Welcome to Musings - The Loom Room Blog

This is a wonderful field of discovery for different textures.  The areas I have focussed on so far are different setts, different yarn properties, different weave structures, different ratios.

Today’s blog is a quick overview of how texture can be created through the manipulation of two different layers that can interact with one another.

In the first instance, you can sett your two different layers differently, and see what difference that makes to the finished effect.  You can use different yarns for each layer with differing shrinkage rates and watch the crinkles and puckers appear as you wash it.  This is particularly effective with plain weave as the non-shrinking yarn and a different weave structure for the shrinking yarn. 

You can vary the proportion of one layer to the other.  Bonnie Inouye has been working on this particular way of creating texture.  Bonnie tries different ratios of cloth in many different structures and has great fun with it.  I have also been using different ratios in both single and double cloth combinations. 

You can, of course, combine different ratios and different shrinkage rates for even more dramatic results.  You may be wondering what the difference is between sett and ratio.  The difference is that sett is how you plan one structure on its own.  Ratio is how you relate two layers to each other.  The simplest weave structures usually work the best for the non-shrinking layer, but weave structures that utilise floats are brilliant for shrinking yarns that pull the non-shrinking layer into all kinds of convolutions during finishing.

Finishing - now there’s a theme just ripe for playing with - is a great fun way of trying out texture.  The tumble dryer is a useful tool in this game - I usually combine my samples with a load of washing that I can’t hang outside (especially now we’re getting into winter which is a great time for experimenting with finishing treatments!) so I don’t feel guilty that I’m using unnecessary electricity because the weather’s bad anyway…. Try different wash temperatures, try different amounts of agitation, and different methods of drying.

In double cloth you have the wonderful facility of being able to interchange your layers, and designing different amounts of interchange can lead to some great textural results.  Play with your threading, create uneven sized blocks, vary your sett, use crammed and spaced sleying, try different beats in your weaving, try different ratios in your weaving too - 2 picks of one layer v 1 pick of the other, for example. 

You can see just with these different areas there is unlimited scope for combining different elements in different ways for different results.  You just have to be willing to make mistakes and not mind.  I try not to be too precious about my weaving which is why I sample such a lot.  It doesn’t matter if I make mistakes when sampling and I might just find something quite unexpected!

When I am designing for texture, I usually have an image of something that has inspired me and I pin it up on the wall and wonder about how I can combine different techniques to create that specific result.  Other people work in very different ways.  The main thing is to play and have fun.

Next week, I’ll take some of these ideas further and show you samples of the results….

Exotica. 

When the Midlands Textile Forum decided on this title for an exhibition to be staged at the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham, (on from now until 30th September), I had to smile!  I could just imagine certain men of my acquaintance brightening up with the titivating thought of what they might see!!  But they would be disappointed.

Not in terms of the quality of work on show, but in the subject matter. 

Exotica refers to the plants that can be found at the Botanical Gardens which, although not large (15 acres), is perfectly formed!  Just like the exhibition.  22 works are shown by 17 artists in a long thin gallery with good lighting and plenty of space around the exhibits. 

Themes are good for exhibitions.  One study day at the Gardens led to different interpretations from each artist, and the range of textile techniques used, the different approaches, the different subject matter taken from the Gardens worked well together.

Themes are also good for individual artists developing their work.  I used to be a total scatterbrain, tempted by a myriad of techniques, a wealth of subject matter and influenced by everything.  (Some would say that I still am but I suspect they don’t know what I was like before!!!) 

For me, finding weaving was a turning point in my life.  From living the life of a musician, I found myself pulled to weaving.  It stimulated my brain cells, helped me to look at life with the eyes of a visual artist, and challenged me in many different ways.  Then, in 2006, I got the book Above The Earth.  Casually flicking through this lovely coffee table book, I was taken over by a total certainty that I had now found my genre in weaving - a total expression through weaving of what I am about.  I still have that feeling today, and am aware that this will probably be with me all my life.  Satellite and aerial images of the unpopulated areas of the world, away from the obvious visual physical damage that humans have perpetrated on this lovely planet, inspire me with thoughts of how to affect people’s perception of their world through weaving. 

The limitations of having a theme can be a positive thing - a jumping off point for delving deeper.  Limits are good for stimulating creative thought and lateral thinking.  As a child, how often can boredom develop into imaginative ideas for play, for making something out of materials close at hand.  I know for me as a child that I developed some crazy ideas that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t, but I always had fun finding out. 

Now I have found my theme for weaving, my world is opening up in ways unimaginable to me before. 

Do you have something that inspires you in a similar way?  Do you want one?  Sometimes just thinking about it can help address that overwhelming feeling that can come from too much choice.  Perhaps this week might be a good time to ponder what you want to be your special theme…..

Overshot is wonderful for creating texture.  The secret is to have all the floats on one side only.  Where the floats are not floating, they need to be woven into the fabric.  Bonnie Inouye first taught me this during the online workshop Wendy Morris and I did with her a few years ago.  Once I got the hang of designing that way, I was really pleased with the results! 

Here is an image of one of the samples I did on that workshop.

  This image used a heavy wool overshot yarn to give me weft-ways shrinkage.  This is a bit on the clunky side for me, and once I had got used to designing for overshot, I worked on a series of samples (about 497 in all!!) exploring the possibilities of using overshot on a cotton warp, a worsted warp and a woollen warp, with 3 different finishing treatments, 17 different ground wefts and 3 different overshot wefts!!  I did all that work so you don’t have to!

Whilst I used 24 shafts, this can be done effectively on 8.  You could use it on 4 shafts too.  You want to keep a plain weave going so you need to use traditional overshot threading of alternating odd and even shafts. 

      

The draft on the left has the floats on the surface and the draft on the right is the reverse side, showing the half-tones.

When you are weaving it, it’s much kinder on your loom and your body to turn the fabric so that you weave with the floats uppermost, and thereby don’t have to lift so many shafts. 

The 8 shaft version my first image is using looks like this…

  This follows exactly the same principles as shown in the 4 shaft version, but when you have more shafts, you can use different tie-ups to affect how much of the warp you weave and how much you float over. 

The following images are from a short scarf I did at the end of the long run of samples.  This was on 24 shafts, with a cotton warp of 3/18, and the shrinking overshot yarn is a 2/15 wool.  The ground weft was 2/20 Polyester.  The sample was washed on the wool wash of my front-loading washing machine and then tumble-dried. 

       

The first image shows an area of a straight progression in the lifting plan, and the second image shows where I have used a pointed progression. 

There is so much more I want to explore with this technique, and I hope it’s given you a glimpse into the possibilities…. 

Next week, we’ll be looking at double cloth techniques for texture, and introducing different structures that can be used specifically for texture.

I promised to send attendees at my seminar ”Beneath the Surface” - textures in double cloth, that I would send you the Resources page of my presentation.  If you would like to receive this, please email me at stacey@theloomroom.co.uk and I will email it to you.  If you have a problem receiving it (sometimes US isp’s block UK static addresses, let me know and I will send it via a web-based server. 

Thanks for attending my class and I hope it piqued your curiosity (pun intended!!)

Last week we looked at introducing textural elements into your plain weave to give instant changes.  This week, we are looking at a technique called Warp Repp.  This is a fabric where the warp yarns are so closely sett to each other that the weft yarn cannot be seen.  This is known as warp-faced cloth.

Firstly, a little information on sett and how it impacts your cloth. 

Imagine wrapping your yarn around a ruler so that each new strand touches the one preceding it, so you can’t see in between the strands, but the strands aren’t overlapping each other.  Normally you would use this method to give you the total number of wraps per inch, and then mentally replace some of the threads to allow space for the weft threads to pass through the warp ends. 

For instance, if you wanted to weave a balanced plain weave (which we talked about last week), you would need to create space after each strand so that a weft yarn of the same size could fit through the gap.  If you did that all the way across the inch, you would find that you had halved your original number of strands.  So if we want plain weave, we divide the number of wraps per inch by 2.  That gives you your sett. 

If you wanted to weave a balanced twill weave on 4 ends, that structure needs 2 threads to be adjacent to each other, then a space for the weft, then another 2 threads together, then a space (for 2/2 twill).  Alternatively you might want 3 threads adjacent to each other, then a space for the weft, followed by just 1 warp thread, followed by a weft space.  Either way, you have pushed 2 strands out of the way to create the space for the weft.  Therefore, only 4 out of 6 strands are required for a 4-end twill, so you would divide your total number of wraps per inch by 2/3 to get the sett you would need for twill.  This is very approximate, and varies depending on the weave structure you want to use and the yarns you are using.  If you have hairy yarns( ie mohair), you may need to leave more space for the weft, and for very smooth yarns (such as rayon) you may need to close up the gaps a little.

Anyway, the closer together you sett your yarns, the more warp-faced it becomes.  If the warp is all you can see, that is called warp-faced.  If you can see a little bit of the weft, then it is called a warp-emphasis  fabric.  If you can see equal amounts of warp and weft, then you have a balanced cloth.  If you can see more weft than warp, but you can still see some warp, then you have a weft-emphasis fabric, and when you can only see the weft, and no warp, then it is weft-faced.  Both extremes are very useful for rugs! 

Note:  it is a very useful exercise on its own to do a sample warp where you do a sample with warp-faced, and resley for warp-emphasis, then resley for balanced, then for weft-emphasis and finally for weft-faced.  This gives you an idea of how the different setts can affect your weaving, and the texture differences that are created just through a change in the sett.

Warp Repp

It’s quite fun to have two different colours, or combinations of colours, in your warp and to sley them so closely that you can use thicker and thinner weft yarns to create colour ridges.  This is called warp repp, and to do this you need to put one colour (or combination) onto two shafts, and the other on two more shafts, and sley them through the reed twice as closely as you would for a normal balanced weave.  Once you have done this, you weave using the two shafts with one colour as if they were one shaft, and alternating them with the other two shafts with the other colour. 

 Warp  1

 

 

 

Warp 2

 

 

  

Why bother putting the two colours on 4 shafts?  Why not just use 2?  Well, if you put the threads that closely together so that the weft yarn doesn’t play any visual part on the surface on the fabric (other than its thickness making one colour warp more prominent) then it is really hard to lift all the warp ends you want in one colour without snarling them up with the other colour.  4 shafts enables you to spread the threads out just a little, and raise one shaft first to raise half the threads you want, and then the other shaft to raise the other half, before putting the weft yarn through.  

The fun comes here with the varying of the thickness of the weft yarn.  Basically the weft yarn just sits in between the two different layers of colour which alternate being on the top or the underneath of the fabric.  If you use two wefts of similar thickness, both warp colours have equal prominence.  Don’t forget that the weft yarn won’t be seen except at the edges where it turns round to go back into the next pick because the warp yarns are so close together. 

 

However, if you change the thickness of one or both of the weft yarns, so that one is much thicker than the other, you change the emphasis on the colour showing on one side of the fabric.  The opposite colour will show more on the other side of the fabric.  If you create a thicker weft yarn by doubling, tripling or quadrupling the number of strands of weft in one pick, you can vary the amount of colour showing on one side at will.  If you choose to graduate the thicker yarn so it gets thinner over a period of several picks, whilst the thinner yarn gets thicker over the same period, you will effectively be changing over the predominance of the colour on one side, with the reverse happening on the other side.  This is what I did here….

 

 

 Warp repp side 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

         Warp repp side 2                                                           

If your warp happens to include some textured yarns in it, then there is even more interest in the appearance of the fabric.  However, do be aware that because it is sett so close together, textured warp yarns might well be hard to separate into their respective layers. 

These illustrations are from a series of samples I developed from a greetings card.

    

In the process of weaving one of the samples, I made an error.  I was not a happy bunny about this mistake at the time, but the next day, with a cooler head and a more objective eye, I realised that this mistake could be turned into a distinctive feature and here is the result.

Sunset at Sea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The moral of this is that there are no mistakes in weaving, merely opportunities, which is what my first weaving teacher told me in my first week of weaving.  What a mantra to live by!!

Next week, combining different setts to get different effects.

In future weeks, I shall be introducing one of my favourite simple weaves - honeycomb, introducing you to overshot for texture, crepe weaves and woven shibori.  Later blogs will include creating texture in double cloth. 

Please feel free to share the blog with your weaving friends.  The more the merrier!

 

© Stacey Harvey-Brown 2010

 

You’d have thought we’d all have had enough of volcanoes just recently, wouldn’t you?  But it seems I just can’t help myself!  I’m now weaving them!  Yesterday it was dunes and waves, today it’s volcanoes! 

I was watching The Wonders of the Solar System on BBC iplayer last night - The Thin Blue Line episode - and I was struck time again by the textures of both volcanoes and their inverted form, craters.  The creasing, pleating and puckering on the side walls, the pinnacle or central depression. 

I looked back through some textural weaving samples I’ve done previously, and decided I could adapt them into volcanoes, so that’s my challenge for the day.  If successful, I’ll show them alongside the dunes and waves in my lectures in Complex Weavers seminars and Convergence, the Handweavers Guild of America’s biennial conference, at Albequerque this July.  If they’re not successful, I’ll try again with a different technique!!

 Nature is just wonderful for inspiration - as is the BBC!  And National Geographic, and Discovery Channel….  It’s amazing any work gets done with all this beauty around us.  All we have to do is look.

And then work out a way to weave it!

I went to a wonderful lunch party yesterday with one of my students, her husband, sister and friends.  It was an amazing collection of people.  After a delicious lunch with home-grown soup and salad (try growing a soup and see how that goes for you!!! <G>)   we all indulged in a little show and tell.  As the first person started to speak, I noticed that two four-letter words were already creeping insidiously into the conversation. 

These two quite often do.  They are pernicious wolves masquerading as lambs.  They subversively undermine the words that follow them.  They negate skill and creativity.  They are words we use subconsciously, self-deprecatingly, almost false modestly, which don’t help us in the slightest.  Neither word is inherently bad.  Both have other meanings which have positive meanings.  But in this context, those two words are poison!! 

The first word is ‘just’. 

The positive take on ‘just’ is “imminently, directly” and as such is very positive - you’re going to take action in the immediate future….  That’s great! 

However, in everyday parlance, especially amongst women (and Brits tend to be realllllly good at this!!), I’ve noticed, ‘just’ denigrates every achievement that it is used in conjunction with. (Ooch - ouch!  Terrible grammar - sorry!!) 

“This is just something I made” meaning ‘this took me hours and hours of painstaking work” translates into reality as “this isn’t worth your notice, I’m not a serious artist, I play at this, it’s a hobby, don’t take it seriously”. 

And we use it unconsciously all the time!  Having heard it used a couple of times in connection with some exquisite machine embroidery, I had to stop the proceedings and ask for the two words to be removed from our vocabularies for the duration of the show and tell.  From that point on, we were all consciously aware of when it was used, how often it was used, and how it affected not only the person saying it, but those listening as well. 

The other word that has a similar effect is ‘only’. 

“It’s only a small piece”, could mean “I’ve got larger pieces at home, but this is all I could carry”, but it often translates as “I can’t do anything larger/more intricate/ more polished”.  ‘Only’ can be a call-to-action word when it is used to imply scarcity - “There are only 3 more places left on this seminar” or “Only 5 more hours to get your order in before the sale ends”…..  You get the idea.  Let’s leave ‘only’ as a call-to-action, and not as a negative, somewhat pathetic word implying lack of skill, willpower, talent, creativity.

I’m on a crusade!!  Will you join me in doing what we can to eliminate these two words from their negative connotations?  Will you be aware of how often you use these words in the course of your conversation?  Will you see if you can find alternative, more accurate ways to describe what you do?  What we mean when we use these words is quite often so different to how they are interpreted.  Surely we owe it to ourselves to ensure that our audience, whether it is one person, or a conference, understands what we are saying without the gnawing effects of those two gremlins.

How about saying, “There are …. stages I go through to create this work”, rather than “I just do this, and then this, and then this”. 

Can we re-frame our language to eradicate ‘just’ and ‘only’ used in these contexts?  Yes, I think so. 

I have largely managed it.  And one thing I have noticed from doing it - my self-confidence has grown, and I’m prouder of my achievements in my weaving.  I am no longer apologising without knowing it.  I am no longer denigrating myself and my accomplishments in front of others.  If they don’t like what I do, fair enough.  If they don’t appreciate what efforts go into the work, that’s up to me to educate, entertain and encourage their interest. 

I am no longer going to sabotage - yes, sabotage! - my own talents and skills.  There are enough people out there waiting to knock down people who want to succeed.  Don’t let you be your own worst enemy!!

I originally wrote this entry a year ago, and was thinking about this very subject this week when my son and I were having a philosophical discussion on “how do you know when you know yourself?”  In trying to put down in words what we were discussing, I got myself into knots, and deleted the whole thing, when I suddenly had the impulse to look at articles I’ve written but not yet published.  And there, right at the top, was this!  Serendipity at work!  Enjoy….

“Know Yourself”

This is a local secondary school’s motto near where I live, and it always gets me shaking my head.

I can’t say too much about this other than to say that the children really don’t get time to know themselves!  But what I wanted to think about today is how this short phrase applies to each of us individually.  Do we really know ourselves?

There are certain things I know about myself because of how I feel in certain situations.  For instance, I have an intense dislike of confrontation and will sometimes not stand up for myself or seek to turn a conversation to avoid confrontation although these days I would not go so far as to compromise myself or my principles.  But the flip side to this is that I have a very active (or overactive) sense of fair play.  If someone else is suffering an injustice, I leap in to defend them even at the risk of personal injury!  Now how does that equate??  In Homer SImpson’s immortal words – Doh!!

Why do I do that?  Is it a sensible thing to do?  No – usually not!  But somehow I can’t seem to help myself!  Choices.  No-one can say whether any choice is right or wrong.  We have laws and social codes but they are only guides, and they can change over a period of time as society itself changes.  We each live by our own personal codes, so we can only judge each other seen from our own standpoint.  Also our own perspective changes as we mature (age!) and we can choose (if we wish) how to react to any situation. When we are born we seem to be hard-wired with one disposition or another but as we get older we can sometimes develop into the opposite of that. 

So I’m back to where I started.  And how do we get to know ourselves? 

For me, it’s spending time on my own.  Lots of time.  Thinking.  Reading.  Weaving.  Thinking some more. 

Also it’s spending time with other people.  Lots of different people in different situations.  Watching. Listening.  Talking.  Listening some more. 

I’m not a social animal by nature.  However, give me a group of people with the same interests – weaving, philosophy, travel, readers, writers, music, theatre – and I’m as gregarious as anyone else.  It’s like heads and tails, chalk and cheese.  And I don’t think I’m alone in this.  I cultivate what I’d like to become – so I don’t watch violent movies.  I read to expand my mind and my soul.  I travel to learn more and experience more about the world.  I walk with my dog and examine closely the nature I see around me.  I weave because I love art, and weaving and experimenting fulfils my soul. 

I don’t know if what I do really helps me to know myself.  All I do know is that I like doing these things and I feel that I’m getting to know myself.  And perhaps that’s all any of us can aspire to. 

The words and music from The King & I, “Getting to Know You”, are running through my head now.  Perhaps it is more about getting to know others and finding through that that we get to know ourselves.  Hmmm.  I’d be interested in your thoughts…… 

I know I’ve said it before, but Sunday is a good weaving day for me.  I don’t know what it is about Sunday that makes it feel different from the other days in the week, but I often find I get into my weaving and that it flows easily on a Sunday.  Today was a good one again.  I had a piece of Tchaikovsky running around in my head (one of the movements from Symphony 5 or 6 – the one that goes da/ra- dadaa/- da da /dara da/da;- da /ra-dadaa/-dadaa/- dadaaaaa;- da/ra-dadaa/- dada /dara da /da;- da /ra- dadaa/- dadaa/- dadaaaaaa.  Da/ra-dadaa/-da da/da da da/-da da /daa da/daa da/daaa/~~~da/ra-dadaa/-da da/da da daa/-da da /daa da/daa da/daaaaa  repeat….   Did you get that???? <G> Handy hint – it’s in 3!)

Anyway, it was providing me with a good weaving rhythm and my legs and my arms were working in perfect synchronicity.  My selvedges were perfect, the beat was pretty even and I was ‘in the zone’.  I just love times like that!! 

After this lovely session of weaving, when I took the dog for a walk this evening, I was thinking about rhythm and I remembered listening to the shower this morning whilst I was drying myself.  It was dripping – as showers always do after they’ve been switched off – and whilst it was mostly fairly regular, there would suddenly be a short period where it went erratic and whilst I was listening, it did one of those irregular patterns – it sounded exactly like the rhythm at the end of Tchaik 5 or 6 before a dramatic pause (the new listener in audience always thinks the piece has finished and starts to clap!!) just before the final coda.  Anyway, this particular section just before the pause is one of those nightmare bits that you really have to know by heart as a performer and I always feel for the poor percussionist on the cymbals – it has to be the career ending part for them if they get it wrong ! – and the rhythm seems totally random.  Now, where did Tchaikovsky get that idea from?  Was he suddenly aware of his shower dripping or did he hear it as rain drops splashing off a tree?  Or something else?    

This kind of sudden thought always makes me smile and that put me in mind of a sudden thought I had whilst walking Charlie earlier this week.  We are very fortunate to have hedgerows criss-crossing the countryside here, delineating the field boundaries, and most of those hedges are of hawthorn.  This time of year, of course, we can actually see into the hedge itself, and I love to spot the rabbit holes and other roosting places of various animals.  What made me smile was when I saw about 3 or 4 rabbit holes all clustered together under a tree, I had a sudden recollection of a childhood memory.   I used to read the cartoon books of Rupert Bear, with his red jumper and yellow checked trousers and scarf, and his friends who were other sorts of animals like badgers, mice, foxes, as well as people such as the Professor and Tiger Lily, a Chinese girl, and imaginary creatures such as fairies, elves, pixies and the like.  They used to disappear down rabbit holes into caverns and wonderful homes under tree roots.  In a way it was related to Alice In Wonderland  (another book I love) and the cartoon still appears in the Daily Express newspaper.  It was put into book form and I loved the adventures of Rupert Bear.   His parents would give him good advice and morals – you know the sort of thing – and were always fair!!!! 

I love the feelings that these kind of thoughts and memories evoke.  The sudden warmth of that memory not only made me smile, it made me very thankful for books and imagination, and authors.  We have so many creative people to thank for making our lives more beautiful – composers, writers, artists.  I guess I’d also like to be a creative person who makes other people’s lives more beautiful through weaving. 

 

I’ve written this blog several times now.  The first time round I was reflecting on Christmas, then I decided that what I’d written was probably too controversial!  The second time, I was talking about change but felt that was also too provocative!  (Ironic, isn’t it?  Something which purports to document the writer’s thoughts and yet I feel I have to censor so I don’t offend anyone!!!  What does that say about me?!)  So I’ve decided to write about a book I’ve just read which seems to me to be a great message for this time of year.

The book is The Year We Seized the Day.  It was written by Elizabeth Best and Colin Bowles, both living in Australia, and was given to me by fellow weaver and friend Agnes Hauptli.  In it are passages of reflection, and of hope for the future.  The book is about walking the Camino, the road to Santiago.  Other writers have written about it too. Most notably for me was Paulo Coelho, in his book The Pilgrimage.  Fellow weaver Louise Lemieux Berube has also walked the road to Santiago.

It’s just started to snow here.  I’m surprised because, although everywhere else in the UK seems to have had bucketloads of snow this winter, so far we have escaped.  Ice, yes, but snow no.  Whilst others have been snowed in and struggled to get around, we have been smugly driving, walking, shopping.  But it seems that that is about to change as it is coming down thick and fast!  And I haven’t even walked the dog yet!!  That’ll teach me for reading a book and writing this blog before getting washed and dressed!! 

Weaving wise, it’s been a quiet time.  Not because I’ve not got any ideas - far from it!  My brain is bubbling with all the things I want to try!!  But, I managed to aggravate an old spinal injury by putting my reading glasses on the audio speakers, just like I do every day, only this time I twinged something which has put me out of action for a week so far!  Poor Dad, the first time he visits in 7 years, and all the plans I had for things for us to do together completely scuppered!  The plus side, I have had time to do some reading - all the magazines that arrived before Christmas have been read, as have several books! 

Also weaving wise, I want to pay tribute to a wonderful weaving friend, Pat Williams.  Pat died shortly before Christmas and will be sorely missed.  A lovely, gentle, walking encyclopedia of weaving, with humour and generosity of spirit, Pat was a stellar teacher and an encouraging mentor.  We shared a room at the Jacquard conference in North Carolina last January and had a great time.  Although I knew of Pat’s health problems, she never wanted to talk about them, preferring to focus on more positive things.  Pat, you will be missed by all who knew you. 

I’ve got a little out of sync with my blog postings.  Next week I’m off to Kuwait for a week of lectures and workshops, so I’m not sure whether I’ll manage to post anything from there, but if not, you’ll hear all about it when I return.  In the meantime, I hope 2010 will bring at least some of your hopes and dreams alive.