Sunday, July 5, 2009

The Tally for the Day

Today I:

wove a chenille scarf and finished the warp on the loom
dressed the loom, wove two more scarves
dressed the loom, wove two more scarves
got the next warp attached to the apron beam ready to beam tomorrow
wound skeins to be dyed


next warp - pretty!

I also:
read my book
had coffee with the neighbour where we discussed traditional Swedish upholstery fabric and looked at yarn samples
helped Doug with the bathroom reno
messed about with Facebook

People tell me I'm fast. I guess I am, but then I've made a point of working as efficiently and ergonomically as I can.

Somewhere someone commented that they would love to be a fly on my studio wall. Well, people can actually do that. It was why I produced CD Weaver. The book on cd format allowed me to embed video clips into the pdf document and we literally shot the pictures over my shoulder for most of them. (For examples of two of the video clips, click on the 'video clip' tag to the right, or go to my website, click on Store, then CD Weaver.)

New weavers get so focussed on the cloth they forget that it requires physical skill to weave and that by concentrating on developing good physical skills, good cloth will result. Learning to be consistent will bring a new weaver closer to perfection than obsessing and fiddling with selvedges. It's why I keep telling people that if they can't be perfect, be consistent!

Perfection is just a concept, anyway - a goal to work towards.

Leonard Cohen has an amazing way with words - this verse from one of his songs kind of sums it up for me:

Ring the bell that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything -
that's how the light gets in.

Court perfection, don't try to hunt it down.

2 comments:

Delighted Hands said...

Thanks for the insprations.......loved the video clips, too! You are a great teacher!

Anonymous said...

Great quote! I love those lyrics.