Weaving journey Day Two, and other issues

I just thought I'd do a few establishing rows of weaving this morning before anything else. Famous last words.

It's now several hours and learnings later, and I had this attempt

Which was very awkward to manage, couldn't seem to set up the loom resting against the table and manage the raising and lowering of the heddle at the same time.

Then I ran into warp tension problems, probably because of my cockamamie, I mean unconventional, way of winding it. 

So after much unavailing effort to fix a couple of warps which were determined to be loose, and the discovery that I'd threaded the heddle upside down.. I'd forgotten there was an up and a down.. I decided to consider this an excellent learning experience and cut off the work from the loom, to start better tomorrow.

Of all the videos about this loom I've watched, not a single one mentioned that there's an up and a down, nor that it's vital to thread the heddie right way up so that the ears on the top can rest on the blocks at the side, to create the up position.  

That's why I couldn't get going, too difficult to change the shed without a proper resting heddle position, and get an open clean shed to slide the shuttle through without fouling the warps.

So here's not just a pathetic little chunk of weaving

It's a user manual for me. It reminds me about warping better, not improvising so much, about threading the right way, and that I didn't much like this yarn combo. The grey is sticky, catches everywhere, so I'll try a different warp idea when I continue tomorrow.

This didn't yield much product, but I'm a whole lot more knowledgeable now, ready to do better tomorrow. I also learned to stay calm and unhurried throughout a tricky process, a good thing in itself. Pema Chodron must have left her mark!

No Textiles and Tea this afternoon, because it's a guest who weaves coffins from willow, a marvelous green and respectful part of death, but, after the last couple of days, I think I'm not quite up for studying the art of casket weaving.

Meanwhile, winnowing has taken a related but different turn. Yesterday I upcycled a couple of things and I'm rediscovering items I haven't used.

The loom was one rediscovered thing, yesterday, and last evening and today here's this

Here's the warping peg for tomorrow's fresh onslaught. I realized that though my c- clamps have vanished, my pasta maker has a handy clamp. That, a sturdy wooden knitting needle, and a roll of masking tape, make a diy warping peg. And afterwards they can return to their regular programming.

And here's today's refind

My old radio, since my favorite radio station keeps annoyingly dropping its online signal, unearthed and in use again. The sound beats the tinny version on my phone and tablet, too. 

So, though nothing left the house, nothing came in either, to supply the listening and weaving needs. You might call it prewinnowing.

In the middle of all this, the morning email meditation from Richard Rohr, and a couple of other sources, was about giving up the illusion of control. This caused me to give a bitter, hollow laugh,  considering the context in which it landed.

Happy day everyone, we're not in any danger of imagining we're on top of things, last time I looked!

But then there's this 

Remember last fall when this was planted across the street and Steve identified it as a flowering prunus?  Yesterday it burst out in pink blossom. Ta-daaa!