So do I weave to sell? Well, no. I don't really need the money, although it feels like "free" money that I can spend on more weaving toys. I didn't like the pressure this year to produce salable scarves, so I don't really want to weave the same commercially acceptable things over and over. I don't really want to bother with an Etsy shop or anything like that, because it's a lot of non-weaving bother. On the other hand, do I really want bins and bins of stuff I've woven cluttering up the house (did you see the video of the Dutch woman who had knit 500 sweaters in the past 65 years - 500 sweaters that had never been worn?)?
OK, so do I weave for the recognition? You know - oh, Lynn, you weave beautiful scarves! and all that. Well...yeah, that's part of it. I'm always a little starved for attention, alas, a result, I think, of being one of five kids (in nine years, yikes).
So, why weave, when I could do something else that's more likely to bring attention? Well, I've always liked the interaction between color and pattern, particularly small bits of each. And fabric/fiber/yarn. So of course, I've finally found my way to weaving. I love plotting out a project. I love dressing the loom. I love taking a finished piece of cloth off the loom and dancing around with it - and then you get to wash it and gasp in amazement at how much better it is than when it came off the loom. I love putting cones of yarn together and squinting to imagine how they'd weave up together. I love reading weaving books and books about ethnic textiles. I love the interaction between the intellectually challenging parts of weaving - grasping how a weave structure works, calculating the yardage, sett, etc. - and the tactile and visual parts of making cloth.
There are no doubt more aspects to why I weave, but this gets to the heart of it, I think, and thus I think I can fairly quickly move past the disappointment of not selling more scarves.
However, this mental exercise makes me think that in 2013, I ought to weave mostly for the sake of exploration. Just wander through sample after sample, trying out color interactions, different yarns, loom-controlled weave structures along with handwork, and so on. Play, in other words.
But grown-up play, to a certain extent. One of the books I bought recently is Virginia West's Swatch Book. It's a spiral-bound book with 20 swatches of actual fabric, woven by Ms. West, plus instructions for weaving and comments on possible uses. Here are a couple of photos, to give you an idea:
I'm thinking it would be a useful exercise to make a swatch book for myself this coming year, with copies for you all, if you want. Making such a notebook will help discipline my explorations. Whether I make nine projects a quarter or only one, keeping organized samples seems like a good idea for many reasons.
What do you think?
Are you me?
ReplyDeleteIt has annoyed me for centuries (yes! I am old!) that in order to be taken seriously in any endeavor, one has to sell, or make money in some way. It is inculcated in our little cells, so when we are asked to sell something, or we have sold something, we feel validated.
In a former life, I must have been one of those gentlemen scientists, who scienced (is so a word!) for the sheer pleasure of it.
Your sampling will lead you (I am supremely confident) to what you want to do with weaving, whatever that is. I sampled with 8 yard lengths of cotton fabric for years, until I switched to silk. I sampled with color and dyeing, until I knew it upside down and backwards (and this! from a history major).
Now, I weave with confidence, enjoy every bit of the process, and because I (like you) do not need to make a living from it, I am happy to pass on what I know to any- and everyone. At which I make a modest sum every now and then, enough to keep me at it, buy more stuff and not have to sell.
Go you.
I am you - you don't remember the cloning procedure? You thought it tickled a lot....
DeleteI wish all this weaving stuff were indeed sheer pleasure all the time. Recently, there seems to be a large element of Burden to it. I'm hoping that's only because I foolishly make commitments to others (let's just ignore this blog, shall we?), rather than just playing because play is fun. And I must say that, even though some of my recent weaving endeavors have been frustrating or boring, I still keep dreaming up new things I want to try, and winding more warps, reading more books, making more lists, writing out more project details, and so on. I guess I'm figuring out what parts of weaving I'm NOT that interested in.
I love this idea - but I also know that it won't work for me. My sample book will, eventually, be an outcome of the sampling process that ended up becoming a finished thing. Because goals are what help me to set a boundary for my samples. Too many choices leads to no work at all; at least for me.
ReplyDeleteI also love your last statement in that you're figuring out what you're NOT interested in. This, to me, is just as important as knowing what you are interested in. The other side of the coin, if you will. It's the "been there, done that" aspect that frees you from the burden of having to spend more time. It's another way to narrow and focus. Being able to say "no" makes it easier to say "yes". :-)