When everything is running smoothly....

WOW, it's been awhile since I posted because I've been lashing on just about every loom and getting them started weaving.  Also, I have a plan brewing to put on Hazle which I hope to submit to HGA's Convergence yardage exhibit in 2012.....this fabric would have 3 background colors and 2 squash blossom colors and a continually 'rolling' blend and change.  MAN, can't I think up something simple?  I just don't seem to have that tendency.

Another thing I've been busy with is....I've gotten myself on Etsy!  I have put my little Raggy Cat Pin Cushions on there and a couple of scarves! In time, I plan to put more scarves, more Raggy Cats (if they sell), my Fabric Flower Pins and my stoles!  It's fun and easy and I just decided to give it a try.

My shop is called...Cat Brysch Creations Studio by CatBryschCreations on Etsy.
Wish me luck!

I've often been asked where I got my training.  I have never had a lesson, never. I sure have taught a few of those, but never had one.  The closest I can come to a lesson was when a very dear lady, Judy, loaned me her Baby Wolf to try a real draft on, so I could see what a commercially constructed loom was like.  Before that, I was using a loom that I made myself, and, at the time I wrote for Handwoven in the '80s, I submitted a 13-Harness draft that they had to alter so people would know what to do with it!  They had to really work at it, and I felt a little bad (and so honored) that they made such an effort.  That's when I knew I had to learn these conventional looms and weaver's language called drafts!

The integration was almost instant....my weaver brain very quietly went....oh! and that was that!  I was amended.  I realized, too, that these looms added a great deal of speed and convenience!  Wow, but I must have been living in a cave or something.  But, during that "time of not knowing", I got a special kind of training... instead of the loom doing it FOR me, I was designing every single thread.  I could 'see' where every weft thread was traveling, under, over, when it was floating above the web to make a pattern element.  And that was a good thing!  It seems that many weavers today just learn to follow the instructions and don't necessarily learn to see what each treadle produces.  This is why some weavers have trouble seeing, and then interpreting, errors.  So, if you are a new weaver, take the time to recognize what each harness does for you. Even today, when I look at a draft, my brain still 'sees' where every single weft thread is traveling...

I was trying to develop a space on this blog where I could add tricks of the trade that I might pass along..... things I've worked out over my 37 years.  But, the blog space filled or something, and would not let me add or change anything anymore, so I had to just delete it!  So, instead, I'm going to try to offer a few tricks of the trade in my posts.

HERE'S A Trick ~  This trick is offered assuming that you have taken out all threading errors and are just weaving along happily.  When I am weaving, I have a "watch spot" that I watch very closely....it might hold one whole motif of the entire pattern, and if it doesn't develop right or look right, I've made an error! This "watch spot" adds efficiency because I can see instantly if something is not right!  Now, of course, I do let my eye cover the whole fabric as I weave, but that spot insures I haven't missed a treadle sequence or doubled up on something.

This, to the right, is my "watch spot" on Doris.  Now, Doris has 1,500 warp threads on her and there's no repeats of design until you get to the center and then everything is mirrored.... so, there's a LOT to watch!

But my eye falls upon that one circled motif row to the right side of this photo...it's the rounded oval surrounded by upper and lower part circles.  I know it well, so, when it doesn't look right, I need to check my work!

I will have more 'tricks' in my posts, because there's nothing better than weavers sharing!  I hope you are weaving today.  I know I'll be weaving and sending out as many good, and watchful, thoughts as I can in my Miles and Miles of Smiles, Cat B.