Trying Something New and Tying Old Loose Ends

This morning I did something new. My friend Ms Thimble arranged for me to join her New York guild meeting on Zoom to see a Deborah Silver presentation. Ben installed Zoom on my laptop yesterday, and I practiced joining meetings and entering a bunch of numerical details, and he got up with me at 5.30 just in case, but the link Ms Thimble sent me worked right away and by 5.42ish this morning, I was "in" New York. 

 

These days I get apprehensive about having to use new technology and I try to avoid them at all cost; in fact I wasn't going to join the meeting but Deb's was too much I changed my mind late in the game. 

 

If you remember, before I fell into the tied weave/Bateman hole, split shed technique Deb teaches was what I wanted to learn next. She was terrific, with interests in some of the same things as I: lost civilizations, artifacts, scripts, etc. I had never imagined the research and depth behind her work I've looked at for years online, but I paid attention the technique in the main. She went to art school, so I figured she naturally great at drawing/designing. She certainly seems talented, but it's obvious she's a hard worker, too. 

 

Because Deb's work is multilayered and complex, I mistakenly imagined the technique to be difficult as well, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Just very time-consuming. 

Like Line, the Japanese comm app I've been using to talk to Mom, Zoom was much smoother than Skype. And as for Ms Thimble, whom I've known only on Facebook for nearly 12 years, she was oh-so lovely. 

I was so apprehensive about Zoom and being amongst a bunch New Yorkers I don't know, I slept two hours in two bits last night. After breakfasts, (during which I was so pumped I talked several miles a minute,) I made two identical practice warps, one to study split shed on the jack, and the other, Bateman on Klik using new-to-me 5/2 cotton. It's getting harder to see 20/2 when I need to learn, to see, new structures.

Two new warps mean I'll have five dressed looms and I know which ones will get left behind, the 16-shaft with the tricky teal warp and Ashford with the "chocolate" warp. So the current plan is:

 

* Weave the Sunflower warp before putting the practice warp on Klick; 

* Weave the chocolate on Ashford, and enough of teal so I'm "almost" finished before warping Jack; 

* Read and learn in the meantime.

 

This afternoon I re-planned the chocolate warp. I've decided the threading, still trying out the lifting, in two 4-shaft blocks, with each shape being vertically long rectangles. 

So this old dog is super happy to have tried something new, but tonight's bedtime is going to be around... 8.30. :-D

EDIT: Second from the top middle rectangle shows weft threads going all the way across. I forgot to put any lifting for shafts 4-8 there. :-D :-D