My tribe, the dear creative kindred spirits, bring me earthward and my discontent melts. Salad and green beans help me ground the pain of misunderstanding and sweet cider washes away the bitter taste of greed. All is not perfectly well, but much is better and I can breathe without the ragged breath of sobs overtaking me. Color has returned, the sweet green of the aged lock that guards my future. I am so over the coldness that overtook me on Saturday. I don’t need to fight petty obstacles that I can easily step over. I have things to do, roving to spin and fabric to weave. This is the way I usually feel after Rhinebeck. Stitches was just a wrong turn but I am back on my path and essentially unharmed. Thanks for your iron steadfastness and leafy vistas.

I am in Manhattan today after taking a wonderful break where I was immersed in color and texture.

I’m not impressed with what I am seeing. Black clothing. Tedious, suit-colored business suits. I have nothing in common with these people. They are not my tribe. I am sure they are interesting to someone, perhaps to themselves, but they do not interest me.  Even crows have better plumage than their unimaginative black, feathers rich with iridescent nuances.  Black is a good base color, a warp that ties together the random, glorious colors of weft. By itself, it’s not much for me.

I can’t wait to get back to the Aerie and surround myself with color.

I’m very honored that Tromp as Writ has received the Honest Scrap Award from a sister blogger, Life Looms Large.  When I return from the NY Sheep and Wool festival, I will share the honors with seven more bloggers of note.

Honest Scrap is a good metaphor for both the way I weave and the way I blog. Both are collages of my life, made from a bit of this and a bit of that.

It really is all about the yarn. You’ve heard me say that when I talk about my approach to weaving, because the color and texture of yarn is more important in my work than complexity of the weave structure.

When the yarn looks like this, it REALLY is ALL about the yArN.

I spun all this yarn in one fabulous weekend workshop with Jacey Boggs of Insubordiknit.

Jacey is a gifted teacher. She guided the twenty of us through each technique by calling up small groups to stand behind her as she demonstrated. Then, as we went back to our spinning wheels to practice, we got to hear the instructions repeated three more times as she called the other groups up in turn. This really reinforces the learning. See it. Hear it. Do it.

Working hard. Taking breaks to look out the window at the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge. That’s the same view as my new office space. I’d rather be spinning, of course.

Taking this class in NYC was a good idea. I had a chance to meet and hang out with many of the local fiberati. Familiar names from Ravelry now have faces.

I was essentially the only weaver-spinner in a room full of knitter-spinners. I’m sure a couple of people are going to rush out and get looms. This yarn is made for freestyle weaving.

If you are spinning to weave, here are a couple of things to consider:

-Don’t wet-finish the yarn after spinning. Just steam it enough to get the kinks out. It will be wet-finished along with the other yarns in the fabric.

-What you see is very close to what you get. Knitters space their inclusions, coils or cocoons farther apart, because knitting takes up a lot of the intervening yarn. Weaving doesn’t consume as much, so space them where you want to see them.

-Over-spun yarn creates a collapse weave effect. I madly over-spun some of my yarn while learning the techniques. I’m prepared to be happily surprised by what happens in wet-finishing.

The yarn? You want to see close ups of yarn?

I will be spending the weekend in an art yarn spinning workshop with Jacey Boggs of Insubordiknit. I am really excited by the idea of creating “durable, usable art yarns, brimming with color, creativity, and a touch of mischief.” There’s a lot of mischief in many things that I do, so why should I expect my yarn be any different?

I believe that art yarn is at its best in weaving, and am thrilled at the idea of creating unique yarn for the Misted Hills coat.

My Lendrum spinning wheel is packed in its new, lime green suitcase, surrounded by a few pounds of roving and miscellaneous fiber.

How am I going to sleep tonight?  I’m too excited. The mischief in the fiber is calling me.

It has taken all evening to get online. My time has been squandered by a dodgy internet connection. I should have known something was going wrong with the wireless modem this week, because it kept getting slower and slower. The spare one is older technology, but it’s working better. At times like these, I am so grateful for my decision to keep my computer out of my weaving. It may be my research library and the recorder of these musings, but it is not part of the way I create cloth.

I don’t mind using simple, mechanical equipment, such as bobbin winders, ball winders, spinning wheels, and jack looms. That’s as far as I am willing to go, because these items still respond directly to my actions. They help me, but they don’t stand between me and my work. Once the computer intercedes, I become distanced and detached, because it takes over some of the things that engage my mind, like knowing which treadle to press.

What about you? Does technology enhance your weaving experience or detract from it?

I’m back in my studio, and now I can tell the story with pictures, the way it was meant to be told.

This is WEBS. To imagine the scale of this yarn store, combine every yarn store you have ever visted, under one roof. It’s that big.  Maybe even bigger.I didn’t even photograph the aisles and aisles of knitting yarns. The spinning and weaving sections were enough to keep me busy for a couple of hours of happy shopping.

While I was on line to make my purchases, I met Sue, a weaver and blogger (Life Looms Large) from New Hampshire who was in town for NEWS. She had picked out a basket of ‘random’ warp yarn. We had a great chat about weaving, and before we realized, the line was gone!

Speaking of yarn, this is what I selected for the warp of the Misted Hills Coat

This is Valley Yarns’ own Colrain Lace, a size 10/2 Merino/Tencel blend. Clockwise from the top, the colours are Grey Teal, Whipple Blue, Majestic Blue, Navy, and Rich Purple. I visualize the warp as having random stripes within a field of Grey Teal.

The yarn crawl is an absolute delight, and I found the warp for my coat project, which now has a name: Misted Hills Coat. 

I’ve also decided that I HAVE to buy yarn in person.  If I had gone with my first instinct, I would have chosen Harrisville Shetland for my warp. The colors looked great online, and the yarn looked interesting. N0, no, no! It’s not fine like the Shetland sweaters of my youth. I would have been weaving a big, heavy blanket of a coat.

Instead, I chose a merino/tencel that came in equally gorgeous colors. I also picked up two new shuttles and some roving for an upcoming art yarn spinning class with  Insubordiknit.

Northampton is teeming with weavers. Smith College is hosting NEWS, a weavers symposium. The vendor room is open to the public, so I will be stopping there today.  More yarn!

I have to say that being in Northampton makes me feel like I am walking in my own shadow. I lived here many years ago, and so many things are unchanged that I feel like I might see my younger self a few steps ahead of me. It’s a bit unsettling, but I think I could get used to it.

I need pictures to tell the yarn crawl story properly. They’re in my camera and I’m using a comptuer in the hotel’s business center, and I suspect that never the twain shall meet. So I will just tempt you with these few words:

Swedish wool yarn…locally dyed roving…locally spun and dyed yarn…a temple for my loom…shuttles…books…plans to return often…soft shades of green, blue and violet.

I’m feeling restless after spending some concerted time in the studio. It’s time for a road trip!  Tromp-as-writ is going on a yarn crawl.  I will be visiting two of my favorites, WEBS and Northampton Wools. These were my local yarn stores when I made my home in Northampton. I may also visit a store that’s new to me,  Wool and Dye Works in Florence. While they are primarily a rug-hooking store, I’m interested in their woolen fabric because I have this persistent little idea that has been teasing me. Wouldn’t a tiny sliver of woolen fabric make an interesting inlay?

I will also be visiting Shelburne Falls, home of Metaphor Yarns and Vävstuga Swedish Weaving and Folk Arts. These I only know from their Internet presence. It will be an adventure to visit them in person.

All this in two days.  I doubt I will be blogging from the road.