Saturday, February 20, 2010

Productivity


orange all used up - changed to cream - the beauty of a neutral warp!


After a weaving demo at a workshop, a new weaver came up to thank me for the demonstration. Essentially she said that she'd resigned herself to the fact weaving was going to be slow forever, and after watching me weave now realized that with practice she could eventually get faster.

Time is a precious commodity. Very few people have the luxury of taking a long time to make something. Granted some techniques are a lot slower than others, but no matter what someone is weaving, there are efficencies that can be introduced in order to make things flow more smoothly.

The past 3 days I have woven 3 eleven meter long warps. Including winding the warps and dressing the loom.

(Warps were 2/8 cotton, 20 epi, 300 ends. Eleven meters is approximately 12 yards.)

No, I have not been chained to the loom. In fact I would have been disappointed in myself if I hadn't woven off a warp a day. After all, the placemats are only 12 picks per inch. It takes nearly as long to weave the hems as it does the mat itself.

I am happy to pass on my techniques to others, either in person or through CD Weaver (a book on cd with video clips). When I'm teaching workshops I make a point of offering to show people how I hold and throw a shuttle. I think this is the area where I most often see inefficient technique and where - with a little help - most weavers can benefit. Not just in speeding up their weaving, but improving the quality of their selvedges.

There are video clips posted to this blog showing how I hold and throw the shuttle. Click on the label Video Clip to view the videos.

I have about 20 CD Weavers left. They are available at http://LauraFry.artfire.com

1 comment:

Sharon Schulze said...

Laura's stuff is good... very good. One of the things I really like about it is you don't have to have much special equipment like raddles or tension boxes.