What? A Weavng-Related Post? Get Out!!

Busy, busy, busy. And a lovely customer from Canada just ordered ten (yes, 10!) scarves from me (basically doing all her Christmas shopping in one fell swoop), so I'm even busier, busier, busier.

It was interesting, she asked whether I give discounts for bulk orders as we were first talking, and I hesitated for a moment. I do, for wholesale and consignment, but I wasn't quite sure how to handle it with a normal customer.

So I just put it out there - I told her how many pieces I require my wholesale customers to purchase and the discount that I give them, thinking it would probably scare her off. Obviously, it didn't! She didn't bat an eyelash and is actually going to wind up buying quite a few more than she originally mentioned. And I learned to dare to be open to talking about things like this frankly with customers, you never know when somebody is going to order ten pieces! (Pricing work to allow for consignment and/or wholesale is an entirely different ball of wax, of course, and one I would *really* rather not discuss - people get so grumpy when it comes to setting prices. I mostly try not to worry about what other people are charging, one way or the other...)

Hey, plaid! Not normally something I do, is it? (It's just a 2/2 twill, nothing complicated.) This customer, again, asked whether I ever do plaid, and, I normally don't, but I bent another rule for her - I generally say I do custom work based on my current designs (learned that one the hard way) - but, I thought, you know, plaid might be kind of fun, and said "sure!". And she ordered four plaid scarves! (All bamboo, she is vegan and doesn't want any silk, wool, alpaca, etc.)

Anywho, I had fun poking around the clan tartans at Handweaving.net and made up my own kind of asymmetrical version. And I'm having fun weaving it! I thought the color changes would annoy me, but, so far, they aren't.

I'm using Robyn Spady's neat trick of working in the weft wends - when you're working with plied yarn, you split it in half, carry half of it back a couple of warp ends through the open shed you just tossed it through, then wrap the other half around a selvedge edge and bring that part back one or two warp ends past the first end. Then your tucked in weft ends don't bunch up too thickly at one selvedge, if that makes sense. Great tip from Robin's Tips N Techniques seminar a couple years ago at NEWS!

And, I'm looking forward to giving my second lecture in New Hampshire next week!

NEWS

How fun!

Today, I attended just one day of workshops at NEWS - the New England Weavers Seminar. Weavers from all over New England converged on beautiful Smith College this past Thursday evening through today, for classes, seminars, a fashion show, all sorts of fun stuff.

I just signed up for a couple classes for today, thinking it would be a bit much to leave sweet hubby Carlos alone with the kids all weekend. The classes were so good, I'm wishing I had signed up for more! Next time... (It's held every other year, in the off years from Convergence, the nation-wide weavers conference, run by the Handweavers Guild of America, which I'm really hoping to attend next summer in Tampa Bay, Florida. Even thinking of maybe trying to plan a project to submit to one or the exhibits, GULP.)

Always wonderful to be in the company of fiberholics... And although the classes I took were more business oriented (a marketing seminar and a tips & techniques seminar, both taught by the wonderful Robyn Spady), they were still full of inspiration. Can't wait to get started on some of the projects she inspired!

One comment/question. Robyn talked a bit in the second seminar about how to rectify threading errors. I just don't get it - it seems so simple to me to just check your threading as you go! I thread a maximum of 1" of ends through the heddles, stop, check them to make sure I've got it right, tie off the bundle and move on.

I get the impression that lots of weavers will thread *all* of their warp before checking for errors. Why would a weaver ever do this?? Am I missing something?? Seriously, when I check every inch or so, I have made a grand total of maybe two threading errors in nearly seven years of weaving! (One documented in all its glory right on this blog, lol.) Maybe it's easier to check more often when you warp form the front to the back? I don't know. It's a big ol' mystery to me, but it seems like such a simple way to prevent a huge amount of annoyance down the road...