Poof, A Collective!

Wispr and I have been holding down the fort while the rest of the collective did their various things this summer. We're starting to collect together now and it's an exciting time.

Wispr has been sewing while I weave, mostly because some tension issues on the beam have meant that it required lots of fiddling to achieve a decent result. I didn't think it was a very nice thing to ask of a beginner - to fiddle and futz and still have cloth that needs repairs when it comes off the loom. That has settled down, though, and Wispr has been weaving away since last weekend.

Harlan and Arcana returned from teaching and learning at a primitive skills camp just two days ago.

After readjusting to life outside of the forest and figuring out how to plug into the weaving business, they're both jumping into the production.

It's incredible timing for them to have done this. I have just found out that my Autumn show season is all squished into the first three weeks of September. That means there's no leeway to get the next batch of cloth done in time for the shows. It's going to be really tight if it can even happen at all.

I think that with all of us working as much as we can, the first pieces of green cloth should be ready, not for Labor day, but for the following weekend.

I'm also hoping to learn from my mistakes on the last beam and have better tension on the next one so that Wispr can weave on it from the very beginning. That will let work happen while I'm away at the shows. We might be able to have three more batches of cloth done in time for Christmas. Since yarn supply is such a strange beast, I don't really know what colors we're looking at. Probably dark blue, black if I can swing it, and then a brown if I can have my wish.

Oh, and in case you're wondering what I do while these guys are all working...

Respond to yesterday's emails, work on yarn distribution, update my blog, work on internal organization so that we can all work seamlessly and communicate well. In the afternoon when Wispr goes off the swim in the river, I will take over cloth production.

It's really awesome to have these guys around and helping out. It will mean the difference between having green cloth the second week of September and not having it.