When I was down in the Bay Area my friend, Tien, gave me another Silver Needles cone winder that she wasn't using. You can read Tien's blog on her website: http://tienchiu.com. She's always working on a variety of amazing projects!
I thought I would keep this second winder on a shelf as a "backup" in case my main one broke. And then inspiration struck! If I ran two at once, I'd get the plying done twice as fast.
This photo shows the cones for the new blue beam at the beginning of the day. By the end of a VERY long day, I was nearly finished winding the first set of cones, four of each color. This will enable me to make my design decisions and get started warping while I wind each of these colors in quantity, another 4-8 cones of each color.
Each pair of cones takes 8 minutes to wind, leaving me lots of time for other work in the studio. I can't do a significant amount of weaving in 8 minutes, but I can do lots of other things. First, I cut lengths of cloth to get garments ready for sewing.
Then I packaged up an order that needed to be sewn and shipped after the last show.
Then I set up the photo studio to shoot a sample for a couple of potential customers from that show. I won't weave an orange ruana for my own purposes, but I'm happy to weave with a custom weft if someone wants it. That goes for all of my cloth, by the way. If you see a batch of cloth on my blog that you'd like me to weave with a custom weft, I'm happy to do it for you. It all starts with a sample scarf...
I also managed to apply to two shows, accept an invitation to a third, and deal with TON of office work, all while the winders whirred away in the background.
Not so bad for a day that was gifted to us by the calendar gods, or Pope Gregory, or whoever.
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