No Boredom Allowed

Just cut the four scarves I wove yesterday and today off the loom.  Unfortunately my camera really didn't want to do the colours justice so this photo doesn't show what the scarves actually look like.  But what I wanted to show was that, just because you are weaving a 'long' warp, the items don't have to look the same.

This painted warp was pretty consistent in terms of colour and value - by simply changing the weft colour different looks are the result.

No, I don't get bored.  I do get tired, but that's a different thing entirely.

Someone once asked me if I didn't get bored winding a long warp.  "No warp, no weaving, no food."

Winding a warp, dressing the loom, throwing the shuttle - all are necessary to bring my fibre dreams into reality.  Each part of the task is necessary.  None can be left out or skipped over.

Weaving - the physical part of it - is as much a mind set as anything else.  If someone truly finds one part of weaving 'boring', there are several things that can be done.

Give it up.  If weaving isn't something that is enjoyable, find something else that is.

Find a weaving buddy to help with the parts that are 'tedious'.  Help each other with the parts that aren't as enjoyable as the others.  Company always makes things more pleasant, I find.

Pay attention.  Boredom is giving up paying attention to what is happening and allowing one's thoughts to wander to future (or past) events.  Stay focused on the task at hand.

Attempt to become more efficient at what is being done.  In other words, take something that is slow and tedious and speed up how quickly it is being done.  Less time for boredom to set in if the task is done more quickly!

Use it as a working meditation.  Feel the physical act.  Be at one with what is happening with your body.

Above all, remember that how we feel about something is a choice.  We can choose to be bored, or to engage ourselves fully in the task at hand.  We can choose to dread doing something (beaming a warp) or figure out how to make the task less of a mountain and more of a molehill.  We can choose happiness in spite of the things life dishes up.  We can choose to stay entangled in something that isn't working, or cut our losses and move on to something else.

In the end, I absolutely refuse to be 'bored'.  Now that truly is a waste of time!