No Way , Not Now...

We leave for Wellington on Thursday, and because I've been spending time making up this portfolio/catalogue thing to give to the galleries, I haven't woven "a few" new pieces for the museum shop.

Today, at around 6PM, I finally sorted my Murphy's Law warp, and started weaving the square Tapa design, but narrower and thinner and in the natural/light teal combination. At around 7PM, I felt the back of the cloth, as I do, just to make sure nothing was going wrong, and, gee, something had gone very wrong!!! I had already woven about a third of a piece by then, but I noticed Shaft 8 wasn't lifting properly. Until 6.59PM, I was hoping I could weave two tonight and give them to the museum, but Shaft 8 was a rude surprise. I had impossibly long skips.

I had this problem once before, with Shaf9, and Caroline, the previous owner of the loom, told me to take apart the case around the solenoids and vacuum the lint. I had done this, about four years ago, so I thought it'd be OK. But I unscrewed the wrong part of the loom, and vacuumed it anyway. Then Ben came home, and there's something about Ben that makes me totally incompetent and reliant on him in the mechanical/engineering department only when he's around. So we opened the right part, vacuumed, and Shaft 8 still didn't lift.

Then he took apart the mechanism that lifts Shaft 8, and we vacuumed it, and Ben pushed and pulled a few things, and we don't know what did the trick, but Shaft 8 reluctantly lifted. Phew. 8:30PM.

I resumed work straight away, but fixing about 24 ends of Shaft 8 for about one-third the length of the shawl was going to be a bit of a mess, so I quit right there. I'll start a fresh piece tomorrow morning, and fingers crossed I can weave, hang, fringe, wash and press tomorrow. Uggghhh.

At least the portfolio/catalogue thing came out looking ok. I've never done anything like this, and didn't have time to ask anyone, so it has the typical sizes, yarn types and recommended retail prices, photos of some of my past work, three woven samples to feel, and a CV. It's not an interesting p/c, though; just covers what it's supposed to, I hope. And the photo is shockingly bad, too, but I'm still breathing.