Work and spinning commitments (samples and swatches for two different workshops, plus prep for teaching) take up a lot of time at present, but when time and thought processes allow, I am thinking about weaving. On occasion when I've said that before, Someone has told me to spend less time thinking, more time doing (or words to that effect). Lately I've also been thinking about why I'm thinking about weaving, which has led me to think about how I learn and how I create.
To recap: it seemed everyone was weaving nice useful cotton towels, so I thought buying a towel kit was a good plan. No difficult yarn choice, instructions provided - I should be able to just warp and weave. But the kit colours were more garish than the photos suggested, I couldn't get a true plain weave interlacement, samples woven at the suggested epi were sleazy, the bobbins would hiccup and pull the selvedge out of true. The entire thing was terribly disheartening, the more so because there are so many factors I don't necessarily recognise, let alone understand and so many other things my mind and hands have to learn to do together. So after the last sample the loom has sat unsleyed while I thought about what I was trying to achieve. 'Just do it' can be a good plan; it has served me well many times in the past, but has only proved totally reliable for simple tasks or those that require pre-existing skills. I tried 'just do it' with the cotton warp, and it failed me, so now I am Thinking. And Researching. I suspect I am far more ignorant than you realise, you other weavers. For example, I didn't know about Anne Dixon's Four-Shaft pattern directory until last week. Now that I have a copy, I begin to see a way forward with that warp and, in seeing it, I think I have learned something significant about myself and my creativity. I suspect part of my problem is that I've been trying to make something by following the instructions exactly, on the grounds that I'll learn by doing. But 'following instructions' is not creating, in my terms. It's unsatisfying. It's a challenge in the sense that a long, long uphill climb is a challenge: one foot in front of the other for hours on end - but at least at the end of the climb there will be a view! The end result of those instructions is not to my taste: I don't like the colours, I don't like the stripes revealed by my nearest approximation to plain weave. That fabric doesn't inspire me to weave more.
And yet I am constantly thinking about weaving. I am thinking through the issues of warping with handspun cotton singles, imagining fabrics made with the yarns I have to hand, looking at what people are wearing in the supermarket, how the fabric drapes, how the garments are cut. And it just struck me that this is very like the way I approach some of my more daunting professional creative projects. When I don't know how to tackle a project, I circle around it, find different ways to approach and understand facets of the problem and, at the same time, I set the entire thing to simmer on some back burner in my brain. There's a creative impulse driving me to weave, not a desire to follow instructions that make my hands make bad ugly cloth. I want to weave the fabrics I see in my head. They're not plainweave orange-and-purple stripes, they're sultry dark plum, burgundy and indigo twills shot with silk. Sunlight on autumn leaves, re-created as fabric; winter sky seen through blackthorn branches sparkling with snow. My own handspun cotton denim, woven to an 18th century pattern. Each of these is something I have fibre or yarn for. I don't care that warping with handspun cotton singles may make me want to kill something (if only an entire bottle of wine), because I am absolutely certain that if I persevere with it, I will make something worthwhile that is entirely mine.
On the other hand I hate to waste the warp that's on the loom. It's taught me a lot already - I've made more mistakes with it than I thought possible - and I'm fairly sure it can teach me more. But not as garish nearly-plain weave stripes! (sorry, you stripe-lovers). So isn't it fortunate that my one departure from the kit instructions was to thread it for a straight twill? Anne Dixon shows lots of things I can do with that. I may make one more attempt at plain weave to test one more theory. And after watching Madeleine van der Hoogt's weaving tips video I think I know why the bobbins hiccup. So much to learn...
All those words and no pictures except perhaps in your heads. Sorry. I'll do better next time, promise!
You're in MY HEAD! In HERE! :-)
ReplyDeleteI do very similar things when faced with learning something new. Chris gets on me to "Just do it already. Then, when you screw it up, do it again." I don't learn that way. I like to read, think about what I do and don't understand and then get very specific about what I hope to achieve the first time around. Maybe a bit lower risk, but also more likely to get closer to the mark.
I think I'd like to find a place in between. Where I'm not so unwilling to "just do" but not entirely "both feet in."
On another note - why not ask us? I had hoped that mutual aid is something that we'd be able to provide for each other. And, if there are questions, that you'd try passing them on to us in hopes that we'd find/see another path forward. Heck, I'm going to be doing that with you guys once Garment Time comes (that's this weekend, yay!).
Lastly - do you have Davidson's Green Book?
The learning process thing, exactly: when something is clearly very complex, it makes sense to get as much info as possible to increase understanding of that complexity. In general this means less time is wasted making obvious mistakes. I think the 'place in between' comes with experience, as everything you have learned in the past provides a foundation for the next thing you learn. We perhaps don't realise that - do we always feel that the new knowledge is never gained quickly enough to satisfy our desire to DO IT!
DeleteI did ask the FOAY weaving thread a couple of questions when I was desperate. But most of the things I do, from drawing to knitting to tablet-weaving, I taught myself. Learning by doing. I know from experience that there will be more disasters than triumphs, at least at the beginning, and I just have to work through them. The problem here is that I'm at the very beginning of the process, where I often do not know what I do not know; if you read the description of my past weaving experience in my reply to Lynn, you might be able to envisage the vast array of mistakes awaiting me :-)
Also, yes, I have Davidson, which is why I thought to thread a straight twill. But for some reason I hadn't thought about some of the other things in Dixon; I suspect the layout made more sense to me for learning, but I'd need to look again to check that and I have to draw a graph now :-(
DeleteWhen I first started to weave on a four-harness floor loom, I took a class. The class was set up such that my first warp (in colors I chose!) was already on the loom when I walked into the first session. Donna taught us how to weave and provided instructions how to treadle for different twill patterns. She walked us through changing colors, hem-stitching, and advancing the warp, all in that first Saturday morning. Then she sent us home with the loom (a Baby Wolf) to weave off the rest of the five-yard warp before the next Saturday. I behaved myself for a while on that warp, but then started treadling however I wanted, using all sorts of yarns from my stash, not just the 3/2 cotton yarn I was "supposed" to. I'll try to remember to dig out those samples to show you sometime.
ReplyDeleteI say all that because I've found it really illuminating to take off from a known starting point. So, after that class, I would choose some draft in Handwoven that could be woven on the loom I had, and I would try the draft, but in different colors, or in different yarns (so a different sett), or different in some relatively small way. I also chose drafts from Davison (the green book) and tried to weave them. In short, I made lots and lots of rather odd things, with a few successes. Again, I'll try to dig them out to show you, maybe this weekend.
I've never woven a kit. I don't think I've ever woven everything from Handwoven or wherever exactly as written. I've had lots and lots of fun exploring, and I don't beat myself up at all for screwing things up or "wasting" good yarn or anything like that. I figure I'm learning - and I really, really value learning. And that learning is also playing and exploration - So. Much. Fun.
I have, for what it's worth, read EVERYTHING I could get my hands on. I have every issue of Handwoven, and I've read them all every winter, three or four winters now. I have most of the available books and I've read them all. I learned enormous amounts from these books and articles - I think that's why it seems as though I'm more experienced than I am.
I'm glad you're posting, Sarah, even if you have nothing to show us - please write and write and write. I have to go weave the Semi-Sekrit project now, so I won't have anything to show for a week or two, either, but I'll try to post about my early samples somewhere in that period.
My handweaving class introduced us to the mechanics of weaving: we spent most of our time winding weft onto stick shuttles and weaving pre-existing warps on a variety of 4-shaft looms, seeing how pattern and colour worked, and how the fabric changed when it was finished. Warping a loom was demonstrated, and we each had the chance to wind our own warp to take away, if we had a loom at home. That's the sum total of my weaving instruction. Everything else I do, I taught myself. I've never seen a bobbin wound, never seen a shuttle thrown until I watched the video on Monday; I am abysmally inexperienced!
DeleteThe kit was intended as a known starting point, but I hadn't realised how much I didn't know. Ah, well. That is itself a starting point!