Wot Did & Wot Doing

June was the month for Registration Presentations, and then I needed to make swift progress in completing ‘Nefesh’ and ‘Neshamah’ ready for an exhibition I at the Brewery Tap Project Space in Folkestone at the end of September.  

Next up is the writing of my Literature Review, so I have been away from the loom.  Until yesterday.  A bereavement during the week (coming after several this year) meant that I simply could not immerse myself in writing theoretically about grief and loss for a little while, and need to ‘weave it out’.   While invigilating the exhibition I had time to do some sampling for ‘Memorial Pillar (for Diana)’, the maquette of which was part of what I was showing.  I had realised that I would not have time (with chaplaincy work and a LitRev to do) to make the next three shrines before our next exhibition at the end of January, so decided to go with ‘Pillar’ instead.

I wound the warp yesterday evening, and today is loom dressing; sleying the reed with a soundtrack of ‘70s Genesis. The finished piece will be 97cm high, woven sideways, so, at my usual sett (4epc, woven over doubles) that is 388 ends.  I’ve wound a warp long enough to do two of the shrines on afterwards (and yes, there will be a lot of retying to do between cutting off this one and resuming).

There is something about weaving and preparing to weave that both soothes, and embodies hope for the future, so it is a good activity in the face of loss - which is one of the contentions of my thesis after all.