Five Questions, from Hlinspjalda
1. Who taught you to weave?
Well... I've been weaving since I was 12... Many people. Mostly I did, really.
My first loom was a rigid heddle. We'd looked 4 harness table looms, but I wanted to make things large enough to use, and traded structure for utility. (The two themes in my weaving ever since...) I played with plain weave color and weave effects (though I didn't know to call them that) all through high school. Took 2 weaving classes in college. First was just on frame looms, but a new floor loom came in that semester, and I was far enough along in my project that I could set it up and do the first piece on it - a lace weave. The second class, I finally got into 4 harness weaves, and never looked back.
I didn't get my own 4 harness until a quite a few years later. When I did, as a refresher, I took a class at the Newark Museum with Peggy Ostercamp. (1986, maybe?) She's all about efficiency and good technique, and influenced me a great deal.
2. What was the coolest A&S project you ever saw?
Two spring to mind, for different reasons.
A well documented, carefully made, carved wooden farm implement. I don't remember exactly what it was - sorry - it was at the first Roses I went to, so you may have seen it. And people seemed to be ignoring it because it wasn't pretty... but I was fascinated that someone was working on the everyday stuff.
And Peregrinning's Perrugia wares... the first time I saw that, I lay in wait when people came to pick up their projects. (He didn't - his Baron had brought it.) It was not only beautiful, it was possibly the technically best weaving I'd seen in the SCA. I get picky about selvedges and the like...
3. What did you think was happening to you when you had your first migraine?
Well, I didn't have a clue, which was the scary part. My eyes stopped working, first - I wasn't sure how, but I wasn't seeing right. My brain went fuzzy, I started having trouble finding words and stringing them together coherently, and my right arm went slightly numb. The intense pain an hour later was almost incidental... as was the vomiting later. (At least by then, the other symptoms had cleared up.) I'd just flown back to college, and the infirmary wasn't open, so I didn't see a doctor until the next day, when I was OK, though washed out. He couldn't figure out what had been wrong, either. It was terrifying.
The second one, nearly a year later, I was able to walk into the health service and tell them to look at my chart - and that was diagnosed.(Which is unusual - most people have quite a few, even go for years, without diagnosis.)
They run in my family, but no one had had them in my lifetime (several cousins developed them later) and I'm the only woman to get them, so Mom hadn't thought about me as being at risk.
4. What's the most fun job you ever got paid to do?
That's kind of a tossup between teaching preschool and theatrical costume design. Well, teaching has more *fun* parts, but design is more exhilerating. And they both have decidedly Not Fun components...
Some of the promotions gigs have fun parts. I've learned, though, that when the client tells me how much fun it will be, it means they haven't thought the job out, and I'll spend the day problem solving. (I'm at the St. Patrick's Day Parade! Handing out dripping wet flowers - in the snow... Not a high point.)
5. If you could only have one loom, and money/space were no object, what would you pick?
Oh, my... That is so far from my experience, I can hardly begin to answer! I've hardly even looked at the larger, high end looms. I'd have to go over the whole countermarche/counterbalance thing, and decide if I'd rather have one of them than the jack I'm used to, and if so, why. I would like a hanging beater...
I'd probably stick with 4 harness. There's so much you can do with that, and I wouldn't have to deal with the extra parts when I don't want them. 8 and more seems to be a current fashion (at least half the stuff in Handwoven is multi harness and I don't think *everyone* doing that is a structure geek) but 4 is hardly exhausted... OTOH, I have some Scandinavian linen weaves somewhere, which I think I remember called for 5! and looked interesting. I really like twill, and there are so many variations.
I'd certainly need to look at Glimakras. I never did think the AVL compu dobby was that interesting, though. (I'm sure they have other looms.)
I'm supposed to offer to ask questions of the rest of you. I'd be happy to, but I'm going into Tech Week for Revels, so I don't guarantee getting to anyone in the next week or so.
Well... I've been weaving since I was 12... Many people. Mostly I did, really.
My first loom was a rigid heddle. We'd looked 4 harness table looms, but I wanted to make things large enough to use, and traded structure for utility. (The two themes in my weaving ever since...) I played with plain weave color and weave effects (though I didn't know to call them that) all through high school. Took 2 weaving classes in college. First was just on frame looms, but a new floor loom came in that semester, and I was far enough along in my project that I could set it up and do the first piece on it - a lace weave. The second class, I finally got into 4 harness weaves, and never looked back.
I didn't get my own 4 harness until a quite a few years later. When I did, as a refresher, I took a class at the Newark Museum with Peggy Ostercamp. (1986, maybe?) She's all about efficiency and good technique, and influenced me a great deal.
2. What was the coolest A&S project you ever saw?
Two spring to mind, for different reasons.
A well documented, carefully made, carved wooden farm implement. I don't remember exactly what it was - sorry - it was at the first Roses I went to, so you may have seen it. And people seemed to be ignoring it because it wasn't pretty... but I was fascinated that someone was working on the everyday stuff.
And Peregrinning's Perrugia wares... the first time I saw that, I lay in wait when people came to pick up their projects. (He didn't - his Baron had brought it.) It was not only beautiful, it was possibly the technically best weaving I'd seen in the SCA. I get picky about selvedges and the like...
3. What did you think was happening to you when you had your first migraine?
Well, I didn't have a clue, which was the scary part. My eyes stopped working, first - I wasn't sure how, but I wasn't seeing right. My brain went fuzzy, I started having trouble finding words and stringing them together coherently, and my right arm went slightly numb. The intense pain an hour later was almost incidental... as was the vomiting later. (At least by then, the other symptoms had cleared up.) I'd just flown back to college, and the infirmary wasn't open, so I didn't see a doctor until the next day, when I was OK, though washed out. He couldn't figure out what had been wrong, either. It was terrifying.
The second one, nearly a year later, I was able to walk into the health service and tell them to look at my chart - and that was diagnosed.(Which is unusual - most people have quite a few, even go for years, without diagnosis.)
They run in my family, but no one had had them in my lifetime (several cousins developed them later) and I'm the only woman to get them, so Mom hadn't thought about me as being at risk.
4. What's the most fun job you ever got paid to do?
That's kind of a tossup between teaching preschool and theatrical costume design. Well, teaching has more *fun* parts, but design is more exhilerating. And they both have decidedly Not Fun components...
Some of the promotions gigs have fun parts. I've learned, though, that when the client tells me how much fun it will be, it means they haven't thought the job out, and I'll spend the day problem solving. (I'm at the St. Patrick's Day Parade! Handing out dripping wet flowers - in the snow... Not a high point.)
5. If you could only have one loom, and money/space were no object, what would you pick?
Oh, my... That is so far from my experience, I can hardly begin to answer! I've hardly even looked at the larger, high end looms. I'd have to go over the whole countermarche/counterbalance thing, and decide if I'd rather have one of them than the jack I'm used to, and if so, why. I would like a hanging beater...
I'd probably stick with 4 harness. There's so much you can do with that, and I wouldn't have to deal with the extra parts when I don't want them. 8 and more seems to be a current fashion (at least half the stuff in Handwoven is multi harness and I don't think *everyone* doing that is a structure geek) but 4 is hardly exhausted... OTOH, I have some Scandinavian linen weaves somewhere, which I think I remember called for 5! and looked interesting. I really like twill, and there are so many variations.
I'd certainly need to look at Glimakras. I never did think the AVL compu dobby was that interesting, though. (I'm sure they have other looms.)
I'm supposed to offer to ask questions of the rest of you. I'd be happy to, but I'm going into Tech Week for Revels, so I don't guarantee getting to anyone in the next week or so.