The Dragon's Lair

Yes, I do know that the word is actually "epiphany" - the above is one of the hundreds of obscure movie lines that I have in my head at my disposal for quoting purposes ;-)

I love that lightbulb moment when everything falls into place and makes sense!

On my Ravelry group Shuttle Moves we decided to try doing a themed "WAL" (weave-along) and chose Summer & Winter to be the theme. I'd never tried this structure before, though it was on my "someday" list, and figured this was as good a time as any - thus allowing it to leapfrog over the backs of several other projects that had already been lined up and slated to happen next. Never ever following a plan (or most instructions) to the letter seems to be a habit of mine though, so it's no great surprise that that habit spills over into my weaving life as well. So my at home weaving project - as opposed to that gorgeous magenta stuff that is my at-the-guild weaving project - became a S&W scarf.

After reading up on Summer & Winter for a few weeks I was picking up some bits and pieces, but the majority of it still might as well have been Greek for all the good it was doing me. You must be at the loom to truly understand what you're being told. I did some exercises, from a workshop written up and generously shared by Annie, where I essentially embroidered the pattern weft of the S&W onto a piece of plainweave cloth. That helped to shine a few rays of slight understanding on the subject, but I still needed to be in front of my loom, shuttles in hand. As of last Sunday, that's finally what I did!

The warping was spread out over several days, as is usual for me (actually, the fact that the whole warping process was under a week may have been a record for me! LOL) and had to also include some repairs to shaft cords, fixing of a twist between reed and heddles, etc. But finally the warp was on, tension evened out, minor loom repairs done, bobbins wound, and the half dozen or so shots to spread the warp in. I was all set to go! Now to see if I could translate this Greek...

(You're all holding your breath in anticipation now, right??)

And it worked!!! (Can you hear the stereotypical strains of angelic choral music as the clouds part and the sun comes streaming through to illuminate all?) I could see my profile draft appearing before my eyes. It all began to unfold in my mind just how the structure worked, and I finally understood it! Yay!!!

Once those first couple most basic exercises made perfect sense I moved on to others. I'm still working through some more exercises. I'm trying X's and O's now, and that will be followed by some two color work - polychrome, I think the book said? Then perhaps trying my hand at pick-up - most likely using Annie's suggestion of a knitting needle (to be stolen from my mom's lovely stash of needles... shhh don't tell... ;-) as a pick-up stick, since I don't actually own a pick-up stick. Should be interesting to see how all these different experiments turn out!

I'll try and get some pictures up soon. There's only about 5 inches of weaving, so none of it has even thought about disappearing onto the cloth beam yet... it's barely even gotten to the front beam! I'll snap some before it rolls on over. Don't expect anything too spectacular though. I'm calling it a scarf, but it's basically an asymmetrical overgrown sampler that looks as if there is no real rhyme or reason to the patterns scampering across it one after another. But I shall document it nonetheless! It's proving to be a fun learning process.
Stay tuned - More posts to come as the project progresses!