A happy landing

I’ve been weaving for the last year or so, using up the dwindling supply of cottons we purchased fifteen or twenty years ago.  My search for new thread for weaving was futile. F.U.T.I.L.E.  In the old days we wove with mill ends from good factories. The thread available now is imported and expensive. If it were good thread I would consider using it, and raising my prices. But, everything I found resembled twine, prickly and scratchy as all get out.

The last two warps I put on were wonderful. An all white warp of 12/2; exquisite hand. Ran through my fingers like butter. The last warp was the last of the white, with red, orange and yellow stripes. It actually was sad to weave it; everything I put on the loom would be the last and would be gone before the year was out.

Then came to decision to sell the house, and when the contract was signed, the packing began. We had an auctioneer come through to take things. The loom did not register with him, and the sewing equipment was of no interest. “No one does this anymore!”

The Cleveland Institute of Art downsized its textile program a couple of years ago, and two young women, in collaboration with CIA, put all the looms and equipment back together in a warehouse on Cleveland’s east side. It is the Praxis Fiber Workshop; its director is Jessica Pinsky. Stop right now and explore the link. This is a wonderful undertaking. I wish there were a good photo of a third of a football field filled with three long rows of world class looms. Mind boggling!

Of course Jessica would be delighted to take my studio off my hands. So, one fine day the moving company I hired to do the job showed up, loaded it up (“One, two three, lift!”) and we took it to Cleveland.

A box or two of miscellaneous essentials.

The Siruba industrial serger. It weighs two or three hundred pounds. The movers "One, two three," lifted it and took it away.

Helyn!

Boxes of soft, soft cotton.

The last warp. It went to Cleveland just like this. I could not bring myself to throw another shuttle.

The yoga skirts from the last warp. Behind them, the white shirts from the next to last warp. 

My July sales sheet shows them gone. That's a good thing.