I have two jobs. One is my dream job, creating handwoven products for others and for my loved ones. I love to be at my loom creating, designing, and being the one who creates. My other job? I am a store manager at a lifestyle and clothing retail store. It is demanding and challenging. I like it a lot because it makes me think critically everyday on how to talk to potential customers, employees and how to grow within a company. I love this job, because I get to be myself, and I also have the opportunity to learn.

Before the holiday break I wrote a post about developing ideas for weaving. Today I would like to talk about taking those ideas and translating them into actual draft designs. I let the term "geological nomad" settle with me for a while. I then began to play in my software with some different color combinations and different weave structures.

I often get asked "how did you become a weaver?" This conversation usually is a long and wonderful story. However, I do not really get a chance to tell the whole story due to situational circumstances (ie. talking in the elevator with a box full of weavings). So, here, on this blog, is the full story! (It is long, but each part is important to know)

This past year (2013) was an adventurous one for me: I moved from Western New York to the Southern Adirondacks. I finally set up my weaving business. And within a few months, got connected to a local mill and I have been weaving throws for farmers in my community.

My life is incredibly hectic right now. I'm not going to lie and say that I have been able to balance everything perfectly and find time to design. My design has been all over the board and without focus. So instead of staring blankly at the screen not knowing where to start, I have decided to share with you my process from the very beginning. The very raw and blank beginning.

I love little tricks in weaving, especially if they help me to avoid tying knots for fringe. I don't know, but I would much rather take the time weaving in ends and perfecting the surface of the cloth, not tying knots. The Italian Hemstitch is one of the solutions that I have learned to create a beautiful hem without worrying about the fabric unravelling and also avoiding tying knots.

This past weekend I attended the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival (also known as the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival). To put it simply: It was a mad and crazy knitter's paradise.

I would love to have a giant studio space with big windows, long tables to lay out my weavings and ample space to walk around my loom. However, at this stage in my weaving career and personal life, I can only afford to have my loom in my living room. And since we have moved from Western New York to where we are now- that living room space is approximately 50% of the apartment (my husband is so gracious).

Overshot is like a Pandora’s Box. You just open it up, just a little bit to try to get the basic understanding and all of a sudden you are waist deep in antique patterns, new vocabulary words and the desire to know EVERYTHING. We are going to break down the wide world of overshot into smaller bite sized knowledge nuggets. This is so you can build your knowledge of this amazingly in depth and diverse structure and be successful in creating and weaving your own.

I've tried a lot of different social media avenues with my weaving work. I have a Facebook for Comfort Cloth, I have a Twitter account and I have Instagram. Let me start by saying I hated Instagram because I felt like it was disconnecting people from the real world. "Oh we have climbed all the way to the top of this mountain- hold on a minute while I Instagram it!" Not my idea of enjoying the moments of your life. However, I am finding that I am using Instagram a lot, especially for my weaving endeavors.

I just finished another warp of blankets from my loom. As I was looking to what I had left, I had quite a bit of loom waste left over. I decided it was time to try a new technique to preserve the threading of the heddles and the sleying of the reed but still wind on a new warp. I tied on the new warp to the old warp- thread by thread. This may seem crazy- but this way I can weave the full length of the older warp and not have to crouch down behind the loom to get at the heddles all over again.

This past weekend I went to Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts to attend the biennial conference "New England Weavers Seminar". The conference included a series of lectures, hands on classes, and other educational opportunities such as Juried Shows, Guild Exhibitions and guided tours. Since this was my first time attending and I do not have a loom that is easily transportable, I decided to take a series of lecture classes. This year the theme was "Weavers Together: Never Ending Weaving Stories" which brought together historical, cultural and technological influences that showed in many of the weaver's work.

So, now that you are weaving overshot on your loom- what exactly is overshot? Where did it come from? What makes it so cool? The origin of the technique itself may have started in Persia and spread to other parts of the world, according to the author, Hans E. Wulff, of The Traditional Crafts of Persia. However, it is all relatively obscured by history. In The Key to Weaving by Mary E. Black, she mentioned that one weaver, who was unable to find a legitimate definition of the technique thought that the name “overshot” was a derivative of the idea that “the last thread of one pattern block overshoots the first thread of the next pattern block.” I personally think it is because the pattern weft overshoots the ground warp and weft webbing.

I contracted the weaving bug when I first started looking at overshot. There is something about the idea of making circles and curves in a format of 90 degree angles that has always been intriguing to me.

Eric and I picked up the loom from Pam Engberg, weaver and teacher at FireWatch Weaver's in Brimfield, Massachusetts. Pam and I met through the online forum weavolution. For those who do not know, weavolution is a digital community for weavers to meet, share ideas and projects and to problem solve issues they have while working. It is an excellent resource to connect to weavers around the world. Pam and I met over a discussion on articles she had written concerning the different techniques of designing and producing shadow weave fabric.

It is no longer winter time and I now live in an area where I am a hop, skip and a jump away from the Adirondacks. As I have been exploring outside I've been bringing my camera along to take pictures to document the trip but also to find interesting colors, textures, and proportions that I could use in future woven products. Here is a little post to explain what I look for, and some awesome ideas that I have.

My blankets are woven and being washed. Because of their size and my limitations in space, I have to wash the blankets one at a time in my bathtub and hang it over the shower curtain rod. To eliminate having a completed flooded bathroom floor from the dripping water I first roll the blankets in a towel to soak up the excess water.

Recently, I received an email with a question about reading tie-ups, specifically referencing a page in the The Handweaver's Pattern Directory by Anne Dixon. If you look to pages 38 and 39 of this book (and elsewhere, this is just specifically mentioned in my email) the threading of the pattern looks simple enough. With most four harness patterns there are six treadles that are used. Two for the tabby and four for the twill patterning. In these drafts however there are 12-14 treadles being used. I also had that same surge of panic when I looked at those black blocks in the tie-up thinking to myself "how am I supposed to weave that?! My loom isn't nearly big enough to accommodate all of those treadles!"

Once upon a time I had a professor at college who pushed making samples so much that it drove me up the wall. I developed a diversion to producing samples for anything and just jumping right in and solving issues in the final project as I worked.

Remember, after New Years I made the resolution to weave blankets at some point this year? Well it is finally happening and the warp is on the loom and ready to roll! It took me about two days to thread all 960 ends into the heddles, another couple of days to wind on all thirteen and a half yards and almost an entire afternoon tying on to the front beam.