This was my entry in a competition. I am so very pleased with it, I learned a lot (Clasped weft, which allowed me to form the Pyramid, was new to me) and I am quite proud that I ended up solidly in the middle of the pack after all the voting was complete. This piece has a umercerized cotton warp, and a mercerized cotton weft which is doubled in the central Pyramid section.
I really, really love my job. I get to work on (mostly) my own schedule, which means that I have time to take care of myself and my family, as well as working. Granted, the payday schedule is a bit erratic, and the boss (me) sometimes pushes me too much, or not enough, but I get to spend my days designing custom pieces, playing with fiber, and drowning in colours.
This is a good life for me. I love it.
But (and isn’t there always a but??), it means that I rarely weave “spontaneously”. I use that word loosely, because the process of handweaving is anything BUT spontaneous, with its needy personality requiring detailed planning for things to work out, and to end up with a lovely finished product, and noone in tears.
My version of spontaneous is this:
My loom is empty. (This rarely happens, but once in a while, I weave a little faster, and a design goes a little slower than expected). I have to fill it. An empty loom means an unhappy weaver, and that just does noone any good.
I say to myself “Hey! I get to fill it up with something fun!”
Oh. What should I weave? Those tea towels I need for an upcoming housewarming? The shawl that I want to do for a grieving friend? The scarves that I committed to weaving for a charity function?
It isn’t that I don’t have any ideas, it is that I have TOO MANY ideas. The choices are staggering. So many things I want to weave, and the decisions don’t stop with WHAT to weave, what colour(s) for warp and weft, what fiber, what draft? I have so many projects and drafts marked “for later” with sticky note flags,, my weaving bookshelf resembles a technicolour cartoon porcupine!
Last week I had this exact thing happen.
I won’t lie to you, I was paralysed with choices. My mind literally spun in circles, debating the merits of this project over that, this fiber that I want to sample with versus the beautiful warp I have been hoarding for a special occasion…….
I COULD NOT, for the life of me, decide what to weave. My loom was empty for two days. The proverbial storm was brewing, and I needed to stop it quickly.
So I chose to NOT choose. I chose ALL the colours!
I went into my yarn cupboard, and randomly (truely randomly, I actually closed my eyes!) picked out the number of yarns that I needed, and put them on the spool rack in that same order. I ended up with some doubts. Did that orange belong next to the purple? Would the pink play well with the orange and grey? I decided to throw caution to the wind, and as the slogan says, “Just do it”.
I couldn’t be happier with the result, it is a happy, happy fabric, that makes me proud of myself for letting go of control.
I will never be able to weave this exact piece again, but it was a ton of fun to weave, and I will definitely be doing this type of “experimental warp” again.
Rock Lake Weaving 