WeaveCast episode 21 Where warp meets weft, this is WeaveCast, with…

WeaveCast episode 21

Where warp meets weft, this is WeaveCast, with Syne Mitchell

Welcome to episode 21, Generous Weaving.

This episode we talk about the ways weavers use their art to help others.
We'll hear the amazing story of the weaving program at Children's Hospital
in Seattle, I'll share some thoughts about winding a warp, and in today's
essay, Kate Jantz-Koprivnik tells the tale of a simple weaving project that
turned into an eleven-day adventure.

First of all, let me say I am delighted to be back at the microphone. I missed
this so much!

The first ever WeaveCast fund-raising auction was a complete success!
Every single item sold. Now, I'd been hoping to use the money from the
auction to go to Convergence, and I'd set aside some of my own funds, and I
thought, if I could just raise like $500, maybe $800, I could go to
Convergence.

The auction raised ­ are you sitting down? The auction raised over
$3000.00!

The end total was $3167.12. Now even after eBay and Paypal takes their
cut, that's way more than I needed to go to Convergence. It's going to pay a
large chunk of the operating expenses for 2008 and I am just so grateful. So
grateful that everybody pitched in and y'all can bid for England! I mean you
guys are some fierce shoppers! I am glad that I wasn't in the running for
any of these items because, wow!

So, thank you for coming out and bidding on items and helping support the
show and thank you, thank you to the generous artists who donated their
work and items from their stash ­ I really appreciate all the support.

WeaveCast has been just this amazing adventure ­ thank you.

So, - I'm going to Convergence! Whoo-hoo!
I am so excited, this is my first ever Convergence. I'll also be attending the
Complex Weavers event right afterwards, because there are some interesting
people I hope to interview there.

If you are at either event and see me walking around, I'll be the one with the
headphones and microphone, please say "hi". If you are not able to make it
to either of those events, rest assured that I will be recording, recording,
recording, to bring as much of that experience home to you as I can.

I'd like to congratulate Nicki. She was the winner of the survey drawing.
She snuck in right before the auction started and was able to snatch away her
favourite painted warp.

Thank you everyone who entered and gave feedback on the show. You'll be
seeing some changes in 2008 that I hope will make WeaveCast even more
enjoyable for you.

I used random.org to pick the winner. Now if you're a computer geek like
me, you know that using a computer to generate a truly random number is
pretty difficult, so random.org actually connects a computer up to the
atmospheric static and uses that physical phenomena to generate a random
number. It's a fascinating website.

Emergency tone ­ this is an announce of the COE emergency network ­ had
this been an actual COE emergency the warning tone you just heard would
have been followed by much screaming, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

This announcement is to inform you the sign up deadline for the 2008
Handweaving Certificate of Excellence Program is February 1st. That is the
date on which you must have your applications in and make your
commitment to have your samples done in time for the examination.

So, if you're planning to submit for this up-coming COE, you'd better get
weaving!

This has been an announcement of the COE Emergency Network (followed
by tone.)

If you're going to Convergence and you have a camper, or you like camping
out, there is a new Yahoo group called campconvergence. I'll have a link to
this on the show notes and it's an email group for co-ordinating people who
are going to Convergence and looking for camping space.

This episode we welcome a new sponsor, Cotton Clouds. As you'd guess
from the name they specialize in cotton and other cellulose fibres like rayon
and bamboo.

The owner, Irene, started the company in 1979 when she took a workshop on
weaving with cotton and fell in love with 100% cotton hand woven fabric
and then couldn't find the cotton yarns to weave with ­ which was
completely ironic, because at the time, Irene was living in Arizona, literally
surrounded by fields and fields of cotton.

Guessing that other weavers might be in the same boat, she opened a mail
order business and 28 years later it's still going strong.

In addition to a wide selection of yarns they also carry spinning fibre,
weaving kits, books, tools, lot's of cool stuff. They are up on the web at
http://www.cottonclouds.com

Irene had a very personal reason for wanting to sponsor this episode. When
she was a child she was in the hospital recovering from surgery and the arts
and crafts program at that hospital was a much needed respite from
everything that she was having to deal with. She enjoyed it so much that it
became a life long love of creating beautiful things, and has stayed with her,
even to this day.

I love the idea that those volunteers back then, the good they did, is still
making a difference all these years later.

Musical interlude

The idea for this episode came when I was being recorded for Christa Knits,
a knitting podcast hosted by the lovely and talented Christa Childs. We
were talking about the charitable work done by knitting groups and she
asked me what charitable work weavers did.

And you know, I was stumped. I mean I know weavers are wonderfully
generous people and I know they must get up to all kinds of good work but
at that very moment, I wasn't able to think of any organized weaving
charities.

If you, or your guild, is involved in some charitable work using weaving, or
are finding ways to help people in your community using weaving, I would
love to hear about it on the show notes.

Knitters do a wonderful job of promoting their charitable efforts on the
internet, there's even a website called Knitting for Charity, it's at
http://www.knittingforcharity.org

So let's use this episode as an opportunity to raise awareness of what
weavers are doing and if we get enough links in the comments, I'll try to set
up a page that can be a resource for people who want to help out with
weaving and needs to know what's out there in terms of programs.

I mean, I can't help think that weaving, being such a production oriented art,
and able to produce goods so quickly could really add to the charitable hand
made pile. Even if there aren't organized weaving charities, we could sneak
some really neat stuff into the baskets some of the knitters are collecting.

Think about it ­ scarves for the homeless, baby blankets for preemies, and
come on ­ afghans for Afghans? That one has weaving written all over it. I
mean it took me my entire college career to crochet my first afghan and I can
weave one in 3 to 4 hours.

I was in the Michael's craft store one day and they were collecting 9 inch
knitted or crocheted squares to seam up into blankets and I was thinking that
if they had told me how long those blankets were going to be I give them
some 9" wide strips that would make that go much faster!

So let's think about creative ways to help out this holiday season.

One thing I discovered while researching this show is that what a lot of the
good weavers do is quiet one on one giving. Like this story by Kate Jantz-
Koprivnik.

K J-K When hurricane Katrina hit, I had a stack of blankets that were going
to go originally in the Olympia Weavers Guild sale that fall. Instead they
got loaded into a dish pack and became part of the relief effort. So I know
weavers do that kind of stuff, but is there anything formal or official? Not
that I'm aware of.

Another idea that came up again and again was the concept that giving the
gift of the art of weaving itself could help people. Here's John Colony from
Harrisville Designs:

Catholic Charities runs a program with blind women in China teaching
them to weave, and they actually make things and sell them. We've done a
number of similar things like that over the years.

But the biggest surprise of all was that there was an amazing story about
generous weaving going on in my own back yard.

John Colony, founder of Harrisville Designs:

Harrisville Designs is a business in a small town in New Hampshire. I
started Harrisville Designs in 1971 as part of a preservation project in a
small village in southern New Hampshire. Textiles had gone on in this
village every year continuously since 1790 and the idea of Harrisville
Designs was to try and continue that tradition after the large textile mill
here closed.

I've been very interested in this program with the Children's Hospital in
Seattle. The idea came about for the child who is a patient that they would
make something to leave behind as a sort of legacy.

Children there have time on their hands and there has to be some
reasonable alternative to watching television.

I was working with a woman, her name was Skye Wentworth. She took the
idea to the Children's Hospital in Seattle ­ that was how the project got
started.

It was meant to be a pilot project. It was a little complicated because you
can't just walk in off the street and work with children. You have to be
certified.

I suggested Skye contact the Seattle Weavers Guild for volunteer members
willing to go through the training program.
So Harrisville Designs had a great idea but what they needed were
volunteers.

Now we hear from Dianne McAuliffe of the Seattle Weaver's Guild:

DA Twelve years ago, I was a new weaver to the guild and the president
asked if I would be in charge of this project at Children's Hospital.
Harrisville Designs wanted to do a project with the Starlight Foundation.
They would provide the yarns and the looms if we would provide the
weavers. We would go to Children's Hospital for 6 months and teach
weaving to the patients.

We said that we would do it if the kids had the option to keep their weaving.
So they said "fine".

SM That would be tragic to do, like, your first weaving and not get to

DA And the option was like you know, "Now we're going to keep it".
Especially if you're sick and 8 years old. We contacted Children's Hospital
and they thought that was a great idea and we set up that we would go on the
first, second and third Thursdays of the month between 2 and 4 pm.

Children's Hospital has a recreational playroom. It's the only place in the
hospital that patients can go that doctors and nurses are not allowed unless
they have to be, so they know that it's a fun place, nothing painful is going
to happen to them there.

Between 10 and noon and 2 and 4 everyday they have projects there.
Harrisville sent us two Easy Weaver looms and some back strap looms and
some card weaving looms.

We tried them all out. The card weaving, we decided, wasn't going to work.
In 10 minutes you got maybe an inch.

The Easy Weavers worked the very best, because in a two hour period, a
child or an adult could weave a 3 yard scarf. They really are easy.

The hospital was very excited about it, and every Thursday they'd make an
announcement and we'd have 5 to 8 weavers come and weave. It was
wonderful and we loved it. The kids loved it, and it wasn't just patients.
Sometimes we had siblings. It's really tough for siblings because they're
not sick, but they have to be at the hospital because they're too young to be
left at home. They've got all this energy. It's boring to sit up in the
patient's room!

Sometimes we had parents. I loved it when the parents came because they'd
be so stressed out and they would have a half hour free and they just wanted
to do something that was totally different and they would sit down and they
would weave, and the repetition of it was so calming. You could just see
them change in half an hour! It was wonderful. I'd love it when parents
come and weave.

SM I imagine in many ways it is harder on the parents than it is on the kids.

DM Oh I think it's awful. We had a parent once who had two children in
the hospital. One of them had meningitis, and one of them had cystic
fibrosis. The poor guy was just beside himself. We had a parent once
whose daughter had anorexia and he came every week for about a month.
He would come and he would cry, because he didn't know whether his
daughter was going to live or not. He'd talk and he'd cry and he'd weave
and I hope he got some relief.

They're really stressful situations.

So, at the end of six months, we decided we didn't want to quit. We had
enough people who were willing to volunteer. We continued doing it. The
volunteers have changed, but we've been doing it for 12 years.

It's kind of amazing how it's just happened. Sometimes we didn't have
anybody come in the whole two hour period, so I've learned to bring an
inkle loom or something so that I can do something during those two hours.

But there's usually two of us, so if nobody comes we sit and talk weaving,
do our knitting, or our inkle loom or something. But usually we have
between two and six people who will come.

Sometimes they weave for five minutes and they decide they don't want to
do it. And sometimes they'll weave for the whole time and they'll make a
scarf.
SM What's been the best part of the program for you?

DM Watching the kids weave.

We had a boy, early on, oh probably in the first year, who was about six,
who was weaving and he looked up at me and he goes "this is magic!"

And I was so delighted because I said to him "you know, that's what I think
every time I weave." It's just magic. You're making something basically
out of nothing. You're making cloth. And he got it. It was wonderful.

We have kids who will come in, usually it'll be teenagers who will come in
and we'll say "do you want to weave?" and they'll look at the looms and
they go "well, I don't know how to do it ­ it looks complicated." We say
"it's really easy, do you want to give it a try?" Well, they kind of shuffle
around, but they'll do it and then they'll say "It's so easy! It looks so
complicated, but it's so easy."

And they'll have a tangible result, but they'll also have the memory of doing
something that was fun and enjoyable.

It's pretty cool!

SM That's what I love about teaching. I haven't taught in a hospital
situation, but I love sharing that magic moment when it all kind of clicks.

DM Right! And you can see it! Sometimes they don't even have to say
anything but you can see when it clicks, and you can see when it doesn't.
But when it does, it's just..........

SM Why do you think the program has lasted 12 years?

DM I think it's lasted because we've been willing to keep doing it. There
have been times when we have thought well, should we stop doing this
because we're not getting very many people, or the volunteers would sort of
fall off. We wondered if it was worth it. But we've continued doing it and
just recently I got three people who came up to me and said they wanted to
volunteer, which was really nice.
It will continue as long as there are weavers who are willing to come and do
it.

SM Have you been involved in the program for the whole 12 years?

DM I've been in charge of it the whole time.

SM What keeps you going?

DM I think it's important to do something that is helpful to the community.
There are times I have thought that I've done for 7 years, I've done this for 8
years, I should move on and do something else and I don't know what I
would do!

This is such an easy and rewarding thing to do. It continually has benefits
because you keep doing it with different people, and so it's always new. It
never gets old.

There is a rock polish program at Children's that's been there for 27 years
and I think the man who does the rock polishing probably does it for the
same reason.

It's something that benefits the kids and it's immediate and it's tangible. So
it works. There really are no negatives. The people who come to weave, go
away feeling good about themselves, and we just provide the mechanism to
have that happen.

SM You show up with already warped Easy Weavers?

DM Yes.

SM Is that how it works?

DM Yes.

SM Where do the yarns come from?

DM The Seattle Weaver's Guild has a line item in their budget to provide
yarns, so when we run out of yarn we can buy more yarn.
We've had several people who donate yarns. What works best is worsted
yarn like from Fred Meyer. It doesn't have to be expensive. It's more like
knitting yarn, it's thicker yarn. It works best with the Easy Weavers which
are really a rigid heddle type of loom.

The worsted yarn works the best through the heddles and it weaves the
easiest.

We have four Easy Weaver looms and we have about four extra heddles.

One of us will bring the empty heddles home and warp them so that if we
run out at the hospital we can just put another war on right there ­ it takes
about 10 minutes.

Occasionally we'll run out of all the looms and all the heddles at once and so
I just bring them all home with some yarn and re-wrap them and try to vary
the colours so that there's some choice and vary them according to seasons
and it's interesting. It really makes a difference what the colours are.

Harrisville's representatives came out at the end of the initial six month
period. One of the looms nobody was weaving on it and the lady said "the
colours are too dark ­ the kids like brighter colours".

And so we took it off and put bright colours on it and that seemed to do it.

The kids have taught me so much about colour because in the 12 years that
I've been going to Children's, there has never been a weaving that did not
work.

The kids look at the looms, they get to pick the loom they want, and we have
a big box of yarn and we say "go over and pick some yarn to weave with"
and honest to God, they come up with some awful colours! So you know,
and you think, alright this time it is not going to work! And it's amazing!

It never has not worked. And it's made me so much freer in my own
weaving because they'll choose anything!

SM What challenges has the program had to over come?
DM There are times where there are not very many people who come to the
play room to weave. And then we start to wonder whether it's worth it.

I've learned to just wait those out and in a month or so, there will be people
who come who are infinitely grateful that we are there.

SM How have the children and their families responded to the program?

DM Some will come in and they will sit down and they'll be all gung ho
and then five minutes later they don't want to do it. Some of them will come
back if they're there long enough, week after week.

We had a girl who was there for over a year. Her sister was in the hospital
and Rachel must have been 9 when she started coming, and she'd come
every week and she'd hardly say a word. But she would come and I'd say
"pick out a loom" and she'd pick it out and she'd pick out a colour and she'd
sit down and she'd start weaving and she wouldn't say anything.

But then she started to talk a little bit and after about 7 months, her dad came
down and wanted to know if one of us could go up to her sister's room and
teach her sister how to weave because Rachel was having such a good time
with it.

Well, her sister Laura didn't take to it like Rachel did but that was fine, I
mean it was an attempt and then one week we came in and Rachel wasn't
there and her sister had died. And it was so amazing because she was there
for over a year ­ it never occurred to me that she was going to die.

I always just figured that she was going to get better. I knew when they
moved her to ICU that it was more serious, but I always had such knowledge
that she was going to get better and eventually they were going to leave the
hospital. But it didn't happen. Her sister had died and they had gone back
to Montana.

We were bereft! We really loved that little girl, and I think that the weaving
made a difference and that the last week that she was there Fred Hatch has
the only school in the United States for patients and their families because
they have so many cancer patients. They have a school set up that is a real
school and Rachel went to that school and one of the things that they taught
was how to knit. The last time she came, she brought her knitting. She was
knitting a green scarf and it was gorgeous. We just told her up one side and
down the other how beautiful it was. And she just beamed. And I thought,
you know, she has come so far in a year in an absolutely terrible situation.
But it never occurred to us that that would be the last time that we saw her.

For her, I think it made a huge difference.

We had a little boy who was 8 who lived with his uncle in a trailer out in the
parking lot for 6 weeks while they waited for his white blood count to get
high enough for him to start chemo. He was 8 years old. He was basically
healthy, except that he had cancer and he was an energetic 8 year old little
boy.

He would come every week and weave belts. That was what he wanted to
weave. We finally put him to work teaching the kids how to weave because
he could teach them better than we could.

He was another one that I remember so specifically because I think it gave
him something to do in a situation that was not good.

For most people it simply is a half hour to an hour and a half respite. It's
something to do in a place where boredom is really high and sometimes the
pain level is a lot. It's something to help you forget what's going on.

But in all the years that I have been to Children's, there is only one child that
I have ever seen be cranky or petulant or out of sorts, which absolutely
amazes me, given the fact that we are in a hospital and they are going
through so much.

It is truly an amazing place. It is such a privilege to go there.

There were two girls, one of them was 13 and one of them was 15 and they
both had cancer. One was in for two weeks so she could get cleaned out as
she said. She was the 13 year old. She hadn't been there since she was
seven, but her cancer must have come back and she was going to start
chemo.

The other one had started chemo in January and this was May. She didn't
have any hair, and they were talking about the chemo and the various
chemos that they'd had, the various poisons that they were given and how
they responded to them ­ did their hands and feet start peeling yet, and did
you get mouth sores, and they were talking about it as matter of factly as
weaver talk about different yarns and different sets.

It was simply what was part of their life. It made me catch my breath
because they were so wise about it and so mature about it and matter of fact.
It was so inspirational to sort of be at the same table with them. And they
didn't even know it.

They're just being who they are.

SM If you could ask one thing from the weaving community to help make
this project go, what would that be?

DM To volunteer. People have to want to volunteer. And not all people
make good volunteers. You have to be really flexible. You have to have no
expectations. You have to be available, and if somebody wants to weave,
fine. If somebody does not want to weave, fine.

You have to put yourself and your agenda aside. You're there for them.
They are not there for you. Whatever they do has to be okay. And those are
the kinds of volunteers that we have.

You grow into that. When you first come, of course you have expectations
and agendas and apprehensions and fears and ­ but it doesn't take long to
just see that if you put those aside, then it really works.

SM Leave your ego at home.

DM Yes!

If you can sort of tell it to stay in the car. It helps. And there are times when
you can't, and that's when it's nice that if there are at least two of you, there
are time when I know that I'm cranky and crabby? And so I've let the other
volunteer do most of it. I try to stay in the background because I know I'm
not going to be really helpful.

When I was very first asked to do this, somebody had already talked with
Children's and so the initial thing was set up but I had to contact them and I
had to go through the volunteer training.
So I did, and I remember I didn't know where to go! The hospital was very
big ­ you went to the volunteer office and I had to find out where that was,
and then I had to find out where the play room was, which is not a big thing.
But, I found when I got my weavers who were going to be volunteers, their
apprehensions were those very things.

They didn't know where they were going to park, they didn't know where
they were supposed to go, they didn't know how they were going to get
there and I realize it's like any new endeavour. You've got apprehensions,
not about the big stuff, you have apprehensions about the little things!

So I make sure that when I have a new volunteer, I tell them exactly how to
get there, what are the two parking lots that you can park in, and I will meet
you at this specific spot and I will take you through things. So they don't
have to use up their energy being nervous about not knowing where to go.

They can meet me at the very front door of the hospital and I will take care
of them from there until they are comfortable enough to do it themselves.

SM I think if I were a volunteer, I would be less worried about that then
like, saying the wrong thing.

DM When I went through the volunteer orientation, there are all sorts of
things you are not supposed to do. Like you're not supposed to ask a patient
what's wrong with them. And I never do. I'll come home sometimes at
night and I'll be talking about we had a girl here today who made this green
scarf and my husband or my kids will say "so what's wrong with them?" and
I'll go "I don't know."

You know we can have 8 kids ­ I don't know what's wrong with them. If
somebody's bald I figure they've got cancer, but other than that, I have no
clue. You're not supposed to ask them personal information, and you're
going to make mistakes. But if you say, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do
that" ­ Rachel, the girl I was talking to you about, at one point told us that
her dad had gone back to Montana and brought their dog back.

I go "so is everybody over here now?" and she said "yes" and I said
something like "so you're all here now and this is home." And oh man, did
she stomp on me! "NO!" she said "this will never be home!"
And I thought whoa! And I said "no you're absolutely right, that was a
stupid thing to say."

Mistakes are going to happen. That's part of being human.

People who make good volunteers, stay. And people who don't, usually
don't.

SM Have there ever been days when seeing what the kids are going through
really gets to you?

DM Oh yes. Yes. There have been days like that. But you know, those
days are just days really to be grateful for. There are days when I realise
how blessed I am and how thankful I am for my own children's health.

I look at some of these parents who are so young and are dealing with such
tragedies with their babies, and I just ­ I just marvel at their ability to do
that.

You do what you have to do. Any parent knows that. But I just, I so ache
for some of those parents and some of those kids! It makes me so grateful to
be a part of that and grateful for what I have in my own life.

I don't know, I think that sounds kind of Pollyanna-ish, but....

SM I think I understand what you mean. There's so many times when we
feel helpless in the face of tragedy...

DM Yes.

SM ... and this is a way to share something that you love and make peoples
lives better.

DM Yes. It is. And honest to goodness, we get so much more than we
give. The children have such courage and grace and wisdom and they don't
even know it.

That is such a teaching tool to me. It helps me to be more patient, to be
more compassionate, to be less judgmental because they're not judgmental.
They're patient. They don't know that they're compassionate because
they're just who they are.

SM Do you have advice for guilds elsewhere in the country who might be
inspired by this story and want to set up something like this in their area?

DM Harrisville's Easy Weaver looms are the best. They are so easy. I've
used them in teaching in classrooms along side of a table loom. The
comparison between the two is like night and day.

Easy Weavers ­ they are so easy and so they're a natural for patients in
hospitals. The price of the yarn is really negligible if you buy it at a place
like Fred Meyers or Wal-Mart or something. It doesn't have to be high
quality, it has to be pretty. Mostly variegated. That works really well, and
then when we're sort of at the odds and ends, putting odds and ends together
so it makes an interesting combination.

We never do solids, because they're kind of boring!

It gives me an opportunity to express in creativity when I'm warping the
looms.

If a guild wanted to begin, I'd contact your children's hospital, or your
hospital that has a children's ward and say, you know, we'd like to volunteer
our services, how could be best do it? We've heard about this program,
could we do something like that? Work it through the hospital.

Usually they are delighted because kids, when they're sick, unless they're
really really sick are still kids. They have energy, they want to do things,
they want to manipulate, you know, with their hands, it's the perfect thing.

And start out small. It doesn't have to be huge. You could do it once a
month. If you found out that it worked, then you could add on.

JC They've done a terrific job with it in Seattle. It's been very successful at
bringing families together, working on something during these incredibly
dire circumstances.
I wish that every children's hospital had a program and I think that it could
happen in other places but it really requires a group of volunteers to make it
happen.

SM That was John Colony of Harrisville Designs and Dianne McAuliffe of
the Seattle Weavers Guild. Thank you both for sharing this amazing story.

If your guild is interested in setting up a program with a children's hospital
or the children's wing of a hospital, and you would like to contact Diane
McAuliffe for some advice or some mentorship, please contact me through
the website and I will put you in touch with her and my email address is
syne@weavecast.com

Musical interlude

Today's weaving tip is to think about twist when winding your warp. This
is something I ran into recently when winding a linen warp. The yarn was
put up on tubes and when I started winding the warp, I had the tubes vertical
so that the yarn was coming off clock wise, and I wound half my warp and
then I put the next tube up and I put it so that the yarn was coming off
counter-clock wise.

In one direction I was adding twist, as I wound the warp, and on the other I
was removing twist, and had I not noticed that I had done this, it could have
actually affected the way the fabric turned out. And it would have been one
of those things that was very hard to trouble shoot after the fact.

This is not really a concern for forgiving yarns like wool and silk, but for
something like linen or a loosely spun singles, it could cause problems.

The way I solved this in my studio is I turned the package horizontally so
that I was neither adding nor removing twist as the yarn came off the spool.

I have a bobbin winder, and I clamped it onto a bench and put the spool on
and I tilted it just a titch, maybe 5 degrees so the spool wouldn't fall off and
that held it basically horizontally so I could wind my warp without affecting
the twist of the yarn.

And now it's time for today's audio essay by Kate Jantz-Koprivnik.
The Saga of the Strap Happy Weaver; how to turn a 3 hour job into an
eleven day ordeal.

Having been through two previous owners, my loom was already well-loved
when I bought it 3 years ago. The woven straps that connected the bar to the
cloth beam were beginning to fray. The straps needed to be replaced.
Replacing them, however, could wait until after the next project. Or the
next. Or the next. Or...........so I kept telling myself.

When the straps finally let go, the sound was unmistakable.

(riiiiiip!)

Snap! No problem! After all we are weavers. We can weave our own
replacement straps!

Straps are narrow and plain weave. It shouldn't take any more than...3
hours.

This time the straps will be woven in linen. Why not? After all, I bought a
grocery bag full this stuff at an estate sale.

The linen was spun, cabled, and incredibly strong. The straps will never
break again!

Or ­ at least, not in my life time.

Okay, linen it is. The straps fit into a narrow slot on the cloth beam and are
20 inches in length. There are four straps. How much yardage is enough?
Many of you are probably calculating the length of four straps and factoring
in shrinkage and loom waste. If you came up with 3 yards, terrific, we have
the same answer.

Here's where my little 3 hour project spiralled out of control.

Looking around, I realized that a couple of my other looms were going to
need repairs in the not to distant future. Since I'm weaving the straps
anyway, why not just go ahead and weave them all at the same time?
Of course extra length should be added in case one or more straps should
accidently be cut to the wrong length. Then even more length is added for
the security factor ­ somewhere along the way, I crossed that magical line
into weaving oblivion ­ yards and yards of narrow warp were beamed onto a
spare loom, while simultaneously depleting my stash of warping sticks, my
husband's supply of scrap lumber, and all of the popsicle sticks and bamboo
skewers in our home.

As the knots approached the heddles at the back of the loom, the theme song
from Gilligan's Island started running through my head.

(music)

The lyrics were changed a little to protect the ­ ahem ­ not so innocent?

A three hour job,
The weather started getting rough
The tiny job was tossed
If not for the courage of the clueless Kate
The weaving would be done,
The weaving would be done!

When the yardage finally came off the loom, it was machine washed, ironed,
measured and cut to length. My efforts at indestructibility were very
successful.

The machine needles were absolutely unable to penetrate the densely woven
linen. Machine stitching was impossible. Eventually the straps were
installed with hammer and some tacks. Raw ends were hemmed under by
hand, using an upholstery needle and some button thread.

It's now eleven days later, and the task looks finally complete. So much for
my teensy little 3 hour job.

Musical interlude

That's all for this episode, and now it's time to get warped, because
everyone knows you have to be warped to weave.

Next episode we'll be talking to Sarah Lamb about weaving pile rugs.
WeaveCast is made possible through the generosity of our donating
listeners. This episode I'd like to thank Tricia and all of the people who bid
and donated items to the fund raising auction.

This episode was sponsored by Cotton Clouds, purveyors of fine cotton
weaving yarns, cellulose fibres and weaving kits.

Grant funding is provided by the Handweaver's Guild of America and the
Seattle Weaver's Guild.

Our musical guests this episode ­ the Aphrodisiacs with Help Us Do Enough
from their album This is a Campaign.

Musical interlude