This Australian bushmint plant (tree!) continues to grow and spread and delight with its fragrance. It seems to benefit from branches being snipped off for scented bouquets and ….. the weft in weaving.
The back strap loom did get "soonest" rewarped – this time with rayon from skeins of fibre archeology discovered at a thrift store and traced to a mill in Long Island, USA, no longer in existence.
This is the start of the weaving with linen from a garage sale two summers ago.
The bushmint leaves and twigs add muchly to the tactile pleasures of weaving.
The collection of thrums are released from the jar for easier access. Some other means of storing them is being considered; maybe a large clear bowl.
Hands are used to put the thrums in the shed; then the heddle is used to suggest a position, a design, the amount of texture.
I love how the thrums are the history of past fibre projects: knitting and crochet and sewing and felting ….
'Listening' to the loom is not so much with the ears as with the hands and the eyes but there is the sound of the heddle as it allows for the bulk of the thrums; it angles and softens with mountains and valleys.
And then plateaus.
The bobbin is empty and the boat shuttle needs more crew to sail again.
The eye pauses over the options that were collected from the summer weight collection at the start of this weaving. Pauses and thinks about colour and compatability and results; then, beyond thinking to feeling and the hand reaches out in an immediate choice.
The wallfower shade of amber linen and cotton skein is wound on the thumb into a center-pull ball and then both the inner and outer thread is wrapped onto the bobbin. A measured amount? Of course: some inner yardstick.
The boat sails again, but first some dark brown ends of wool weft a buffer and I find myself frowning, trying to remember what project involved that dark brown wool. I don't remember.
The sound of the heddle takes on a rhythm and I delight in the spaces.
I do remember where the lengths of leather came from: trim (unnecessary!) from a pair of soft gloves purchased at a church rummage sale on Friday; snipped away as soon as I got home; immediate improvement; simplicity is elegant.
The bobbin is empty again. It had the perfect amount of weft for the time and energy for weaving time this morning.
And there is much warp left for the next session … or two …..
The loom is ready for the next time; the bobbin will wait to be wrapped until then.