are strewn across the flat surfaces of my studio.

23 individual pieces. 

Though by no means all I have woven in the recent past,
together they represent years 
​of drawing
​ of gazing into the warp,
​of tapping bits of weft into place,

of making decisions about structure
about slits
about joins
about character.

I'm always after something -- a feeling
​a mood, an idea, a story,

and there is so much I could say--
​so much I probably already have said--
​ about finishing edges
and the importance of drape,

about choice of yarn, choice of technique

about slits  and joins and hatching and 
avoiding the dreaded nipple effect when weaving circles,

about simplicity and complexity  (how many bobbins do I want to manage at once?).

and the amazing textures one can imitate with  a pile of yarn and a grid.

I actually had a plan earlier this morning to write about the bliss of weaving in the ends as I go so there is virtually finish work at the end and absolutely no "dark side" to any tapestry (I so enjoy the lovely 'clean' backs that I want to share the love...),

but  now that I'm here, I'm content 
 to take funky photos of a few bits of my beloved work--
not neatly pressed,
professionally  hung,
or beautifully lit as it will be next week,

but sprawled and relaxed,
​out of focus, barely illuminated,
imperfect and at ease and perfectly lovely as the cloth that it is--
the cloth I want so much to let it be.

So that must be what I really had to say today!

Two things before I go, however:
1. I probably won't write a blog post next Tuesday as I'll be in La Conner  awaiting the opening of the show with these 23 tapestries at the Pacific Northwest Quilt and Fiber Art Museum (reception 3 May from 4-6 Pm), and I haven't figured out how to use the  portable Weebly app.  There is a good chance, however, I will post things to Instagram  so if you want to see the tapestries out in the world and can't get to La Conner this summer, that's the place to go.

2. This show will be the last time that all thirteen of the Rough Copy tapestries will be exhibited together as they will be for sale individually for the first time at and after this show. One, indeed, has already sold. Making the decision to break up the series  five years after finishing it is probably worth a blog post all of its own, but for the moment I'll just say that if you are interested in owning one you can contact the Museum starting next Wednesday, or, after the show comes down at the end of July, you can contact me!  
sarah.swett1  (at) gmail.com

After seven years of hard wear and two cuff mends,
the bottom of my son's sweater had begun to fray.
Shoulder to cuff is my preferred way to knit sleeves, which makes cuff mending a simple matter of unraveling a few rows and re-knitting (with other yarn if necessary).
The cast on edge of a bottom up sweater is not, however, made for unraveling,
so I  went up an inch or so, snipped a strand of yarn, and pulled out one row all the way around, leaving a nice row of stitches to pick up and an inch of sweater to unravel for re-knitting (discarding the yarn from the bottom couple of rounds which was too weak and worn to re-use).
Foolishly, I picked the row right after a cable turn to snip to separate the two sections, so the unraveling was more awkward than it might have been.

But eventually I got it all sorted and reknit and cast off.  Starting an inch up means that next time I can unravel right from the cast off end which will be much simpler. 

The only drawback to picking up the stitches and going in the opposite direction is that the loops are half a stitch off, but with the cables this really isn't evident.

Nothing miraculous  about any of this,
but a good deal of satisfaction in keeping it going, and much pleasure in handling the sweater and the yarn again.

It was a thoroughly-planned garment that began with choosing the fleece (grey Rambouillet X)
and went on to months of spindle spinning,
endless samples plied, yarn dyed, swatches knit ​and
​mailed across several states for perusal and approval.

Final decisions on yarn weight and color led to massive plying (4 ply won out over 3), huge dyepots,  much  knitting, and even some swatch unraveling at the very end as all those cables used more yarn even than what I thought were overgenerous calculations.

A few weeks ago when talking about Drum Carding
I said I would write about my fleece washing technique when next I had something to work with.

Fortuitously, as I was writing a mailchimp newsletter thingy the other day to send to those of you who have signed up, a box arrived from the Ortmann's in Wolf Point, Montana.

Naturally in my excitement I neglected to photograph the unboxing and that thrilling moment when the compressed fleece puffed out like a muffin in the oven.
But here are some photos of the raw fleece -- a Targhee/Debouillet Cross I thought I would try.

I've been buying Ortmann fleeces for years, starting back when Nancy's mother-in-law would send a sample of incredible Cormo if you mailed a stamped envelope in response to their small add in the classified section in the back of Spin Off Magazine.  
Cormo was hard to find then, so this was a miracle indeed -- long, lustrous and next-to-the-skin soft. For a time, everything I knit was hand spun cormo.

As you can see, the breed selection has grown since then and I've made some lovely yarn with Polworth and a couple of massive and open Debouillet fleeces too. I've not used as much Targhee as I'd like, but this year, wanting something not quite so fine as Cormo and being perennially curious about fleece, I tried  the Debouillet /Targhee X.
So far, I'm thrilled.

But I was going to talk about Scouring
about which I mostly have to say two things:

HOT WATER (150 F +)
​Kookaburra Scour

Actually for most fleeces, the water does not have to be that hot, and the Kookaburra container doesn't talk about the temp of the water, but  in my many years of washing and spinning fine and greasy fleeces I've found the temp makes an enormous difference to my success.

The  Kookaburra scour is a no rinse scour, which freaked me out at first as for years I followed what used to be standard practice (dish detergent with one to two washes and two to three rinses depending). But this stuff works so much better!
 Life-altering for me, actually. 

Anyway, the procedure:
1. Put approx 1 pound of fleece into a bag -- repeat.
 (two net bags, 2 lbs fleece total)
2. Fill 5 gallon bucket with my hottest tap water then immerse the two bags and let them soak as the water heats in step 3.

3. Heat 4 - 5 gallons of water on the stove to 150 F or above (I use two pots for easy handling)

4. Roll bags into a sausage (still under water) squeezing as I roll (helps keep lock structure vaguely intact if the wet wool doesn't flop around in the net bag when you lift it out), then lift from mucky water, squeeze again, set aside.

5. dump muddy water into the garden and refill bucket with the VERY Hot water from the stove..

6. Add Kookaburra SCOUR as per instructions (1-2 oz / lb of wool depending on greasiness).  Stir gently with a stick or spoon (don't scald yourself!!!)

7.  Squeeze bags of fleece again, unroll and immerse in fresh hot scour water.

8. Let soak for approx 15 minutes, pressing down or gently manipulating the bags in some fashion once or twice -- CAREFUL OF HOT WATER! (This may not be necessary as wool is  good at doing this work itself, but I have this mental vision of wanting to move the water through the fleece as much as possible without actual agitation.)

9. Repeat underwater rolling procedure - WEARING RUBBER GLOVES WITH INSULATING LINERS (Scalding is real and hurts.  I use winter glove liners inside big rubber gloves with great success).
DO NOT discard remaining hot water.

10. Put the two net bags in washing machine and set to SPIN ONLY  to spin out water
or
use dedicated salad spinner, one bag at a time
or
stand outside and swing your arm in great circles, flinging wash water all over
or
wrap well squeezed  bag of wet fleece in towels and stand on it.

11. Spread clean fleece out on other towels to dry -- or sweater dryers.  Nicest outside on a sunny day but those are scarce around here in the spring..

12. Put two more pounds of greasy fleece into the empty bags  then into the remaining water from the previous wash for a pre-soak while  heating water For step 3 etc.

 13  -- repeat step 3 -12  except at step 6, use only half - 3/4 the amount of Kookaburra called for because the fleeces got the pre-soak in water that already had scour in it.
Also note: that when these bags of fleece go into the new clean hot water with scour, they will want to float as they are already somewhat soapy. I flop them around a couple of times and push them down, but don't worry about it too much.

This no rinse scour method took  getting used to as the fleece feels different when I spread it out to dry.   Once dry, however,  it is simply lovely -- open, clean, easy to work with, never harsh or ';stripped'  feeling, which can happen with some detergents.
Less water and fewer rinses  also mean far less opportunity for felting or messing up lock structure (though as you can see I made no specific attempt to retain said structure this time).
Even with heating the water extra hot, it all takes much less time than my old procedure and the fleece is ultimately cleaner and nicer to work with.

FYI -- I washed all of this fleece last Wednesday afternoon after my hair cut and oil change.
 It was a productive day 

There are many different scouring approaches and people tend to swear by their own, which  leads me to believe that you can do what you want within a range of parameters -- but also  that it is also worth checking out a few  others  to see what kinds of decisions will work for you. 
I have to admit to being stuck in my ways until a couple of years ago when a friend gave me samples of several new scours and I conducted my own experiment with water temp and scour types and ended up with the system outlined above. 
Water is precious here in Idaho, so I am thrilled to use less and am willing to heat it. 
In Michigan Beth Smith, makes some other choices,  washes far more fleece than I and  is definitely worth listening to!   

I store the dry fleece in bags made of worn out sheets (the good parts). 
Sometimes I patch the sheets, but my husband is a restless sleeper and wears through sheets and repairs faster than I can quite believe, so I end up with lots of bits. Luckily, I have endless need for bags made of tightly woven cloth, not only for fleece, but also for storing and shipping tapestries etc.

That's all I can think to say right now on this subject, other than that it is totally worth checking out the fleece in your area -- trying out a breed you've never tried before, or an interesting cross just to see.  Once washing and preparing the fleece ceases to seem like a big deal, you  are free to explore obscure breeds and crosses and fine out how the qualities of the fleece may effect your work--be it knitting or needlework or tapestry, or ...

It's just so exciting to contemplate the possibilities, and to follow them through.

A couple of minutes ago I found myself standing in front of the ice box
eating cold, leftover brussels sprouts. 
They were delicious, the sprouts, and will still be delicious at lunch time,
but right now it is 10 AM and I've already had breakfast.

The thing is, one month from today, 4 May, my exhibition at the Pacific Northwest Quilt and Fiber Art Museum will be open (opening 3 May from 4-6 PM),
which means between now and then
everything on my to do list will have to be done.

​There will be 23 tapestries in this show,
including the 13 Rough Copy pieces --
quite a pile, and I am excited to see them there
​for I love these works.
Indeed, I have a lot of confidence in them
and it is great for them to get out into the world --
some, perhaps, even to head off to new homes afterward.

It's just that suddenly, there in front of the ice box,
It all seemed a bit of a muddle.

​This part of the list, at least,  is clear:
--place to stay in La Conner -- check
--all tapestries ready to hang -- check
-- and in my possession--(almost)
--artist statement--check
--haircut-- (tomorrow)
--oil change for the car-- (tomorrow)
--Tapestries pressed, labeled, wrapped -- (too soon)

I do have several weeks  before I leave after all.

I guess it's just that the process of getting ready feels a little messy
since I'm simultaneously preparing for the second, overlapping show
at the Latimer Quilt and Textile Center in Tillamook, OR in July.
And for that one, things are less clear. 
--list of works (??)
--work complete (??)
--ready to hang (oh yea-- that. No idea)
--title of works (nope)
--artist statement (huh?)
--time to panic (plenty -- but I don't want to as making the stuff it is still too interesting)

HOWEVER!
I do suddenly remember what I'm supposed to do today --
Write a blog post about the delights of the textile life.
EEK.  And all I've done is whine.  
But I can check it off the list!

Thanks for listening.
​I feel better already.