Weaving with a cold, upon the Square of Comfort

 I have been under attack by the Horrible Cold for four days. I am now recovered. In the meantime, I constructed a Square of Comfort, from two couches pushed together and decked out in quilts and cushions and orange juice and penicillin and so on. It is truly a glorious thing, and not at all decadent and messy.

While in the square I was feeling a little guilty about not being in college throwing my germs about and whinging about feeling horrible (imagine how productive I would have been!) so I whipped out the inkle loom and threw a warp on it. The thing I like about the inkle looms is it makes it so much easier to make a wider band with a softer handle as your weaving isn't getting pulled into a point as it is when I weave it body-tensioned.

I have begun a process of experimenting with more complex ways of manipulating the cards. to create more interesting patterns. It could be a looooooong journey, as there is just so much to discover, I could be at this for years if I chose and someone would fund me (hint, hint).

Happily though, get this, I am getting to do this for my sketchbook work! HURRAH!!!

Two whole weeks of doing nothing but tablet-weaving, having been instructed to attempt to create as many patterns and use as many techniques as I can in black-and-white (for simplicity's sake).

It is so incredibly cool, and I got a lot done today at college, must have woven off like 4 metres or something. I am making lots and lots (potentially hundreds) of 12" strips each demonstrating a particular pattern or idea. So I am getting a lot of practice with back-switching and things which has so far been something I REALLY have to think VERY hard about, but now I'm starting to get into the rythm of it and it's starting to come a bit more naturally and soon I'll probably be able to make those complicated patterns without thinking too much at all.

Whhoooooo!

 So yeah, I'll be doing this for a few weeks.

The next big thing to try out is perhaps two-hole weaving, to create sort of interchanging double-weave effects, which I think is how a lot of people (not a lot, but like the 10 or so people that do it) do those really intricate pictorial bands with the animals and that on them.

Oh, and there's so many more distinct techniques, like missing hole technique, or weaving with triangular cards, or hexagonal weaving, which i've done before, which is kinda odd, and makes a sort of three layered plain-woven band which unfolds to a single cloth when you turn the tablets on their side. There's a lot to explore.

So yeah, we'll see how this fits into my plan to make viking costume, or whether that plan fits, but in the meantime I have been firmly instructed to just live in the moment and see what happens, which is good for me because making plans gives me anxiety and i don't like anxiety, because it makes me anxious and who like being anxious, right?