One of my former weaving teachers, Madelyn Van der Hoogt, used to say there are two kinds of weavers: color/texture weavers and structure/pattern weavers.

The color/texture people are drawn to – well, color and texture. Their projects bump and bubble with shades and hues, delighting the eyes with a virtual flower garden on the loom.

The structure/pattern weavers gravitate towards those intricate interlacements that take the yarn in elaborate diamonds and laces. How do you get the strict grid on the loom to softly curve in the design?

Like all generalizations, these show opposite ends of the weaving spectrum. Most of us fall somewhere in between the extremes, but may drift toward one end or the other. At one point in a guild meeting, we were discussing this and a friend told me “Oh you’re definitely structure/pattern!”

Hmmm. I hadn’t thought of myself as being so far to that end. But as I scrolled through my weaving pictures, it’s obvious. While I do dabble in color blending and like a bit of texture in my towels, those fancy diamonds and stars show up over and over again.

The lemon napkins with a green twill border.

A similar pattern shows up in some red and blue towels.

There are the double weave placemats with repeating blocks and ovals.

And then there are the small table cloths sporting diamonds, stars, and blocks overall.

Weaver, know thyself.

Right now I have a towel warp on the small loom and my mind wanders while I’m throwing the shuttle.  What can I put on the drawloom that will be more than an exercise in sampling? How can I adapt the elaborate fancy twills from the 18^th century Snavely manuscript into something delightful for the 21^st century? Is there room in our clear-the-clutter culture for decorative textiles?

So my mind wanders. I think a point twill on the 12-shaft loom is beginning to take shape.

Recently someone asked me to design an apron for his business. After some back and forth, I had a clearer idea of what he wanted and started thinking. I pored over graphed motifs from Medieval textiles, paging through for something to start with. Then I worked on adapting the figures to what the customer wanted and what my equipment can weave. All this designing before a thread is woven.

Design is a loaded word.

Design is a verb, “to conceive, to contrive, to invent…to have as a goal or purpose.”

Design is also a noun, “a decorative or artistic work…a visual composition or pattern.”

A design can be a conspiratorial plot or a figure on a business card or a pattern for a dress. Design encompasses every art and craft form, every building plan, every graphic representation. There are whole college programs built around design–none of which I’ve taken.

Planning in the works

To be honest, design can be intimidating. That’s why I approach it through the back door.

The back door is the service door. It’s the one used to bring in the groceries. It’s the door from the garden, the lawn chair, the grill. It’s the door the dog uses.

Pulling inspiration from the library

The back-door path to design uses what is available and builds on that. It reads whatever books are on the shelf, takes whatever classes or workshops come up, researches techniques that might come in handy.

Then when a challenge comes up, all the bits and pieces of design inspiration quietly come in through that back door, sit down at the kitchen table, and whisper that concept into reality. Design through the back door.

How do you approach your design challenges?