summer activities

a second sample of huck weaving

Today's pithy sign reads:

"God rarely makes a mistake in anything he does, but mosquitoes come close."

I have been in summer hibernation mode since we got back from Florida. Admitedly, the heat has encouraged more time in the gym than hours on the hot tarmac, but I have been road biking as well as "cross training " in the air conditioned gym. I have also been doing some weaving, working mostly on a study project for West Side Weavers in lace weaving.

My average day goes get up about 7:30, hit the gym or ride for a couple of hours, an early lunch or recovery meal, a half hour rest and read, household chores and dinner pre- prep which mostly consists of chopping things up, and or thawing something, checking email and then weaving or spinning until it's time to walk the dog and do dinner.

It took me a weekend and a couple of days on my own to get the loom warped and tied up, and the first two projects in Huck weaving, although not terribly exciting or exactly what I would call lace like, went fairly smoothly, even with cutting off the completed project and retying the warp. This third piece though is about to make me crazy. I didn't rewarp, but did exactly what I did with the other two pieces. This time, however, every time I even walk near the loom, I find another broken warp thread. I keep adding lengths to othe broken threads so that they can be tied off to the roller, restarting with a spacing weft, and then restarting with the first band of weaving, only tto have more threads break. I guess I should be happy that they seem to have stopped breaking in the middle and are now only breaking along the edges but it leaves the edges looking like they have been chewed on by rats. If this continues I will finish out the rest of the 4 or 5 feet with nothing but bands of spacing warp with narrow bands of moth eaten looking weaving.

Thinking back on problems with broken cotton thread and humidity or lack there of I have tried misting the warp about 10 minutes before I start weaving. I'm not sure it helps, but it doesn't seem to hurt so I will persist with this a bit longer in hopes it may help.

Realistically I should probably just cut the whole thing off, find another , better warp thread and rewarp but something of the optomist in me says that maybe eventually if I persist, things will get better. either way, whether I end up with spacing warps and rat eaten edges, or some sort of Spanish lace effect lace and an actual weaving, when this is over I am definitely finished with this 10/2 cotton that I bought too much of three years ago and I will probably burn the remaining thread on a sacrificial fire.

In periods of frustration with the weaving I have been reading. While I listeen to a lot of books while working out at the gym, my actual reading time is usually short and sporadic. For the most part, they are interesting, sometimes good, but rarely memorable . Recently I have finished a book that I would label as an outstanding read which I had a hard time putting down.

The book is "The 19th Wife" by David Ebershoff. It is an impressive interweaving of three stories, all related thematically around the Mormon Church Leader and polygamist Brigham Young's 19 th wife Ann Eliza Young. Known historically as the wife who sued Brigham Young for divorce and alimony and won, Ann Elizaa Young was a 19th century suffragette who, after leaving her polygamist marriage, toured and lectured on the evils of polygamy throughout the United States. Where she ended up or how she died is still unknown. Her story forms the basic story against which two other stories unwind. The second story is that of Ann Eliza's great great grand daughter who is doing a Ph.D thesis on the history of polygamy in the modern day Mormon Church while the third story is that of a young boy, thrown out of a modern polygamist settlement, living on the street, who finds out that his mother, a member of a polygamist household and marriage, is being tried for the murder of her husband, his father.

The novel travels back and forth in time, contrasting the Mormon Church's earlier reasoning and attitudes behind and towards polygammy among it's leaders and the contemporary church struggling with the same issues. In the process, the two protagonists find a way to discover their true natures and survive.

The book an honest and neutral insight into some of the issues facing religious and non religious members in contemporary society.

As for the weaving, I am reminded of the saying "Insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting a different outcome." That's me and the weaving because as I like to tell people, I'm in here for insanity, not stupidity.