2019, Don't Leave In A Huff...

...just leave.
     It's the last day of 2019, and all I can say is, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out." All in all, it hasn't been an absolutely banner year. I spent far too much time away from the studio, misplaced my artistic drive for months, and have generally felt like I've been slogging through knee-deep mud.
     I know some of it is simply the aftermath of dealing with death, and the knowledge that I can't physically do everything I once, foolishly, could. But a lot of it is, I think, from people behaving badly, particularly online. I've watched group after group turn into nasty nests full of vipers, hissing and lashing out at each other over some perceived slight or another. 2019 may be remembered as "The Year of Butthurt": everything from people getting their knickers in a knot over a bit of history that doesn't jive with their pre-conceived notions, to people discussing what might be received as gifts during the holidays being an insult to those who don't celebrate a particular holiday. You name the topic, somebody is pissed off about it and isn't going to hesitate to announce their affront loudly and often.
     I have gotten things accomplished. I have flax growing in three beds. The front yard is showing signs of being full of daffodils and grape hyacinth in the spring. The never-ending, everlasting warp is off the loom and Bertie is resting quietly until January 8, when I officially go "back to work." And I have a list of weaving resolutions for 2020 that I'm going to accomplish.
     For 2020, I'm using an old teaching strategy: developing "S.M.A.R.T. Goals." S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym meaning Specific, Measurable, Attainable/Achievable, Relevant, and Time-oriented. Once upon a time, we called these "well-written teaching objectives," and I can still write these puppies in my sleep. Today's S.M.A.R.T. goals look a little different, as they don't begin with the words "The learner will...", but they're written specifically for tasks I really need to do in 2020.

• Finish adjusting Bertie for optimal weaving by January 15, 2020.
• Design two "holiday" warps by January 31, 2020.
• Reassemble the HD loom by February 29, 2020.
• Weave off the polychrome crackle warp on MiniMac by March 30, 2020.
• Finish large off-loom piece by April 30, 2020
• Sew one garment out of handwoven cloth by May 30, 2020.
• Weave a wool warp by June 30 2020.
• Weave a flax warp by August 31, 2020.
• Demonstrate mastery of the principles of gebrochene arbeit ("broken work") by designing three warps--including one suitable for eight shafts--by September 30, 2020.
• Complete one unit of OHS program by December 31, 2020.

So there are my goals for things in the studio. Meanwhile, I got a grain mill attachment for my stand mixer, so I'm going to spend time in 2020 baking more unusual breads: I want to see if I can "reverse-engineer" the schwartze bread (black bread) my mother-in-law bought in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles. I also have another recipe for bialys, something unavailable in the Bay Area. I also have a fair amount of sewing, a bit of costuming, and some gardening to do in 2020. I may even squeeze in a bit of travel. I'm trying to spend less time online and more time doing things in Real Life.

     Adios, 2019. Hello, 2020!

The Mad Dash

    It's a cold, wet, miserable Sunday morning, and I'd love nothing more than to curl up with the Sunday newspapers, a pot of coffee, and a pencil for the Sunday crossword puzzle. No. Not today. Not this month. And definitely not this year. The mad dash to the holidays has begun.
    I have a love/hate relationship with the time period between Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday) and Christmas. There's always too much to do, and not enough time to do it, and I'm usually afraid I'll disappoint or offend someone, so there's a certain amount of generalized angst. This year is particularly bad as, through the horrid quirks of two different calendars (Gregorian and Jewish), Thanksgiving was on November 28, Chanukkah starts the evening of December 22, and Christmas is December 25. That leaves me with three weeks to

• clean the house from top to bottom;
• decorate it inside and out;
• do all the food shopping for a round of parties and fancy dinners;
• make a mountain of cookies and confections; and
• buy and wrap presents

without losing my mind, my patience, my sense of humor, or my coffee cup. Add in a 20-yard warp that should be woven off by the end of the year, and I'm a teensy bit overwhelmed. It's why I've dropped a few things off the list over the years. For example, I don't send out Christmas cards. I also don't host fancy sit-down dinners, opting instead for buffet-style cocktail parties and open houses.
    I also make lists. Lots of lists. And timelines. I use a couple different programs to track what I need to do when, and to prepare shopping lists. For example, I know we'll probably have house guests next weekend, so the house should be clean by Friday afternoon. I also need to go "big shopping" on Wednesday, so I have to skip that day in the number of days (2) I need to get the house ready. I also need to lay out the general meal plans for December and make shopping lists--that takes several hours. I also need to mix more cookie doughs and get them into the freezer for baking later in the month. Today's To Do list includes:

• Finish December menus and shopping lists (I started on this yesterday).
• Bake a pie for dessert.
• Continue sewing the lights on the Christmas tree hat. 
• Finish knitting the toe on a "travel/social knitting" (aka "drunk knitting") sock.
• Mix up cookie doughs for freezer.

This list keeps growing, so I'd better get to it.

Challenging Pre-Conceived Notions

The Sampler.
How dare I??

    I'm of the opinion that when it comes to pre-conceived notions, there are two kinds of people: those that rigidly cling to the
notion; and those who say, "Gee, I never looked at it that way. That's pretty interesting." History is full of examples of pre-conceived notions, and what happens when they're challenged: those clinging like limpets to the notion are willing to fight to the death to preserve it; the people who are willing to re-examine it are perturbed by the limpets; and the messengers that the pre-conceived notion might not be the whole story...well, we all know what happens to messengers. I'm currently one of those messengers, all because of a little-known German manuscript and a lot of white 8/2 cotton on Bertie.
    Bertie is back together, and I need to do something with the remaining 484 ends x 25 yards of white 8/2 cotton on the warp beam. I also needed to check that Bertie was running properly, with no more "missed" picks because the shafts weren't behaving as they should. I settled on a simple 16-shaft point twill, added a couple extra shafts for some plainweave selvedges, and pulled 15 drafts from handweaving.net with some basic parameters:

• Point twill
• 16 shafts
• No floats longer than 7 ends/picks

Five of Morath's 16-shaft designs.
All point twill, all tromp as writ.

After eliminating the boring ones and the duplicates, I was left with 15 drafts: 13 from A German Weaver's Pattern Book: 1784 - 1810, and 2 from 16-Harness Patterns: The Fanciest Twills of All by Irene K. Wood. (Both are available as pdfs from handweaving.net.) The pattern book was of particular interest: I have a longtime interest in historic cloth and cloth-making. I have a decent collection of books on the topic, and I use a lot of historic weave structures in my weaving. Of particular interest right now are hin und weider ("back and forth") patterns woven by primarily German and German-American weavers: using up to 24 shafts threaded for straight or point twill, and treadling "tromp as writ" (i.e., the threading), these weavers could create a number of different designs in the same warp simply by changing the tie-up. Since I don't have to climb under the loom to change the tie-up, it was a pretty easy task to create a sampler of all 15 patterns, each separated by a narrow band of plainweave. I have a lot of dark blue 8/2 cotton on hand, and it's dark enough that I can see the patterns (important if I'm going to pick out floats that might be too long for towels). I got the draft loaded into Bertie's brand and wove off the entire sampler in less than an hour.

    Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the results, so I decided to "share" photos of my sampler with members of an 18th century costuming group, letting them know that these are woven from 18th century drafts. That was a mistake. This is a group of people who, while they know some of the most picayune details of how an 18th century petticoat is constructed, don't know jack about how the cloth they're using is made. Add in that their knowledge base is limited to examples in museums (which have only the most precious, most spectacular examples of textiles and fashions), and the few extant swatch books, and someone coming along with something out of the ordinary is rather like proclaiming that the earth is round when everybody knows it's actually flat. Example:

Online Pompus Pundit (OPP): Those designs are for coverlets.

Me: Uh, they're weaving drafts. They can produce a lot of different fabrics, depending on the yarn. A lot of these are for fine linens.

OPP: No, those are only for coverlets. Show me proof that they're used for something else.

Me: They're from a German master weaver's pattern book. The manuscript is dated 1784. 

OPP: That doesn't prove anything. Your research is garbage and you're a terrible person for even suggesting that these might be HA (historically accurate) fabrics.

Me: ...

Another five of Morath's 16-shaft designs.

At that point, how do you explain to someone that these are drafts and tie-ups from the manuscript Christian Morath, a master weaver from "Offeringen" (Ofteringen?) compiled and sold to his employee, Joseph Murilman of "Endingen" (Eggingen?) for 5 coins in 1784? That Morath, who was probably a really good master weaver--and the only weaver in the village--knew this "arcane knowledge" of weaving well enough to write it all down for his employee? And that Morath probably knew, as most weavers do, that fabric is fabric is fabric, and it's the yarns that determine what the end use is as much as the design does? In the end, you don't. Ultimately, it's like trying to teach a pig to sing: a waste of time and irritates the pig.

    Ironically, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has an extensive textile collection, including some 18th century German linens. They were purchased by the museum in 1909, and one of them, probably a fragment from a tablecloth, depicts the story of Joshua and Caleb, two of Moses' "spies" who investigated Hebron in Canaan. It's an elaborate weaving, with the names of people and places woven in. Oddly enough, the names appear correctly, then mirrored, across the fragment. Only one threading "mirrors": hin und weider, or point twill. 

WWJD: What Would Jim (Ahrens) Do?

    Once upon a time, about 80 years ago, a guy named Jim Ahrens took up weaving as a hobby. Ahrens was someone who liked to work with his hands--he was a cabinet maker--and had those wonderfully wild engineering skills that allow some people to not only look at a problem and ask, "Why is this happening?" but then sit down and come up with an elegant solution. With a background in mechanical engineering and machine design, it's not surprising that weaving appealed to him: the process is a delightful blend of art and engineering, and you get to play with some pretty interesting machinery and tools.
    I don't know the entire history--Jim Ahrens passed on nearly 20 years ago--but I suspect that he, like many weavers, was mostly self-taught. That has some disadvantages--the learning curve can be steep--but one of the big advantages is that you aren't hamstrung by traditions. You can look at a problem, or a piece of cloth, and engineer/reverse-engineer a solution. For example, it's a pain to climb under a loom to change the tie-up, and the bigger the loom, and the more complex the draft, the more work it is to change the tie-up. Ahrens looked at the design of looms and thought, why not move the tie-up system to the side of the loom, so you can simply change the tie-up while standing (or sitting) next to the loom. Ahrens Looms are known for their patented side tie-up systems.
    Ahrens also studied how looms and weavers interacted in earlier times. Master weavers turned out miles of complex cloths, but many of their secrets disappeared as handweaving was mechanized during the Industrial Revolution. By the start of World War Two, handweaving looms were limited to four or eight shafts and, in the United States, usually either counterbalance or jack looms. (Bexel was making their "Cranbrook" countermarche rug loom, but they were very rare.) As the story goes, Ahren's wife Dorothy brought home a beautiful piece of linen she wanted replicate, and once they determined that it took 36 shafts to recreate the pattern, Ahrens added 4 additional shafts for the selvedges, then built his first mechanical dobby handweaving loom. That first dobby led to others; and a partnership with Jon Violette to form AVL Looms in the 1970s; and on down to Bertie.The "A" in AVL, and in A-Series is for Ahrens.

The Ahrens Dobby, at the start of restoration.
(Picture from Peggy Osterkamp's Weaving
Blog, August 16, 2019)

    Jim Ahrens' big 40-shaft dobby is owned by weaver/ teacher/author Peggy Osterkamp, and has just been restored to working order by Peggy and her apprentice (and talented weaver in her own right) Vera Totos. The loom is a beast: the 40 shafts controlled by the dobby head are fronted by an additional 4 counterbalanced shafts that weave the ground cloth, making it possibly the only mechanical (no electricity required) 44-shaft loom in the world. However, the familial relationship between that old loom and Bertie are quite evident: Bertie doesn't have 4 counterbalance shafts full of flat steel heddles, and the Ahrens Dobby doesn't have a computerized dobby head, but both work on the same general principles.
    So, if the two looms are similar, how does that affect setting up the heddles on Bertie? I looked at the photographs Peggy and Vera posted, and created a spreadsheet of shaft and heddle usage on the last dozen projects, including every one woven on Bertie. What I found:

• I like to weave designs on a plainweave background
• I weave a lot of tied-weaves, from Huck Lace to Summer-and-Winter to Batemans

That means I tend to put a lot of ends on a few shafts, while the rest are spread out to make the design. Those shafts should probably be in front, rather like the ground shafts on the Ahrens Dobby. I like my selvedges on separate shafts from the rest of the warp, but I don't want the shed geometry to be considerably different from the shed geometry of the ground, so the selvedge shafts should also be at the front. That leaves the rest of the shafts--30 to 36--free for design purposes.

For a lot more information on Jim Ahrens and his looms, check out Peggy Osterkamp's Weaving Blog and the Ahrens Looms website.

OMG, She's "Crafting!"

    It's one of "those" days. You know--the ones where the world seems a bit off-kilter from the moment your feet hit the floor. I knew it when I peeked at my Facebook news feed and found that the very first item was an argument in an historical sewing group over...the costumes worn by a bunch of dancers. In a 1966 Andy Williams Christmas special. Shot on a soundstage in Hollywood. No, I don't make this stuff up. Needless to say, my eyes rolled nearly to the back of my head. Really? I mean, REALLY??

Kimberly Hammond's
Christmas Tree Hat

    For a change, I decided to roll with the world being a wee bit tipsy, just for fun. This nonsense reminded me that I saw a terrific novelty hat in the shape of a Christmas tree on someone recently, so I perused Ravelry's pattern database for something similar to that hat. My only requirements: the pattern is free; it's crochet; and it has popcorn stitches to simulate the tree branch tips. It only took a few minutes to find what I was looking for: Kimberly Hammond's "Christmas Tree Hat" pattern. I'll need to make a few changes, as I want it to be a bit wider and squatter, but the pattern--which Ms. Hammond has generously made available to the world--will give me a starting point. While I was on Ravelry, I also pulled some patterns for a Santa's elf hat, complete with ears. If I'm going to run around this holiday season with a Christmas tree on my head, then the long-suffering Spousal Unit can be one of Santa's elves.

My work table is being taken
over by Christmas.

    I normally do not keep holiday "crafting" supplies on hand--everything I have in red, green, and white is very small, cotton, and earmarked for weaving holiday towels for "the shop." A trip to Michael's was definitely in order. It's fairly late in the season to start on holiday "crafts" (Michael's starts putting the holiday stuff out just after July 4th), so the shelves were somewhat bare, but I managed to find green, red, and white acrylic yarns (on sale), tiny plastic Christmas ornaments to trim my "tree" (on sale), and since there's no success without excess, a long string of battery-operated multi-colored LED lights (on sale).
    So I'm probably committing terribly inappropriate pre-Thanksgiving holiday crafting. It somehow seems appropriate.

No glitter was used in the writing of this post. 

Heddles to the Right of Me, Heddles to the Left of Me...

    I'm doing that most dreaded of chores: moving heddles on Bertie.
    I am lazy. Laziness isn't a bad thing: I'm organized because I want to be as efficient as possible with my time and energy. Laziness also means that I want to spend my time and energy on things I like (throwing a shuttle), so things that aren't that are on a list that ranges from "dislike" to "absolutely hate." Things I dislike (but do) include warping and threading heddles--they're chores, but necessary for the reward of throwing a shuttle.
    At the top (or bottom) of the list is moving heddles. It doesn't matter what kind of heddles they are--flat steel; wire; inserted eye; or Texsolv--counting them out, bundling them up, then moving them is, in my opinion, a complete pain in the ass and something to be avoided whenever possible. I avoid moving heddles very often by being organized: I make sure there are enough heddles on each shaft to avoid running out, and I mark the center heddle on each shaft so I can balance the number of unused heddles on each side of each shaft.
     I will also state here and now that I loathe Texsolv heddles. (For those unfamiliar, Texsolv polyester heddles were invented to replace the string heddles used on a lot of Swedish looms.) I like metal heddles, especially inserted-eye heddles: they kind to the warp, easily slide on the heddle bars (especially when the bars are waxed), and it's easy to use a threading hook to flick them into position for threading. Texsolv does none of those things: they can abrade a delicate warp; they don't easily slide on the wood heddle sticks; and they're so floppy the only way they are easily threaded is one at a time with my fingers. Their only saving grace is that they're light as feathers, so the don't interfere with the shedding action on Bertie.
    When I got Bertie, I knew it was going to be difficult to determine an individual warp end having a problem with its assigned heddle, so I made the decision to "color code" the shafts. This is pretty common among weavers with many, many shaft looms, and solutions range from coloring individual heddles with Sharpie markers to painting them with diluted acrylic or fabric paints to dyeing them. Each has its drawbacks: Sharpie markers fade; acrylic and fabric paints flake when they get old; polyester requires special dyes. I knew where to get polyester dyes, so I ordered three colors of dye--purple; green; gold--and proceeded to sort and dye about 75% of Bertie's 4,000 heddles. The heddles dyed beautifully, and I got them resorted, bundled, and onto the shafts so I could do a decent amount of weaving last year.
    Fast-forward to 2019, and I am dealing with a warp that was becoming a "dog." Dog warps happen when something is seriously wrong with the design, the warp, or the loom, and they're awful--you don't want to weave off the warp because it's so much work, but you don't want to take the scissors to it. In this case, the dog is nearly 30 yards of white 8/2 cotton for weaving towels (484 ends), so I can't afford to scrap that much yarn, but I keep getting tiny random floats that ruin the cloth. I finally found the problem--the heddles shrank when I dyed them, leaving the undyed white heddles 7/16"/1.12cm longer than the dyed heddles. They're "sloppy," and get tangled around the adjacent shafts, causing the floats, then untangle when the adjacent shafts are raised. These random floats don't show up on broken twills and warps with matching wefts; on the other hand, they're really noticeable on my "bread and butter" towel warps. These are warps where I weave the same design in eight different colors, so the warp is a single color, but each towel is a different weft color. The designs also feature a lot of plainweave, so any imperfection stands out against that plain background.
    There's only one solution for this problem: treat the undyed heddles to the same conditions that caused the shrinkage in the dyed heddles. In other words, take all the undyed heddles off the loom, throw them in a pot with water (and a little Synthrapol), and simmer/boil them for 30-45 minutes. I tested my theory, then got to work fixing this problem. Since I have to take the heddles off the loom, this is an opportunity to thoroughly clean and oil the loom, update the Lenovo Yoga Laptop/Tablet that I use to run the dobby head, and reorganize the heddles to better take advantage of the shafts. Meanwhile, the warp--with the threading cross on a pair of lease sticks--is resting at the back of the loom until I'm ready to thread heddles again.

The Other Man: Bertie

Bertie, my AVL A-Series loom.

    There is another man in my life. He came into my life a little over a year ago, but our relationship is still in that tentative, "getting to know you" phase.
    Before anyone has a major freak-out, Bertie is a loom. A really big floor loom.
    About eighteen months ago, I realized I needed to replace Mongo, my much-loved 16-shaft Macomber loom. Mongo is a terrific loom, and I cranked out a lot of fabric on "him" (I anthropomorphize my big looms). However, Mongo is also completely mechanical. My Achilles tendons are mostly shot, and a lot of the joints in my ankles and feet look like pin cushions from osteoarthritis (I grow bone spurs), so treadling was really becoming a problem. I also wanted a dobby loom that could handle more complex drafts. I called AVL Looms in Chico (California), made an appointment, and went up there to "test drive" looms. I knew what I wanted: a 40-inch weaving width; computerized dobby head; assisted shaft-lifting; and 40 shafts. That describes an AVL-V-series loom to a "T," and that was what I was expecting to order.
    I spent nearly two hours talking to Bob Kruger, and trying out everything available that met my basic requirements. I couldn't try a V-Series, as the only one on the floor had just been picked up, but I tried the prototype K-Series and an A-Series that was on the floor. The K-Series was neat, but I didn't like the geometry and the Spousal Unit was concerned about it being new technology. However, the A-Series was a good fit, an established, proven design, and flexible enough to be modified to exactly what I wanted: 40-inch weaving width, 40 shafts, e-lift, two warp beams (one 1-yard; the other 1/2-yard; automated cloth advance. While I was at it, I also ordered a new tension box and the mounting track for it. I put down the deposit, then went home and sold Mongo.
    The new loom was ready in mid-August, and we went back up to Chico with the truck and picked up the loom. One of the nice things about AVL looms is that they are "flat-packed": the back of the truck was filled with fifteen boxes (the dobby head, in its box, went into the truck cab), and after we got it home, it was pretty easy to unload the boxes into the garage, then bring the loom up to the studio in small pieces. The very first box had the instructions for assembly: a 3-ring binder of about 200 pages of photos and directions. It took a while, but just like IKEA furniture, the loom went together with simple hand tools.
    A brand-new loom is not cheap, especially a big loom with a lot of bells and whistles. However, the "nearly perfect" loom is rather like a custom kitchen to a cook: you can live without it, but life is a lot easier with it. Bertie and I are still learning to work together to produce beautiful cloth, but we're making progress.
 

Taking Time Off

    I am officially taking 2019 "off." This isn't "I'm taking time off and doing other things," but "I'm taking time off from chasing the Almighty Buck."
    As a very small retail business, about 80% of my sales happen between Veterans Day (November 11) and Christmas. It's a lot of work: I need to make sure I have enough inventory, then it's three days of Open Studios, six subsequent Saturdays at Moschetti Coffee Company's Saturday Artisan's Market, and at least one Sunday art festival. Altogether, it's about 80 hours of packing, loading the car, unloading the car, setting up, tearing down, and (most importantly) selling, crammed into Fridays, Saturdays, and the occasional Sunday, with the remainder of each week spent producing more inventory, and getting ready for the holidays.
    In normal years, I start producing inventory early in the year so I have a good amount on hand by early November. Unfortunately, 2019 has not been "normal": I was away from the studio for much of the first half of 2019, and when I finally got back, the past two years finally caught up with me. I  simply couldn't find it within me to pick up a shuttle, or dye a skein. Meanwhile, the deadlines for different holiday events crept closer and closer. I worried over them, but I wasn't motivated to do anything.
    The turning point finally came in early October, when I formally gave myself permission to take the year off. I let everyone connected with different events know that I wouldn't be participating in 2019, and planned to do other things. We traveled a bit; I designed some new costumes; I put up a lot of preserves; and waited for my "mojo" to come back.
    It is coming back, albeit slowly. I dyed a bunch of skeins at the end of October; I planted flax and will be planting madder this week. I finished troubleshooting a couple problems on the current warp so it's ready to weave off. For the first time since 2015, I went to other people's studios and galleries this weekend for Open Studios. I had a good time, bought some original artwork (a piece of stained glass for the studio from a local artist), and scored a couple more tools from a fellow fiber artist. And I acknowledged that, even when I'm not actively producing cloth, I'm still focused on the artistic process. That warp will get woven off, and the next warp will go onto the loom and get woven off, and so on, but it will be for 2020.

NEWS FLASH!: The flax is up. 😀

Breakfast with Karl

The view from the upstairs porch.
Don't worry: it will burn off by 11 a.m.

    Karl is finally back, after being absent for nearly three weeks. We don't see a lot of Karl at this time of year, so waking up to gray skies and higher humidity was a lovely surprise. Karl is the fog.
    The Bay Area gets a lot of fog, primarily due to our geography and physics. Put a large pool of cold water (the Pacific Ocean) next to a warm surface (California), then gently blow air across the top of the water and the water vapor will condense to the point it can be seen. The fog starts to form off the California coast in the afternoon, streams in through the Golden Gate around sunset, and by the following morning, the Bay is shrouded in gray, tourists are shivering, and everyone is dressed in layers that are shed as the fog burns off. Everybody talks about the fog: "May Gray," "June Gloom," "Fogust," "fog days of summer," and even "fogpocalypse" are names given to the weather conditions. We're miles away from the Pacific Ocean, but blocks from another large pool of cold water (San Francisco Bay), so Karl usually joins us for breakfast.
    Why "Karl"? The 2003 movie Big Fish and Twitter.
    According to local news sources, in August 2010, a parody account named "@KarltheFog" popped up on Twitter, and began posting humorous comments about the fog and low clouds and the effect on planned events. (We complain about the fog, but don't let it get in the way of doing things.) The name "Karl" came from a character in the film: a giant who was terrorizing a town until someone realized that he was simply hungry and lonely. The creator of the account felt the fog was, like Karl, misunderstood, and set up the account with the comment, "All that is sunny does not glitter, not all those in the fog are lost."
    Anthropomorphizing the local weather condition changed attitudes toward it. The @KarltheFog Twitter account has, as of this date, 365,000 followers, and more than 20,000 likes. Karl has been a Jeopardy clue, and appears in a popular TV commercial promoting the beauty of California. San Francisco even has a "Fog Appreciation Day" food truck gathering to kick off "Fogust." And locals have gone from complaining to simply shrugging it off--when shivering tourists ask if summer is always so cold and gray, locals simply answer, "Oh, that's just Karl," before pointing them to the closest shop for a fleece hoodie embroidered with the Golden Gate Bridge.

Flax Farming

    One of the slightly odd things about coastal California is that we have two, nearly similar, growing seasons. One is the traditional growing season, when seeds or plants go into the ground in the spring, grow through the summer, and are harvested in the fall. Our days are warm, our nights are (mostly) cool, and if there's enough water, the harvest is good.

    But coastal California has a second growing season. This one starts in October or November, when the days are still warm, and the nights aren't quite below freezing. It ends in mid- to late April, just about the time it's warm enough to plant tomatoes. This growing season features cooler days, and colder nights, and...rain. Get the seeds into the ground early enough, keep them moist enough to germinate, and then--in most years--Mother Nature can take over the irrigation schedule.

    I went to a couple presentations on growing flax given by Chico Flax last month. Flax is a near-perfect winter crop for California: plant it in the fall, give it a little water to start, then simply let it grow. Flax loves cool weather, doesn't mind freezing nights, and is ready for harvesting about the time everything is warming up in spring. I've wanted to try growing my own flax, so I bought some Linum usitatissimum 'Suzanne' seeds with the goal of producing a tiny crop of my own.

    Yesterday was flax planting day. The garden itself is rather a mess: I've been away the past couple of years during the prime periods for working in the garden, so very little beyond the perennial bed in front of the house has been cared for, and my herb garden is mostly dead. However, this time of year is perfect for garden clean-up, transplanting, and generally reorganizing the garden. There are two tiny raised beds at the foot of the back garden: those beds are the only places that gets full sun all day (a requirement for flax), and won't be planted with vegetables until the spring, so the flax goes there. The soil is "ok"--the beds have lain fallow for two years, and have never been exposed to any chemicals--so there wasn't a lot of prep work needed, other than a good soaking to moisten the soil. Once moist, I simply dragged my fingers through the soil to create some shallow furrows, then broadcast the seeds over everything. After evening out the soil to cover the seeds, I pressed the soil down a little bit to make sure the seeds were in contact with it, then gave everything a good misting. According to Chico Flax, the seeds should germinate within 7-10 days. 

    Now, about that madder bed...

Dress Journal #13: I Need a Sweater

We're off to the rink in our
brothers' sweaters!

     At the top of the list of things I need is a warm, lightweight, period-appropriate sweater, so this project is the perfect opportunity to knit an Edwardian turtleneck. (I'll pause here for the delicate flowers to clutch their pearls and reach for the smelling salts.) That right: I said "turtleneck sweater." As soon as those intrepid co-eds discovered their brothers' and fathers' athletic "jerseys," they began pinching them, then knitting their own. Why the surprise? Sweaters were as useful for outdoor activities at the beginning of the 20th century as they are at the beginning of the 21st century. There are plenty of photos of young women, often with skates slung jauntily over their shoulders, wearing turtleneck sweaters. There's even a bit of film shot by the Edison Studios of women frolicking in the snow, and many of them are wearing sweaters and dashing caps.

"Ladies' Outing Sweater" from The
Columbia Book on the Use of Yarns
(1904). I like the ribbing, but the
pigeon-breast is all wrong.

     Digging around in old knitting books uncovered some patterns for different "ladies' sweaters," but none are exactly what I want: I want a sweater like the girls are wearing. That means some creative extrapolating and adjusting patterns. From The Columbia Book on the Use of Yarns (1904), it appears that both ladies' and mens' sweaters were knitted "up the back and down the front," leaving no shoulder seams. The "Ladies' Outing Sweater" has a nice rib pattern--that will make the sweater fit smoothly. The "Mens' Sweater" has the ribbed lower sleeve detail that is evident in many of the photographs. A bit of this, a bit of that, and I have my pattern.

"Mens' Sweater" from The Columbia
Book on the Use of Yarns (1904).
I'll just "borrow" the neck and 
sleeve cuffs from this.

     Since none of these patterns were designed with my somewhat larger measurements in mind, I'll need to scale the pattern up to accommodate. I love Ida Riley Duncan's The Complete Book of Progressive Knitting for doing this. Duncan's system works off measurements taken from the wearer's body, and knitted swatches for gauge, and includes how to add the appropriate amount of ease to make the pattern fit appropriately. I've used it before, so this will make knitting this sweater simple.
     I want this sweater to be more than just a "costume" piece, so it needs to be light, warm, and not scratchy. Light means it needs to be thin, so a fingering-weight yarn on US#2/2.75mm needles should give me the thickness I want. The yarn can't be scratchy, so I'm using merino. And because I want this sweater to have some durability and not pill, there needs to be some nylon in the mix. (Some nylon in the blend also means the sweater can be gently machine-washed.) The yarn I've settled on is Knit Picks "Stroll" in the "Bare" colorway. I've used "Stroll" before, and it makes lovely socks. Knit Picks puts it up in 100g skeins for dyeing, but I'll simply skip the dyeing and knit an ecru sweater.
     The pattern(s) are chosen, and the yarns arrived on Tuesday. Next up is swatching, measuring, and casting on my "shocking" Edwardian turtleneck sweater.

Dress Journal #12: "Ski" Clothes for the Non-Skier

Snowshoeing with a friend,
c.1910. It's a walk in the park!

     First, I should explain about skiing. I don't. I didn't, even when I did several decades ago. I am amazingly bad at Alpine-style skiing. (I'm extremely good at falling.) Some of it is because I'm as coordinated as a duck on land, and some of it is because I have a real fear of heights, which translates to "Oh my God, I'm going to slide right off this mountain!" I can almost manage the tiniest beginner slope--the one toddlers start on--without falling.

Your grandma's snowshoes.
Old-fashioned but efficient.

     That inability to slide down a mountain with a couple sticks tied to my feet does not mean that I dislike the mountains or snow. I love the cold, crisp air and deep blue skies of a sunny day in the mountains, and as long as I don't have to shovel it, I think snow is pretty amazing. That's one of the real joys of living in California: as long as we get a "typical" wet winter, there's lots of snow in the Sierras, the Tehachapis, the San Gabriels, and the San Bernardino mountains, and I can be up to my expectations in white stuff in just a couple hours.
     So, if Alpine-style skiing is out, what else can a girl do, beyond making snow angels? Two activities come to mind: snowshoeing, and cross-country (aka "Nordic-style") skiing. Neither involves sliding at some rate of speed, both are relatively easy (and inexpensive) to learn and do, and there are good places to do either within a couple hours of home.

Modern snowshoes.
Strap 'em on and off you go!

     Snowshoeing has changed a lot in the last 40 years. Where "snowshoeing" once meant strapping something like tennis rackets to your winter boots, then hoping you didn't get your tails crossed up, modern snowshoes are more like miniature snowboards and clip right onto your boots. Add a set of trekking poles with snow baskets, and you're off on a hike. (Of course, if you're into the more traditional, Faber still makes snowshoes).
     The equipment for cross-country skiing hasn't changed as much as the clothing. Where cross-country skiing was once a slower, more "genteel" way of skiing, it now features skin-tight spandex more often seen on winter runners and cyclists. That makes sense--cross-country skiing is often described as "jogging with skis"--but the basic equipment hasn't changed: long, skinny skis with lightweight ski boots.

Cross-country skiing, c.1910.

     So how do we "roll back time," while still making something that is suitable for a day in the snow? Simple: we look at pictures. Lots of pictures. Fortunately, the rise of leisure activities coincided with the rise of simple photography for the masses, so there's a lot of material. I'm finding a decent number of exuberant young (and not so young) people having fun in the snow at the beginning of the 20th century. There's also some reading to do: contemporary travel guide recommendations; diaries; and letters. Finally, there's simply common sense: what works and what doesn't. My internal thermostat is set fairly high, so the layers need to be light enough to prevent overheating, but warm enough to prevent hypothermia.

     My list of what's needed:

• A layer of cotton, silk, or lightweight wool underthings 
• A lightweight athletic corset that allows me to move and breathe
• A light wool "base layer" (e.g., a long-sleeved, high-necked sweater; wool bloomers or jodhpurs)
• A medium wool "outer layer (e.g., an appropriate jacket and skirt)
• Waterproof gaiters
• Waterproof boots
• Gloves
• A dashing hat
• Appropriate winter athletic equipment (snowshoes; cross-country skis; trekking poles; etc.)

Dyeing in Fire Season

     At the end of last year, my inventory looked like a plague of locusts had attacked it. In a way, it had: it was a very successful season. I checked things last week and my entire inventory is:

• 3 towels
• 2 washcloths
• 5 placemats
• 1 handspun, handknit scarf
• 8 skeins of handpainted and hand-dyed yarns

That small an inventory is enough to keep me from setting up the "shop" (my booth) at craft fairs and marketplaces this year. It also means I need to do a lot of work to have a decent inventory for next year.

     Top of the list was dyeing more skeins. I need the relative humidity to be low enough for the yarns to dry quickly, and warm enough to suit working outside in the dye yard. In California, this means dyeing in the fall, right before the winter rains start.

     Unfortunately, fall is also fire season. Fire season doesn't bother me. I grew up in what we now call the "Wildland-Urban Interface--we used to call it "the sticks"--and fall usually includes days of the powerful northeast winds known as "Santa Anas," "Sundowners," or "Diablos," depending on where in California you live. The winds blow, the fires burn the vegetation off the hills, and you try to stay out of the way.

     This year's fire season in Northern California is turning out to be more than a little frenetic. It doesn't help that a lot of the people living up here aren't familiar with fire ecology. It doesn't help that the local climate is becoming warmer and dryer. It doesn't help that pine bark beetles and sudden oak death have decimated the forests. And it doesn't help that the monopoly with a stranglehold on our utilities--Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E)--hasn't been able to figure out how to manage their aging infrastucture. 

   

A rainbow of handpainted
sock yarns.

Last week started well, and by the middle of last week, I had a rainbow of handpainted skeins of sock yarn. Dyeing those skeins gave me a chance to use up a big bunch of already mixed dyes. 

     The weather continued to hold so, in spite of a forecast for wind, I started madder and brazilwood dyepots. Natural dyeing takes a lot more work, and madder is tricky--it takes several days to prepare the dye liquor, and temperature has to be monitored to get good color. The pots would be ready for dyeing on Sunday (normally a "work" day for me). By Saturday afternoon, everything was on track for a dye day, with yarns in mordant pots and tools at the ready. My cell phone kept chirping every couple hours with messages from PG&E about potential pre-emptive power outages, but every time I got one, I checked our address and we were in the clear. That wasn't surprising--I'm in the middle of an urban area, and not anywhere near a canyon that can funnel winds. 

     Everything changed at 3:40 p.m., when the City declared a Water Emergency and immediately instituted mandatory water rationing. Wait! What?? It turned out that the Water Department never bothered to install back-up generators for their pump stations, so the only water available was what was in the water tanks. Twenty minutes later, PG&E and the Solano County Office of Emergency Services sent out messages that the power would be shut off, beginning at 6 p.m. I ran around the house, positioning emergency flashlights, cooking an early dinner, and worrying about that madder pot. Six o'clock came and went, and the power stayed on.

My hard-won naturally dyed skeins. From left to
right, madder; brazilwood; onionskins; coreopsis.

     The wind woke me up about 5 a.m.: sustained 20 mph, with gusts above 30 mph. No matter--that madder pot was ready to go, and it was going to go no matter what. I got the yarns in and dyed, pulled the pot from the fire, and left it to cool. Everything else was left for the next day, when the water was turned back on and rationing ended. Monday was smoky but less windy, so I was able to finish dyeing the onionskin and coreopsis skeins. 

     The yarns are done, but I really need to re-examine when I do my dyeing. Our power never did go out, and we were never in any sort of danger, but I don't like being left "high and dry," without a reliable water source. The yarns don't dry as quickly during our foggy summer months, but at least the power stays on and water comes out of the taps. 

Dress Journal #11: Ski Clothes!?!

     As I've posted in other places, I do not do things by half measures. I'm a firm believer that anything done well is worth overdoing, so my decision to start building historical costumes again is destined to be something.
     This all started last week, when I discovered that

• Costume-Con 39 is scheduled for April 23-25, 2021, in San Jose
• A friend is running the "Single Pattern Competition" at said convention

McCalls M2087

     Normally, I don't do competitive costuming, primarily because the thought of getting up on a stage and being judged by my peers is enough to make me lose my lunch. On the other hand, I'm at the point in my life where I simply don't care. There is no stage, no real presentations, and I can simply relax and have fun.
     There's also the matter of the pattern. The idea of the Single Pattern Competition is to work from a single or small group of patterns and make it your own. The patterns are chosen from the "Big Four" pattern companies (Simplicity; McCalls; Butterick; Vogue) and Folkwear, and then the sky is the limit. The pattern that caught my eye was McCall's M2087 from their "Cosplay by McCalls" line: it's an over-the-top fantasy coat-robe that looks completely ridiculous, and a lot like one of my bathrobes. It's that silly, so it needs to be rescued and recycled into something a bit more useful.

A self-portrait of Swedish photographer
Maya Beskow, around 1908.

     So what can be done with that silly a pattern? Some careful thought, a little research online and in some books, and I realized that this pattern is crying out to become...ski clothes. Not just any ski clothes, but something appropriate for an active American woman before World War I.
     I've got an idea, and I've got a pattern, but do I have the necessary materials? Stay tuned....

.....aaaaaaand we're back!

     Nearly four years is a long time to be quiet. A very long time. However, "quiet" doesn't mean "boring." My life in general has been insanely busy, and I haven't felt like posting about it. There it is.
     A brief recap: I went to Kauai; spent a couple months in Europe and on the high seas coming back to the U.S.; went to New Mexico (Santa Fe) and Nevada (Reno); lost my mom after a shortish illness; got the loom of my dreams; dyed, spun, wove, and knitted a lot.
      So now I'm back.