Finding My Voice

the two 'faces' of the cloth - the white side will wind up as the 'back' side but it's easier to weave as there are fewer shafts to lift this way...

Before I started weaving I did many textile crafts, learned at my mother's knee - almost literally.  In spite of knowing that she designed many things herself, I worked from patterns.  Oh sure, I'd change the colour, adjust the size a bit, but essentially I followed the work of someone else.

Until I met weaving - or should I say, my weaving instructor who would not allow us to simply follow someone else's design.

At first the design decisions were daunting and even a bit frustrating (just tell me what to do, don't make me figure it out, dammit!) but suddenly I began to see that everything was in my control.  I could choose what colours and where they were placed.  I could choose what set which would affect the drape of the cloth.  I could choose what weave structure.  I could even control how that weave structure was laid out in terms of the threading sequence and I could absolutely control the treadling sequence to get the design to happen where I wanted it to.

The more I learned, the more I knew - with a certainty - that there was so much more to learn.  How exciting!

Once I learned how weave structures worked in theory I could apply that knowledge to creating my own cloth.  Weave structures have been around for thousands of years - there's not much to change in how threads interlace.  There are only so many ways to make a set of threads go over and under another set of threads, after all.  But when you add in colour, texture, density, well the options are limitless.

The greatest gift weaving has given me is that of finding my own creative voice.

Currently reading Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series - a recommendation from Dana Stabenow