Yesterday,
my drawing comrade and I
​ were talking about that feeling you get
when you are making
or designing
or working with
the 'right' thing.

It's the feeling you might already have
with long term projects
where decisions have been made
and inherent pleasure already built in
so (at least for the time being),
there is nothing to do
but enjoy the doing. 

enjoying the general direction,
not quite sure what you're doing,
but aware
(or at least hoping),
that pretty soon
there will be more information--
about material
 texture
color 
or even medium
that will shift things,
​ this way
or that. 

It's important, at least for me,
to stay loose when walking this path --
to not analyze every step--
(it's usually too foggy for that anyway), 
but rather to feel,
to listen,
to notice nuances--

alert and hopefully awake
(though sometimes not)
​to the way that ideas,
processes,
hands,
feet,
eyes,
​mixed metaphors
and materials
​respond to one another.

Eventually,
​if you keep walking
(for minutes, hours, weeks, months).
you find yourself in that magical reciprocal relationship
where the stuff you are making
is also making you.

I'm in the foggy part right now. 
Full of hope and possibility.
Honing my nerve endings.
Meandering with intent. 

It's interesting, 
​clearly compelling,
​a teensy bit unnerving.

But so what?
There is much to be learned
even when I stumble.

Speaking of learning,
and to end on a practical note,
I've been doing some glycerine experiments. 
Jillayne brought the idea to my attention.
and Sue mentioned it again in the comments a couple of weeks ago.

The point is to soak dry plant material in a glycerine solution
which keeps it permanently flexible even when dry again. 
The point, for me, is to have cordage that doesn't need soaking before weaving
and which can be made into things that won't crack when bent.
Some internet sources talk about soaking the stems of fresh plants in the glycerine solution and letting the plant draw it up into the leaves and flowers,
but so far I've only worked with  dry material --
​both cordage and leaves -- to good effect. 

We'll learn more if lots of us try.
Anyone up for some experiments?

You know how sometimes
an idea just flies into your head?

Often as not
such distractions show up
at awkward moments,
and they need to be filed away.
But not always.

This one came when I was sitting on the toilet --
the quintessential location for such notions--
and though I quickly relegated it to the 'later' category,
it demanded instant action.
What can you do?

Those of you familiar with 
four selvedge warping with a jig
and/or are in the Fringeless class,
will see what is going on here--
two sets of bars on one jig,
warp wound around both to different heights,
and supplemental warps to meet each section.

NOTE: having the middle set  of bars slightly smaller than the  top and bottom
 seemed like it'd  be a problem,
but tape kept the smaller central ones
from falling out of the holes during the initial winding,
and in the long run the size difference was helpful
as it made the box bottom
more proportional to the sides.


A structural problem I didn't foresee
might also be visible from the photo above:
 the outside warps of the bottom section are split 
because the bottom and top loops are offset,
so when weaving that bottom section
the edge warps are 'half loops'.
The selvedge warps on that bottom section
thus had a short, tight shed,
the extra short one on the right
needing special handling and a very small bobbin.

 I think this is an unavoidable issue overall,
but the right side could be as long as the left
if, when beginning to wind the last section
(the right wing as it were),
I brought the yarn down from the top
rather than up from the bottom.

On another structural note,
the photo above makes it look like
there is a lot of draw-in on the bottom section
but that is actually not the case.

The side warps just got a little scrunched
as my hands manipulated those funky edge bits,
and a few passes all the way across on the middle section
allowed all the warps to fall into alignment,
so the shed was its lovely
four selvedge/ supplemental warp self 
from there to the top. 

Split warp and spacing issues  solved,
the rest of the tapestry was a piece of cake.
(well, I still don't like the feel
of seine twine warp on my hands
but that is another story).

Knowing that each face of the box
would present as its own thing
gave me freedom to mess around --
a few lines here, 
some weird weft there,
the ubiquitous  house somewhere else. 
note: The two-ply ziplock bag yarn is a new favorite,
though its stretchiness required a gentle hand.

At the top of each facet
the warp loops are individually locked into place
as per the four selvedge system,
and when I released the whole thing from the loom,
I just needed to fold up the edges,

and sew the corners closed.

I love the peek-a-boo  nature of the plastic bag yarn.

But might it be worth weaving
a couple of solid strands across another such window
to make square/ rectangular panes?
Always something to try.

But there it is--
a five second idea,
days of interesting weaving,
 myriad possibilities for the future--
split warp issues and all.
Happily, having learned what I needed to know for now
(including how much I love the three dimensional structure),
I can now let the idea sit 
while I go prove a few other concepts
that are loudly demanding attention. 

If this form interests you,
I hope these vague instructions are enough
as it is all I have time to write just now.
You fringeless/ four selvedge friends
should be able to figure it out though, eh?

Or,
if you're hankering for 3-D fringeless tapestry, 
 the good old Bag-On-A-Box approach 
will achieve the exact same end
without having to sew the corners,
and all on the ultimate portable, recyclable loom.
​
Seasonal travel?
Gift boxes?
Wrapping paper for yarn and cordage?
Oh dear, oh dear...

​It was a big deal to learn about computers then--
something my professors thought no one in their right mind would do unless forced,
(nearly as essential as the endocrine interactions of newly pregnant ewes),
and I have to admit that without the nudge,
I would never have done it. 
Spreadsheets? Computers?  Bah.

I took the class because I was interested
in sheep, wool, and yarn,
and also because I was hoping
​ to become a Veterinarian--
a path I didn't ultimately pursue.
(Though I did not mind shoving up arm up a cow's rectum
while lying on a frosty, windy hillside,
I did mind that such calls would keep me
from knitting and spinning
as much as I might like).

But Back to Lotus 1, 2, 3.
Yarn-centric nerd that I was even then,
I designed a knitting calculation spreadsheet
that would shift the stitch numbers from
those for the gauge given in a pattern
to stitch numbers for the gauge chosen by a knitter
for the yarn she had (ideally hand spun).

My professors thought it most original. 
I thought it pretty basic and silly--
a thing I could have done with pencil and paper in half the time.  
But I was a diligent student
out for the A's I needed to get into Vet school,
so didn't say so.

A couple of years (and many science classes later),
I strayed to a different end of campus,
wandering into a room
on the third floor of the home economics building,
where light streamed through big windows
and fell upon row up on row of floor looms
and all thoughts of veterinarianism flew away.

I quit calculus,
​learned to warp,
and devoted myself
​ to a grid of a different sort.

Time passed, as it does.

I wove -- quite a bit.
Lotus 1, 2, 3, went out of fashion.
Fonts became a thing. 
Spreadsheet programs began to be called  'apps.' 
Lives were devoted to creating them.
Other lives were devoted changing them.
Soon these apps
were filled with bells and whistles
many as silly as my spreadsheet
but which force us,
on an almost daily basis,
 to relearn things we thought we already knew,
or devote  hours, days, weeks
to finding that one little thing that has to be clicked
to accomplish the thing we did yesterday
with no trouble at all.
Bah.

As far as I know
endocrine paths of pregnant ewes
remains much as it always has.
We love our computers
and rely on them,
but the blankety-blank learning curve
never seems to flatten out.

Over under, over, over, over under. 

There are skills to be learned, of course--
tension, selvedge control, warping techniques,
how to spin grocery receipts into yarn--
and these can feel momentous
if you've never done them,
the learning curve very steep.

I'm actually all in favor of learning stuff.
Indeed,  learning hard stuff
is what we humans do best,
and for many of us
person to person learning
is still easiest -- 
using arms and hands and voices

Once upon at time,
(even before computer text was green)
we might  have lived in the same village.
where we could slowly and easily
share weaving thoughts
as we spun our yarn 
and picked pebbles out of our bean seed.
We could wave our arms around
and describe that slick little maneuver
for getting the warp tension just so,
(or how to save a file to dropbox),
then show you after lunch.

It's the thing Elizabeth Wayland Barber
called "the courtyard sisterhood"
in her life changing book
Women's Work: The First 20,000 years

Sometimes we still get to do that
but with weavers separated, rare
and all over the world,
we now rely on  our marvelous
confusing, confounding,
 and ever-changing devices
to write blogs,
to shoot video 
to create WEBINARS,
in an attempt to mimic 
what we once accepted as normal.

They are miraculous, these devices.
After all, here I sit,
​ writing to you this very morning
while my laundry dries outside
 and my tea gets cold--
and it is almost like being together.

The trouble is that sometimes
the devices don't work as planned,
and those of us who know a lot about weaving,
are thrilled to BITS to ponder
esoteric, yarn-centric questions,
and to share what we know the best we can,
while you cook supper,
do not always have the latest
​digital technical minutiae 
at our fingertips. ​

Luckily, thanks to another techno-miracle
THERE is a recording of the whole thing,
waving arms and all.
that anyone can watch.
(Indeed, if you do, you will soon see
that I have some learning to do
when it comes to my interaction with the screen
for I seem to make a habit of
pointing at something amazing
as though you are next to me,
which it feels like you are
when, in truth,
all you get
is my finger jabbing your nose).
​
I don't know if it feels different, not being live,
but it is there,
and you can pause us at will.
​And one of these days, we'll try again.

This Four Selvedge Warping business
 is just so thrilling,
so useful in myriad ways,
that, learning curves and all,
we're going to keep talking about it. 

We have The Fringeless Class
to explain all the details,
(Rebecca, the most patient of teachers,
is brilliant at finding just those tricky bits
that need a tiny, slow motion video to make them clear
as anyone who has taken her other tapestry classes knows).

And we now have the free Webinar
 to share more of the possibilities
when enthusiasm boils over.

There have been a number of questions
about the specifics of making cordage.

It's a pretty elemental process
and as I said last week,
I'm only just beginning
 my research and experiments--
but since you asked,
here a jumping off point for yours.

FYI -- Youtube isn't a bad place for further research.

Thigh spinning videos can be helpful,
and there are also any number of young men
​eager to explain how to make cordage--
usually as part of a general survival strategy
for the next time you happen to find yourself in the wilderness
with nothing but a pocket knife
(and the requisite testosterone).

As it turns out, however,
a person only need her hands--
​
​though a pair of snips can be useful.

Actually the process is so elemental
that it seems absurd
to have 16 photos and a video
to show the process.
But oh well....
​No time for brevity.

Anyway --
Gather some leaves**
and get them nice and damp.
You can do this by dumping a bundle in:
-a handy babbling brook impersonator (see photos above),
-your leftover bath water
-an actual babbling brook.
​
Rolling them in a wet towel also works well, 
as does gathering after a rain.

**Iris are satisfyingly strong
Daylily is fun to say (and the leaves can be long)
Narcissus are fragile, narrow and a lovely color
Corn husks are short, plentiful,  strong and dye beautifully.
Other plants await...

Even when I've soaked them in a creek (real or pretend),
it has been helpful to wrap the leaves in a damp towel
and let them sit for an hour or three
to even out the moisture content.

Then I tear wide leaves into strips
to control the evenness of the cordage.

To begin,
​Fold one strip (or leaf) --
but not in half.

Grab the fold with one hand,
the further strand with the other,
and twist it (the further strand) away from your body.

Cross the twisted far strand over the near strand
making it (the near strand)
the new far one.
Twist the new far strand.
​Cross over.
​Repeat.

​You are now spinning and plying at the same time.

When you get close to the end of a leaf strip,
or they start becoming too thin,
add a new strip 
by tucking it into the V 
(you can leave a bit sticking out and snip it off later).
Twist the new strip with whichever strip it is joining/replacing.
​
​Here is a Video -- I hope.
Please pardon the bathtub drain sounds --
the brook impersonator by where I was working
is about to be dismantled for winter so is missing its babbilator.

So with the same materials
you can make something
fine enough for a fishing net,
or  a rope on which you can cross a bottomless chasm. 
​Not bad for a few dead leaves. 

Of course I haven't tried either of these things as yet,
and expect there are a few nuances I'm missing,
but do let me know if you try them
and how they work.

Back in the studio,
where the bottomless chasms are metaphors
and I am fortunate enough to have a variety of cutting tools,
I usually lop off the sticky outey bits as i go.

Then,
when I run out of leaves
 or time
or energy
or the cordage is just perfect,
​I stop. 

Obsessions.
​They happen.

 I call this one "material inquiry"
when I want to impress myself --
or use the other elegant phrases
I tried to conjure last week--
but while in its midst,
this infatuation mostly feels like joy.​

Except,
 I am learning as I go
so my information has gaping holes 
about which I know nothing,
and the things I do know
are somewhat situation specific.

Water, for instance.
Here in Idaho it is very dry right now
so I've found it necessary to soak the dry leaves
before splitting or twisting them into cordage
to prevent the strands from breaking.

A tub of water for a few hours works pretty well,
as does rolling in a wet towel overnight,
depending on character of the material.
A good soaking rain is great
(we had one once),
as the brown leaves around the edges of 
iris and daylily plants can be twisted immediately. 

Freshly made cordage (everything still damp),
is easy to weave with.
It packs in best
when going through a small section
of the open shed before packing
(one or two warps at a time instead of five or six
or, heaven forbid,
traveling selvedge to selvedge before packing).

If the cordage has had time to dry, however, 
(about five seconds around here right now),
it needs to be soaked till pliable enough
​ to bend smoothly around the warp.

If, however, a gal happens to soak her cordage
for too long in extra warm water
(cuz...tea... hot water in the kettle...),
said cordage may become over-saturated
and this may lead:
first  --to lovely, easy weaving
second --to shrinkage as the cordage dries,

third --to undesired needle weaving
and a revision of her original vision 
if she happens to have woven other elements
over the too wet cordage
using techniques/ materials that do not
want to slide down the warp
at the same rate as the cordage.

and fourth-- to a bit of house wrecking
when trying to force things
in an attempt to avoid needle weaving
and vision adjustment
.
Luckily, I kinda like the wrecked house
and its new island location
so decided not to repair it.

Of course I (that mystery gal),
likes all of it enough
to try other aqueous experiments,
for instance tossing a couple of rings of cordage
into a linen scouring bath
(linen skeins and washing soda
simmered for an hour+).

Astonishingly,
the cordage did not fall apart.

What it did do was grow plumply darker (dying itself?)
and develop a new character.
Wet, it felt a bit like holding
a string of dark brown pearls
and was lovely to weave--
when damp but no longer wet, that is.
Some lessons stick.

One person said the photo above looked like woven coffee beans.

After drying completely though,
the pearl/ coffee bean effect went away.
The cordage stayed quite dark,
and didn't exactly shrink as a whole,
but the character of the individual strands 
ended up different from any cordage I've used so far,
wet or dry,
and the bit with which I didn't weave
went boing.

No chance to try weaving with this weird stuff yet,
but rest assured that soon enough 
​it'll be damp once again
to see how it behaves, both off and on a loom.

Finding things out is  addictive, don't you think?

Part of me wishes that I knew
what I don't yet know,
so I could figure out how
to learn whatever those things are
in an organized way.
​
But then again...
The mystery is better.

At least until I do learn a thing,
whereupon I'm sure to write about here
because
duh
I'm blabby that way
even when apparently speechless with delight.

SO FAR:
-dead leaves,
-stuff that's in the studio,
-weird results
-four selvedge tapestry,

-all of you.

What a plus to know
you're here with me.
​Thanks.

A couple of days ago in the Fringeless class
someone asked: 
​"How do you do that cool picking-up-the-sheds thing?"

The class includes a number of weaving videos
including a rather long one
in which I weave most of the piece in the photo below--
chatting all the while about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.
At least I talk about building shapes.

Apparently I don't talk much about 
what I'm actually doing to open the sheds
and pass the bobbins however,
so I thought I'd try to explain further here
in case those of you not taking the class might find it useful too.

As I may have mentioned before,
I adopted both techniques--
first  bobbins then finger picking--
after a decade or more of  butterflies, beater and treadles.
Once again, it was Archie Brennan who made it seem worth a try.
With a big pipe loom warped and ready
I committed to weaving the entire thing
 (Hang Up and Draw first tapestry on the linked page)
using only bobbins.
 I started with leashes as well
(long heddles you can grab and pull), 
but before long found myself finger picking both sheds
so haven't bothered with leashes or butterflies since. 

Anyway, yesterday I decided to try to film myself weaving.
Without Rebecca Mezoff and her
excellent eye and amazing camera
the following two videos are not the snazziest thing in the world,
but here they are nonethless:
1-over and back, over and back, at 'slowed down normal' speed
2-over and back in super slow motion
3- a rather wordy description of what I think I'm doing
(which may, or may not, be what I'm actually doing
but is the closest I can come)
4. Some assorted comic drawings which might help too

 EDIT!!!!!!!OH NO!  The videos vanished.  SOSOSOOS sorry 
I have no idea what happened but will try to figure out
or fine another video solution
They take HOURS to upload so it'll be a while I'm afraid.
After all my boasting and that marvelous feeling of doing something cool
Maybe words and comics are the best after all
​SIGH.
​

The Wordy Description
-Bobbin in right hand going both ways, always
-Shed picked with left hand going both ways

OPEN SHED
(in this case weft moving from left to right but not always)

LEFT HAND:
(always picking up the warps from left to right no matter which direction the weft is going)
-decides which warp to pick up first,
- slides up that warp towards the shed sticks where the opening is wider
-fingers slip behind three to five raised warps
-pull them open
RIGHT HAND:
-slips into shed just opened
-passes bobbin through the space behind the warp and back into the same hand
(bobbin now in front of the warp)
-pulls slightly on the weft while 
LEFT HAND:
-releases warp threads
-drops down to grab the end of the weft
-adjusts weft tension
(leaving enough weft in the shed to make a nice bubble)
-holds onto weft while
RIGHT HAND:
uses bobbin to tap weft into place.

PICK SHED
LEFT HAND:
(scooping up warps from left to right no matter which direction the weft is going)
-chooses  warp at the edge of section to be picked up,
-pushes back against the open warp to the left of that warp
-reaches back and grabs desired "back" warp between thumb and middle finger
- pulls that warp forward, holding it on forefinger 
-moves one warp to the right, over the next open warp 
-pushes back against that open warp as before to make space to grab next "back" warp
 continuing in this way until 3 - 5 warp threads (about one inch worth) have been grabbed.
-pull to open that section of the shed
RIGHT HAND 
​​-slips into space just opened
-passes bobbin through the space behind the warp and back into the same hand
(bobbin now in front of the warp)
-pulls slightly on the weft while...
LEFT HAND:
-releases warp threads
-drops down to grab the end of the weft
-adjusts weft tension 
( leaving enough weft in the shed to make a nice bubble, which is easier with pick shed as the released warp adds its own tension)
-holds onto weft while
RIGHT HAND:
uses bobbin to tap weft into place.

All of this takes a LOT Of words,
and I generally find Comics to be a more efficient medium
than plain text, but hopefully the videos make things somewhat clear.
And alas, if I had to draw an entire comic 
for every blog post, you'd get one a couple of times a year!

NOTE: Bobbins
Still REALLY happy with both sets of new bobbins I wrote about here
Both makers are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

NOTE: Sett
​ The warp on the loom in the videos above is sett at 10 epi,
8 epi is easier and smoother (more room to teach and grab)
but much of this depends on the size of your warp 
and the size of your fingers.
If your fingers are large and/or you like to work at closer setts
I  recommend some kind of shedding device for the pick shed --
Leashes and String heddles (very short leashes), are both excellent.
I describe the latter in Backstrap Dialogues,
and will put a detail below, which should help.

So that's it for now --
EXCEPT! that for those of you not on Instagram
I wanted to include a photo
of  the finished running shoes
I was working on last week!
SO happy.
(Shoe pattern from Simple Shoe Making)

A couple of days ago I lifted the lid of my palette box...

Might as well begin with ORANGE warp
(actually  brighter than it appears in this photo)
because -- why not?

But first ...
since the last couple of blog posts have generated questions about beginning and ending yarn when weaving in the ends as I go, I tried to pause to take some process photos.
Alas, I didn't get as many as I intended as I slipped into the tapestry and
forgot I was supposed to be on the outside, explaining things.
But here is a brief, crooked (and slightly out of focus) explanation of one approach.

Below are a couple of photos of another way to start a strand of weft
​(without the risk of added bulk).
Note how the wispy end of the lavender yarn (broken not cut),
drapes over the dark purple and is both held in place and covered by subsequent passes.

The photos also show the pink weft at the top of the house
​ending with an ‘eccentric slide’ down the slope of the roof.

That's all for now...
Not sure why these bright colors and shapes are suddenly the thing,
but when color calls, what can you do but
release the tapestry from the loom and see what is next.

OH yes -- and for further reading (and visuals of other work in progress), 
might I recommend the blog posts from January 2016?  
I recently put the date links back up in the sidebar, and noticed that that month (and some of February too)  has a lot of info -- including, in the Value of Value post, a downloadable PDF of a tiny house cartoon...
​Presents!

Last week's post generated  a couple of questions:
one about about the clean edges of the tapestry doodles
and another about how I weave in the ends as I go.
Rosemary kindly pointed Janet to my four selvedge warping instructions, which helps explain the clean edge thing, but I thought I'd attempt to show how both questions can, in part,  be answered at once.

 Above is a photo of an empty four selvedge warp, and if you follow the lines of the warp you can see that it zig zags between the top and bottom supplemental warps (smoother and finer).
The warp with which I weave, then, is actually two strands twisted around each other and used as one except at the bottom where the loops are offset by one strand.

This means that when I begin weaving, as in the photo above, I can just lay the weft into the open shed and it is caught by the offset loop which means it does not need a header (or anything else), to hold it in place.
There is nowhere for the weft to go.
This also means  that if I lay the end of the weft (in this case two strands of yellow), into the shed with the ends of the wisps at the selvedge, it stays right where I put it.
 Nothing sticks out save the odd tiny wool fiber.

When I run out of weft, I weave to the very end of the strands, including the little wisps, and then lay the new weft on top, overlapping the wispy ends. 
This is how I change color too. 
​If a shape is finished before I've reached the end of the yarn for that shape, I break the weft at the appropriate place and weave the wisps in.  Nothing goes to the back.

Three  things to note at this point:
1. The wisps exist because I always break or untwist rather than cut the weft
With singles weft, I hold the yarn with my hands a staple length apart, untwist each strand, tug lightly, and the strands separate leaving the wispy ends ready to weave.
​ Plied weft, alas, untwists into its component strands of singles so it is easier to simply break it. The wisps are rarely as long or nicely tapered as with untwisted singles, but it still works. 
If your yarn resists easy breaking, you can 'shave it' with a pair of scissors. 
The point is to avoid the blunt end that happens with a straight scissors cut.

2, Using wool warp (as well as weft) is a great help with this technique
I once wrote a blog post called In Praise of Wool Warp, where I think I may have talked more about this, but the idea is that the tiny strands of warp and weft tangle with one another and hold all those wispy bits in place. 
​Wool weft on cotton warp should be OK too, as long as all of your weft ends are treated as described above so they can cling to each other and not pop out.

3. Weaving with hand spun weft gives me some leeway.
Since all of my weft is perfectly and consistently 'imperfect',  an extra half pass, or a slight bump where one overlapping strand meets another, will vanish into the general look of the tapestry.
On  the rare occasions that I've used mill spun weft, I still weave in the ends, but use extra care with the overlapping of the wisps.

,It is also worth noting that, though my yarn is not as smooth as most millspun, it is still essential to count passes while building curves and also to pay attention to hollows and fulls (or highs and lows/ fulls and empties) as the shapes build up.
An extra pass in the wrong place can wreck a graceful curve no matter your weft material, giving your smooth hills unlooked for rocky outcroppings,
​or imposing the dreaded nipple effect on an otherwise sensuous body part....

There is much more to be said about weaving in ends -- indeed, I could go on and on and on, but I have more little doodles in my head so need to get back to the loom.
For now, you can find out a little more by checking out my post on weaving letters, where I show how I use a needle to move weft around inside the tapestry itself, and also how I finish small shapes without leaving any tails on the back.
 Rebecca Mezoff uses a needle to weave in all of the weft ends of her tapestries, she just does it when the tapestry is off the loom rather than as she weaves, and I know this works better for many people.  Her classes tell you just how to do it. 
For me, it's best to do it I'm still in the thick of the action as, if I waited till the pieces were off the loom, I'd probably never get a Round Tuit. 

One last thing-- this week is the American Tapestry Alliance Blog Tour!
  It started yesterday with Molly Elkind's great blog post on using collage for tapestry design.
At the bottom of the post are links to the blogs for the rest of the week.
There are even Prizes!!!!
It was great fun doing this two years ago, and I'm delighted it is now a thing.
So check it out!  Who knows what we'll all learn?

is ready to go out into the world!

At any rate, it is as ready as it and I can be today
given the messiness of process, 
the joys of editing and rewriting, 
the trails of drawing and and redrawing,
my penchant for carets, corrections,
and the angst of sharing all of this.

Once upon a time I hoped to have this done back in June, but along with all of the above (and the distraction of exhibitions),
it took me a while to figure out the ins and outs of actual production.
Backstrap Dialogues is almost 3x longer than the Bag on a Box zine and after making a bunch of proofs I decided I wasn't ready to photocopy, fold and bind that many pages myself.
Actually, I  would love to have done the binding, but once you have someone's machine print and fold hundreds of sheets, it turns out to be a huge hassle not to let them staple too.  
I also wanted to use a heftier paper than standard photocopy paper, but not so hefty that the mailing cost would go too high, so had to do some experimenting.
​ It's amazing what a difference the weight of the paper makes, both with mailing costs and how the booklet fits in its envelope--esp for shipping overseas-- and I really want to keep them in the first class letter category. 
But perhaps this won't be as much of an issue with this zine, as I am offering it as a downloadable PDF as well as a paper booklet. Yipes!
As with everything I undertake, it's all a bit of an experiment with a steep learning curve.

But as of today, my Etsy shop has
1. Backstrap Dialogues-- 56 page saddle stitched zine
2. Backstrap Dialogues--56 page downloadable PDF
3. How to Weave a Bag on a Box--20 page saddle stitched zine
4. How to Weave a Bag on a Box--20 page downloadable PDF

​Off we go! 
(hope it all works... eek)

ps.  As I don't have any system for computer generated address labels, everything is hand written, which means it takes a little bit to send them off
Thanks for being patient!

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.