Weaving woes

I don't weave as often as I used to. One reason for this is simply that I am not under the same pressure to produce that I felt while in school. Another big reason is that I have developed a tendency to weave a large amount of cloth for multiple pieces at once, as opposed to weaving the cloth for each piece individually. Because of this, my familiarity with the routine has lessened.

Recently, I have noticed a change in my cloth. I am not sure when it came about- when I began working exclusively on my smaller loom, when I took a break to move my studio across the country, when I switched yarn brands- who knows. What I do know is that my cloth is not as dense as it used to be.

I used to produce a very tight, dense weave which was most pleasant to work with. At some point, my standard cloth became looser. Flimsier. The weft no longer squeezes in securely to the warp. This cloth is not so pleasant to work with.

My problem is that, not knowing why this change has occurred, I don't know how to fix it. I use the same EPI, same reed, same yarn size as I did when I was making the tighter cloth. I am hoping that the reason for this looser cloth is not the loom itself, for that's a pretty difficult element to change. My fingers are crossed that there is an easy-to-fix reason, like tension, or the way I have been tying up the treadles. I rather wish I could pop back to school, ask a couple questions, get some advice. Since I can't, I'll just have to keep trying to figure it out, and hope I don't end up with too much of this looser, less-satisfying stuff.

Shear obsession

Lately I have been obsessed with shears. I cannot get them out of my mind's eye. I'm thinking about cutting, cutting ties, cutting strands, cutting off. Cutting cleanly, cutting swiftly, cutting efficiently, cutting roughly. Thinking about the sound a nice sharp pair of blades make when slicing through something. Thinking about the emotional connotations, about the metaphorical suggestions. Thinking about the shears as a representational image for life events.

As a result, I have piles of pictures of shears around my studio desk. They are stacked to the side, pinned to the wall, stuck to the shelves with bits of tape. They are printed on paper, drawn out on tracing paper, stitched into cloth. I am at a point with them where I am struggling to finish a single project (I mean really finish- not finish embroidering an image, that is no problem, but finish off edges, prepare for hanging) before beginning the next one.

At the moment, this is bad, because I really do need to get some pieces solidly complete- but every time I glance anywhere, there they are, these images, cutting through life and history, making changes, amendments, edits, improvements. Trimming, paring, cutting clean. Taking down the pictures would do no good, because the inspiration is still there in my mind. Shears, shears, shears.