painted warp This morning I finished transcribing WeaveCast 50 with James Koehler, tapestry artist. One of the things he talked about was developing finesse. How does one achieve finesse? One must work purposefully, analytically, constantly assessing what one is doing and the results being achieved. And then asking yourself if you are happy with those…
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The Efficient Weaver
next 11 meter warp for placemats When I chose weaving as a career in 1975 I immediately ran afoul of some of the attitudes of the time in the weaving world. To wit: #1 When pricing, figure out how much you paid for your materials and multiply by 3 (or 4 if you were feeling…
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I Yam Wot I Yam
placemats I am not an artist. While I have in the past woven pieces that were artistic statements, this is not my primary goal. I am a weaver. I make textiles that are functional. Scarves. Dish Towels. Placemats. Etc. I make them as well as I can, with as much beauty and grace as I…
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Slow Cloth
scarf #2 A friend sent me an URL for a website with an article about developing a Slow Cloth movement. (as per Elaine’s request and with my deepest apologies for not including this in the first place:http://handeyemagazine.com/content/slow-cloth )I was all set to embrace the concept until I read this: If efficiency and sameness are the…
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In Praise of Trying
next silk warp The opening ceremonies are on for the Olympics and I’m in the studio thinking a lot about ‘trying’. A sage has said that “There is no try. There is do or do not.” Well, he’s right – sort of. When it comes down to the wire, when you need a gold performance,…
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Why I don’t FTB
I seem to be in ‘beige’ mode… Sharon asked why I don’t dress the loom front to back. The truth is that I dressed the loom that way for several years when I was first learning to weave. Since I was slow at everything associated with weaving, neither process seemed faster or slower than the…
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Weaving Efficienies, part II
option #2 treadling/tie-up Last night I dressed the small loom with a placemat warp and kept an eye on the clock to see if my new tweaked process was going to be faster than my previous method. I dress the loom back to front, using a reed to rough-sley the warp. When I got an…
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Weaving Efficiencies
Industrial cone winder – winding off of large mill cones to smaller re-sale cones. From time to time people will comment to me about how productive I am. I’m sure that some of them think I’m chained to the loom for 14 hours a day. :} The fact of the matter is that – since…
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Time Becomes More Precious…
…the less of it you have. (song lyric sung by Bonnie Raitt) Plan C In my heart I still think I’m 39 (who is that old woman in the mirror and why is she stalking me?) but two years ago I was forcefully reminded that life is fragile and that we – none of us…
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MI/MO
The end of Plan B and the beginning of Plan C Larger view of Plan C – weft is a varigated cotton slub I’ve said it before, and I’ll no doubt say it again – one of my goals in weaving is to create the maximum amount of output for the least amount of input.…