Motivation

Stress is a powerful motivator. 

This has been a stressful week for reasons beyond the election. 

Last week (I had to check the calendar because it felt like ages ago), I had several days in a row with migraines. I average 8-9 migraines a month, but rarely take a day off for them. I just take my medications, put my blinders on, and try to do my best to get the job done. 

Once upon a time, the migraines would literally knock me down and I would have to go to bed for two to three days to get over them. 

Fortunately, one of the prophylactic medications (beta blockers) I take has improved the severity of the migraines, but not the frequency. This has allowed me to continue to function, albeit, at probably sixty-five percent of norm. I am grateful for this, as I simply cannot take a day off every time my head hurts.

Thus, the two sick days I took for migraines last week were kind of a big deal.

Some issues in the personal life required another two days off this week, as well. 

So, I am playing catch up on the professional front, as well as in every other area.

The odd part about all this, I function at peak efficiency when I am slammed. The more chaos around me, the calmer I become. 

I have quite literally stood in a burning house and had the presence of mind to prioritize what needed to be saved and do it. Of course, I had a lot of help that night, too.

It is a peculiar skill stack to possess because in everyday life, most people find my directness and assertiveness off-putting; however, at the first hint of crisis, I usually pop to the top of the list for team recruitment.

I take no offense to any of it. I am going to do whatever I am going to do irrespective of what everyone else is doing. 

Applying this to weaving, I realized last night, after the Beast was fully dressed and weaving, a little over twenty-four hours (with a day job) after I pulled the sarong fabric off him, the ten-yard warp for these hand towels would probably be done by the end of the weekend, as in three days from now. The same weekend wherein I had scheduled those very same hand towels to be loaded onto the loom.

A wise and normal human being would take the breather being ahead in the schedule provided.

I am neither wise, nor normal, apparently. 

The second it was clear to me these hand towels with their thicker 5/2 weft could be woven in half an hour and there would only be eight 40-inch towels to weave, I knew I could probably get a quick 13-yard warp on after the hand towels to offer a pair of cottolin waffle weave wash cloths to go in the gift bags with them. (Veteran's Day is a day off for me, the plan is to make 25 pounds of soap to also go in the bags...)

I know.

It is insane.

It is also doable.

Why not?

The photo at the top is from just over a year ago with the last batch of these wash cloths using 8/2 cottolin with a sett of 24. 

Here is the draft I found on Pinterest:

If anyone is interested, here are my numbers:

13 yard warp of 312 ends. 

The pattern repeat is 6 ends. I am doing 50 repeats of the 6 ends for 300 ends. Each edge is comprised of six ends on either side for a total of 12 ends. 

Thus, total ends are 312.

This is the perfect number because I will beam them sectionally. With a sett of 24, I need 24 ends per inch. 312 divided by 24 is 13. 

As the edges are plain weave, there is no need for floating selvages.

I will weave each cloth under tension to 15-inches. 

When I wove these last year, each wash cloth took no more than 15 minutes to weave. 

Here (use that link if it did not upload correctly below) is a video from last year when I wove them: