Necessary

Now that the towels are woven and, even as we 'speak' being pressed, it is back to the place mats.

So many people lament that before they can do the 'fun' stuff they have to do the 'awful' stuff.  Stuff like winding a warp.  Dressing the loom.

What they really need is some help.  Help in figuring out why they dislike those bits of the craft so much.  Why the essential prep work required to do the 'fun' stuff has become such a roadblock to their enjoyment of the craft.  Why they struggle so with the part of the process that must be done in order to wind up with cloth.

All of the steps are essential.  Weaving is a multi-faceted craft with many different steps that bring the weaver closer and closer to their goal of a woven structure.

Now, some people find parts of the process difficult because they may have some sort of impediment - physical or mental - but most of us?  Most of us just need to change our attitude, change our process, change our equipment.  Above all, we need to stop doing the same thing we have always been doing and expecting different results!

Now that I have woven for decades, refining my tools, techniques and processes, I pretty much get the results I expect most of the time.  Therefore there is no need for me to change anything.  And yet I do.  Whenever I see a process or tool that I believe will assist me, I will adapt what I am doing, or buy the new tool, even if it means saving up the money to make the purchase.

Warps get wound, beamed, threaded, sleyed and tied on with a minimum of fuss and tangles.

I am practiced.  I am, dare I say it, skilled.  But those skills did not come easily, nor quickly.  There were many potholes and bumps along the way.  There were plenty of errors of judgement, short cuts that turned into disasters, projects that - quite simply - failed.

In the end, if you want woven cloth, you need to, somehow or another, get a warp on the loom.  No warp, no weaving, no cloth.  Simple as that.

Find yourself an 'expert'.  Learn all they can teach you.  Decide for yourself if those lessons are appropriate to the way you want to work.  Change those things that need to be tweaked.  Analyze what you are doing, how you are doing it and the tools you are using.  Change what needs to be changed.  Seek out other 'experts'.  Learn all they have to teach you.  Repeat  And repeat again until you learn enough to become your own expert.

Different looms, different types of cloth, different materials may all require approaching them somewhat differently.  Assemble the books (or whatever resources you are using), tools, materials that support you in what you want to accomplish.

But sometimes the biggest change required?  Attitude.  Sometimes that is the most necessary step of all.