Major progress on the AI weaving project! And also one or two right-angle changes. I finished weaving the tiger. It came out beautifully: This design uses four wefts, all brushed mohair/silk yarn (it feels SOOOO yummy!). One weft is orange, one black, and the two remaining wefts are both white (I wanted to get better coverage). I also wove up a sample with a fifth weft – .75 mm strands of optical fiber! Optical fiber conducts light from end to end with very little light leakage in between – unless, of course, you scratch it up with a knife or sandpaper, in which case the scratched part glows ..read more

I can weave again! Not for long periods yet, but my elbow tendon finally seems to be healing up. I have been weaving in 15-20 minute intervals once or twice a day for the last few days, and all seems to be going well. Thank goodness! Now that I can weave again, I’ve been creating samples for the AI tiger piece. I started by dyeing the weft yarns. I’m using a beautiful brushed mohair yarn, with a silk core and kid mohair fluff. Gorgeous stuff, but it only came in white. I fixed that! I also dyed a skein of black silk/mohair yarn, but it turned out to be really hard to get a good photo of it. K ..read more

I haven’t written much the past month because there hasn’t been much to report. I’ve been battling tendinitis in my right elbow and borderline tendinitis in my left elbow, which means I haven’t been able to weave. I’ve spent some time working out the details of the AI tiger project, but I’m now at the sampling stage, and since I can’t weave, the project has more or less screeched to a halt. I’m hoping that in another month or so the elbow will be fully healed and I can get back to weaving. However, that does not mean I have been inactive! I have been continuing my powerlifting training, with s ..read more

I had a really interesting conversation a week or two ago with Hideo Mabuchi. Hideo is at Stanford, where he is a professor of applied physics, ceramicist, faculty head of the Stanford Arts Institute, and (most relevantly from my perspective) a weaver. He recently got a TC-2 loom for Stanford, and since Stanford, California College of the Arts, and I are the the only people I know of in the Bay Area with a TC-2, I thought we ought to meet. Hideo is generally interested in bridging the divide between STEM and art/craft, so we talked a bit about his plans for their TC-2. He had a whole bunch of ..read more

Well, the velvet attempt was a bit of a disaster. I’m still determined to weave velvet, but I’ve realized that debugging the process and solving all the problems is likely to take months. More on that in a future blog post. (I haven’t given up, just contemplating my next move.) Since I would really like to have a finished project – any project! – someday, I’ve decided to warp up the left side of Grace. I was initially thinking about a black and white warp, which is what most people put onto a jacquard loom because of its versatility. However, black and white is booooooring. (I also almost neve ..read more

The last week or so I’ve been playing “Squirrel!!!” as I chase from one project possibility to another. The warp currently on Grace is about to come off, giving me space for one 29″ wide project or two 14.5″ projects. What luxury! So I have been chasing squirrel after squirrel as I attempt to choose between a dizzying array of options. I have also been experimenting with AI prompts. I know people have lots of reservations about AI (I do too), but it’s very clear to me that AI is here to stay. So either I sit down now and learn how to use it, or I’ll be forced to later, after it transforms the ..read more

Saturday was the USPA Central Strength Classic, my second powerlifting meet ever. And it went well! I was nervous enough beforehand to make a list of 34 items to bring or do the morning of the meet. I figured the less I had to think, the better. And that turned out to be true… I arrived early, geared up in my (ahem) very subtle colors: Turned out everyone else was wearing black, though some got “racy” and added a little colored trim. (Why are people so darn afraid of a little color??) It was fine, though – I loved my outfit and didn’t feel particularly self-conscious about it. (I was too busy ..read more

My next class at the Handweaving Academy is going to be Designing Painted Warps. So of course I have a painted warp on Grace, and have been weaving samples in lots of structures, stripe patterns, and so forth. The nice thing about a jacquard loom is that you can weave any structure you like in any sett you like (up to the maximum sett for your configuration), without having to rethread or resley. This vastly speeds up sampling. So far I’ve woven something like 25 samples, all in different structures and/or at different setts. On a shaft loom, that would probably have taken me 1-2 weeks at leas ..read more

The last week has been mostly boring infrastructure upgrades. Grace (my TC-2 jacquard loom) uses plastic pistons to help raise the threads. When it’s damp or hot, the piston expands ever-so-slightly, and threads start raising or lowering incorrectly. Digital Weaving Norway, which makes the TC-2, recently developed a new type of plastic piston that doesn’t have this problem. I elected to upgrade to the new piston….which means replacing one piston for every heddle on the loom. I have 3,080 heddles on the loom. It takes 13.75 seconds to replace a single piston. (Not that I timed it, of course ..read more

Well! The new warp is dyed. This time, I got a little overenthusiastic with the dye, so while there are no white spots, there’s not much variation in color, either. It’s mostly deep navy blue, almost black, with a few lighter and a few darker spots, and some areas with hints of purple. That’s fine with me. I am also shockingly far along in the warping process, thanks to a nifty new tool that is the best invention since duct tape (the wheel is sooooo 5000 BC). It’s a Mesdan fisherman’s knotter, and it looks like this: It ties knots. Tight, secure knots with the ends neatly clipped off. A thing ..read more