Loom Placed, Solar In.

I'm taking a lot of time to sit with the placement of the loom in the yurt because once it's done it will be very difficult to move. Because of the roof support columns, it cannot simply be dragged to a new location. It needs to be disassembled if I want to move it.

This was my first attempt. It was extremely tight, but allowed free access to the beam. As I sat with it, I realized that I don't need that. I won't be winding beams on this loom in this tight space. I will be winding them on a custom-built winding station located elsewhere. And, yes, I just made that up. Turns out that fitting my weaving studio into a yurt is causing me to "make up" lots of things. Let's call it design.

Here's the second (and current) location of the loom. It feels much more natural and will allow the best light to illuminate my work.

Here are a couple shots of the loom in the "working" location. The beam will fit into the space between the loom and the wall, but could not be loaded onto the loom in this position.

And here are a couple shots of it in "beam loading" position.

It will require removing the bench and the horizontal piece with the treadles attached so it can straddle the support column. This takes five minutes and will only need to be done once a month at most, when I swap beams on the loom.

In that last shot, you'll notice that there is a little water leaking into the yurt. I'm pretty sure that the tongue and groove joints where the sheets join are giving channels for water to flow under the curb. When it dries out again, I'll fill that joint with caulk.

In the meantime, I just have to deal with water on the floor and do what's necessary to keep the loom dry.

With the stove fired up, the air was getting a little dry in here anyhow. Water on the floor will cure that in a hurry.

The other stepping stone of progress yesterday was setting up the teensy solar array. It's only 60 watts, but is plenty to keep the power tools and phone charged, power the lights for a few hours if I have evening guests, and power the computer for a couple hours once a week or so.

It's the new look for the eNomad. If you squint your eyes and stand a good ways back, it looks just like shutters.

And inside you'll notice that I left extra cable so the panels can go on the roof when I figure out a way to attach them up there.

The day ended with a surprise light show. I had to stop and stare for a while. Photos can never capture the color intensity or the dimensionality of a scene like this. It was truly breathtaking.