Tag Archives: Creativity

Prerequisites

17 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by in creating, Weaving Inspiration

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Blue and Red Towels off the loom

I’ve often done things the hard way, mostly because of impatience.

In high school, most students took Literature before they took Creative Writing. Except me. I insisted on taking Creative Writing first, then had to go back and take Literature the next year anyway. Would’ve done better in the proper order.

As a college freshman, I thought Prehistoric Archeology looking interesting, but Anthropology 101 was a prerequisite. When they removed the prerequisite, I jumped right to the course I thought I wanted without any real understanding of what prehistoric archeology was. There’s a reason for prerequisites.

Prerequisites in weaving are necessary too. While it’s fun to jump right in and weave something wonderful, eventually you have to know how to design your own project and dress the loom by yourself. Understanding how the threads interact and how drafts work helps determine which weave will work best for your project.

I admire weavers who study a weave structure and know how it works. I mean really know how it works. Through examination and practice (the prerequisites), they build an instinct about the weave. They can look at a sample of that weave and know right off the bat how it was threaded, how it was treadled.

There’s a weaver in our study group who weaves M’s & O’s and ripsmatta. Paula knows M’s & O’s and ripsmatta. Mary Jane can look at a block weave and before too long figure out exactly how many blocks were used and how they were threaded. Jenny is delving into tapestry and has created some amazing little treasures as she adds to her already-expansive weaving skills.

I want to be like them when I grow up.

Opphämta on the Loom

There are so many weave structures that I skipped through in my weaving journey. One or two projects does not give a very firm foundation. On my way to twill and damask, I skimmed over brocade, lace, crackle, summer and winter, pile weaves, trying only a few token samples before moving on. So earlier this year, I decided that yes, I can go back and work on those weaving prerequisites. It’s never too late to make resolutions and review the wealth of ways threads intersect.

In between my usual projects this year, there’ll be lots of reading and lots of sampling. The goal is to expand skills that have become maybe a little too routine, a little too predictable. What better way to freshen perspective than to go back and catch those weaving prerequisites?

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Learning Experiences

04 Friday May 2018

Posted by in creating, Designing

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We’ve all had them—challenges that derail the day, slow down the process, defy expectations. It’s the picture that turned out squashed. Or the warp that wasn’t quite long enough for that last towel. Or the blanket that came off the loom in a flourish only to reveal a treadling error in the middle.

Twill Gamp Blanket

Twill Gamp Blanket

As I was growing up, I heard more than once — much more than I wanted to hear — “Chalk it up as a learning experience.”

It’s a “glass half full vs. glass half empty” way of looking at things but without those learning experiences, we’d miss so many serendipities!

This spring I’m experimenting with some structures and experiments are all about seeing “what if…?” It’s a learning experience on purpose.

For the first time that I can remember, I actually wove a “gamp.” My dictionary defines gamp as a large baggy umbrella, used humorously. In weaving terms, a gamp is a sampler: thread 4 or 5 different threadings and colors, treadling as drawn in. It’s a fun way to try out different looks. My baby blankets sported 5 different colors in 5 different 8-shaft twill threadings and treadlings. Fun!

Except for that pesky treadling error right in the middle of the middle block! Learning experience. Perhaps that blanket will be cut up into bibs. Perhaps I’ll keep it as a twill reference.

On the drawloom, the barn picture went through several variations. The proportions of first one off the loom seemed off to me. Back to the digital “drawing board.”

I’ve read in Alice Schlein and Bhakti Ziek’s The Woven Pixel (2006 Bridgewater Press, available on Handweaving.net) that to get the woven picture to truly reflect the graphed design, you have to adjust the size of those little squares to the proportion of your weave structure. While their discussion was aimed at computerized weaving, I adapted their advice to my simple sketchpad drawing, making the squares – well, less square. After all, how many woven fabrics are perfectly balanced warp to weft?

After three or four more tries, I’m closer to the proportions I envisioned. And along the way, I played with different elements in the actual design. Slight differences, but all adding to the whole.

Barn in Progress

Barn in Progress

I’m learning to slow down on my assessments. So what if I ran out of warp for a towel? Can it still be woven up into something else—a napkin? A table mat? A wash cloth? It’s a fallacy to expect a project to turn out perfect on the first try.

I share this because I don’t think I’m alone here. As makers, we have this ideal we aim for and if it doesn’t turn out like that ideal, we feel like it’s a failure. Not so! Sometimes we have to walk away from it for a while in order to look at it with different eyes.

I’m learning to walk away for a bit. Give the warp time to tell me what it should be.

Try it with your next challenge. And enjoy the learning experience!

Pleasant Thought

19 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by in Designing

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“Proper ornamentation…is pleasant thought expressed in the speech of the tool.”

Detail of opphämta borders

Detail of opphämta borders

Pleasant thought, the speech of the tool. What a lovely way to describe design well-conceived, craft well-done. Authors from earlier generations certainly had a way with words!

The editor who wrote that line, W. R. Lethaby, is referring to good design. He penned his view in the late Arts and Crafts period in his Editor’s Preface to Hand-Loom Weaving Plain and Ornamental by Luther Hooper (Pitman and Sons, 1925 available on Handweaving.net). It reflects the value of traditional craftsmanship but his premise is still well worth considering.

“Workmanship when separated by too wide a gulf from fresh thought—that is, from design—inevitably decays, and, on the other hand, ornamentation, divorced from workmanship, is necessarily unreal, and quickly falls into affectation.”

Various towel designs

Various towel designs

I can weave warp after warp and be technically sound in the weaving, but if I don’t put some thought into the design—color, structure, presentation—it will inevitably become tired. It’s no longer “pleasant thought.” My weaving has to grow.

On the other hand, if I push experimentation too far, making the “ornamentation” the focus, the fabric won’t serve its intended purpose and sounds a sour note. It is trying too hard to be what it’s not. It becomes “divorced from workmanship.”

There are many definitions of good design. What I consider good design may differ from your perspective, but across the spectrum of definition, something that is well-conceived, well-executed stands out.  The tools we use may differ, but they all express our sense of design.

This concept goes way beyond what to put on the loom next or what to offer in a sale line. This can – and should — inform our whole design process.

My weaving springs from what I find pleasant. My tool is the loom. What tool do you use to express your pleasant thought?

Passing It On

24 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by in creating, Knitting, Nostalgia

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We as humans seem wired to want to pass things on to the next generation. We tell our children about our family heritage. We save heirlooms to hand down.  We hope our children remember all the things we tried to teach them. And sometimes they even learn things we unintentionally model.

I did not learn to knit or weave or sew from my Mom. She was a busy farm wife, mother, and freelance writer without much leisure time. But I saw that she sewed, she knit, she wove when something was needed, and I wanted “to do that too.” However, I learned to knit and sew and weave in 4-H and later in school.

The Knitting Lesson

The Knitting Lesson

As a young mother myself, I wanted my children to know how to work with their hands. I wanted to share with them the pleasure of making something themselves. But I also did not want to force them. I did not want to make it a dreaded project. So I crafted around them, asked them from time to time if they wanted to try, and if they showed interest, I showed them. Now I wish I had been more tenacious. None of my four has taken up knitting needles, shuttle, or fiber. That may soon change.

My daughter’s family just left after a week’s visit. In between trips to parks and reading stories, one granddaughter asked to learn how to knit. So I picked out some bright green yarn from the stash, a pair of easy-to-handle needles and off we went. She stuck to it and today before they left, she cast off a nice little sample piece.

I did warn my daughter: now that her daughter is learning to knit, she, too, will have to learn so that she can help her daughter on this adventure. She smiled and nodded.

A turn at the loom

A turn at the loom

Not to be left out, another granddaughter asked how to weave. I have a towel warp on the loom with a bit of warp at the end. So I showed her how to move the treadles and how to throw the shuttle. She wove through one sequence of the twill pattern, then she skipped off to another game. Shorter attention span on that one! Someday, she may try it again. At least she knows whom to ask.

Not every child or grandchild will be interested in fiber arts, but every one we teach will in turn pass along the skills in their own children. It’s been going on for generations.

Pass it on!

Loom Therapy

30 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by in creating, Looms, Weaving Inspiration

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Another damask warp off the loom!

Another damask warp off the loom!

Life happens, and there are seasons when it demands attention. We have all experienced them. Parents age. Children struggle. Friends face crises. Sometimes it’s joyful distractions: weddings, graduations, new jobs, new children–or grandchildren. All these pull at our energies and keep us away from the work of our hands.

In the past, physicians recognized the healing properties of working with the hands. There are images of hospital patients, adults and children alike, weaving at looms, making baskets, painting. Occupational Therapy is only one of many fields in which arts and crafts are used to soothe. Who among us hasn’t found peace in the gentle rhythm of the shuttle or knitting needles?

The past several months have been full of distractions, and yet whenever I sat down at the loom again, it felt so good, so peaceful to throw the shuttle, listen to the gentle thump of the beater, to watch the pattern grown at the fell. And while I was away from the loom, knitting brought some peace at the end of the day. Each row, each stitch, helped unknot the tensions.

Just this past week, I finished a warp that had been on my loom since September. It’s rare for a warp to take that long, but how gratifying to throw the final shot and cut the web! How satisfying to see the yards of damask unfold!

There are other warps that have been languishing as well. I’m looking forward to continuing some linen towels that have been patiently waiting on the Baby Wolf! And then there’s “Junior” waiting to have the shafts properly balanced for the opphämta weave I’ve been wanting to try.

And all of these are my therapy, soothing my mind and soul. Whenever life winds itself up tight, it’s good to pick up the shuttle again and re-center.

What do you do to calm your spirit?

Happiness Is…

17 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by in creating, Looms, Planning

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View from the front, warp chains threaded through the reed.

8-shaft loom, ready to thread

Happiness is discovering that the runner ordered to match a previous purchase was woven on the 8-shaft loom, not the draw loom.

This is a game-changer in terms of how long it will take to weave the order. The draw loom takes way longer to thread than the 8-shaft loom. The current project on the 8-shaft loom takes way less time to weave off than the damask on the draw loom.

The draw loom with damask project

The draw loom with damask project

You would think I’d remember which loom I used to weave a project. After all, I only have the two looms. But once I take one warp off and put another on, my mind moves to the next combination of colors, weaves, and threads.

Throw in the holidays, family obligations out of state, along with another weaving order, and the difference in looms makes me very happy indeed. This is indeed doable!

I hope you find similar fortuitous discoveries during this busy season!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

A Weaving Study — Or “How Did They Do That?”

17 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by in Coverlets, Craft History, Doubleweave, Weaving Inspiration

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For the last couple months, I’ve been reading The Coverlet Book by Helene Bress (2003, Flower Valley Press, Inc., Gaithersburg, Maryland). What a fascinating study of how our forebears elevated necessary household textiles to works of art!

The Coverlet Book by Helene Bress

The Coverlet Book by Helene Bress

Ms. Bress examined early coverlets and coverlet fragments over the course of many years, documenting the weave structures, the materials used, the design elements, and the history of the pieces if available. She recorded her first impressions of each coverlet or fragment, and analyzed the weaving. There were anomalies in some of the pieces and she delved into the possible reasons without passing modern judgement (21st Century weavers like rules that may not have been important to 18th and 19th Century weavers!)

The first volume is on overshot while the second volume covers twill, doubleweave, summer and winter, blended structures, and various other designs. Some coverlets were woven by professional weavers, but many overshot coverlets were woven at home on simple 4-shaft looms with home-dyed wool and homespun cotton or linen. Some of the earliest designs were Monks Belt – two blocks only. From there, the weavers played around with designs and over time, the designs got more and more elaborate.

Seeing the block designs in these volumes just confirms my fascination with traditional pattern weaves. What an array of designs can spring from one threading! How exciting to see how a pattern changes when the threading starts at a different point in the draft!

Doubleweave Placemat in Blue and Yellow

Doubleweave Placemat in Blue and Yellow

My current project has been a snowball and pine tree draft that is fairly common in coverlets. However, instead of weaving the blocks to form those snowballs and trees, I wove the blocks in straight order, one following the other, without combining them. From there the design evolved. This week the third rendition came off the loom. Here the blocks are just treadled in point order—zig zag order if you will. I like this pattern, but it is slower to weave because the blocks change constantly.

As I page through The Coverlet Book, I dream about weaving a coverlet. Maybe…someday…who knows! For now I am inspired and will keep exploring!

Finding Joy in Making

26 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by in creating, Weaving Inspiration

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Works in Progress

Works in Progress

As I head into the holiday season, I once again have a list of projects not yet finished –some not yet started! There’s the hat and mitten set for a grandson, a dress-up skirt for a granddaughter, and the “purple sweater vest with a unicorn” for her sister. I’ve thought of other things I could have made if I had started earlier, and things I wish I could figure out how to make.

This is all part of my genetics. I remember my mother’s handmade gifts and how she set her mind to something and pushed forward until it was done. She’s still at it. Just the other day she was telling me about her latest idea and how she probably wasn’t going to finish it before Christmas. That’s my Mom. I’m determined, though, that I’m not going to stress about my unfinished projects. Those that need to get done, will. Those that don’t, won’t. I want to enjoy the process.

Then I read the latest post on Love Those Hands at Home. Kerry writes about making something because it pleases us, and how that wisdom has guided her endeavors. Her point is that we can make something or embellish something simply because it pleases us. Her words hit a chord with me, especially at this time of year.

I learned from both my parents, hard-working farm people, that handmade gifts are worth the extra effort. As far back as I can remember, there was always some project to finish by Christmas. There were embroidered shirts, handmade baskets, wooden play sets. And then there were the cookies–Mom spent hours in the kitchen making a variety of holiday treats because she loves to bake and she loves to share what she bakes. But that’s the key–enjoying what you are making.

So even though I still have to finish some gifts, I’m looking forward to working on them. And that makes the projects worthwhile.

What projects are you working on? What do you enjoy making?

Production Weaving

26 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by in Planning, Weaving Inspiration

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There are some weaving terms that may mean different things to different people. I think “production weaving” falls into that category.

My Weaving Goal

My Weaving Goal

Sometimes production weaving means putting on long warps to maximize weaving versus set-up time. The longer the warp, the more you can weave before you have to rethread the loom. Other times, it means weaving A LOT of one type of thing. I have come to understand production weaving as weaving with an eye toward time and cost efficiency.

I have friends who put on long warps for towels and then challenge themselves to weave every towel differently. They change the treadling. They change the weft color. They change something in each towel so that they are all related, but different. That takes some planning, but once you get going, it’s exciting to see the warp growing like a flower bed of multi-colored zinnias. And when that warp comes off the loom, it’s fun to see how all the towels work together.

Related but different towels

Related but different towels

My mother once suggested that I weave one item in several different color choices like commercial stores offer. In a way, that’s what those long warps do. They produce several different towels, but all related. However, the difference between the handwoven and the commercial towels is the weaver has the freedom to make small changes in increments, whereas textile factories set up each loom to do one thing and one thing only. Small changes cannot be made without significant effort.

Sometimes I will weave related items as sets. I intentionally combine four different but related napkins in a set. Once I wove a long warp all of different napkins and sold them individually so people could choose what they liked. Some liked this freedom. Others wanted sets of identical items.

I am working on training myself to economize on my time: longer warps, tying on when I can instead of rethreading from scratch for every warp, weaving items in batches. But in the quest to become more efficient in my production, I don’t want to sacrifice the artistry that makes handweaving stand out over commercial fabric.

When you shop, do you like to see a set that has identical members, or do you like variety in your “sets”? Tell me what attracts you.