Superweaver

 

throwing the shuttle

During my four decades as a professional weaver, I ran into some...interesting...attitudes.  I was reminded of several times I ran afoul of the then Weaving Police as I upgraded my equipment in order to earn an income from my efforts.

I have shared - frequently - some of these anecdotes and challenges and my efforts to help people weave so that they don't injure themselves.

Last weekend I talked about looms and equipment with one of the study groups I lead, and realized that people might take offence at my 'bragging' on how fast I used to weave using the most efficient equipment I could afford.

Thing is, I don't really care how anyone else weaves so long as they are happy with their results.  My goal for the past few years has been to help people understand how their bodies work so that they can continue to weave without sustaining injury.

Weaving ergonomically means NOT working to the point of injury.  So there are approaches to weaving that will aid in being able to weave for many years.  BUT, a person has to know that there might be a 'better' way, a way that will reduce stress to muscles and therefore limit fatigue, which can lead to inflammation, which can lead to injury.

My goal, right from day one, was to earn money from weaving.  My approach then became to figure out how to do that without establishing inflammation in my body.  Because without my body, there would be no weaving at all.  And inflammation takes way longer to heal than a person might think.  So best practice?  Don't get injured in the first place.

My first 'obsession' was with how I sat at my looms.  Developing good posture and position was paramount.  Then shuttle handling.  Once I had those firmly settled, I began looking at my equipment.  I bought - and sold - several looms, none of them quite what I needed.  As I wove more and began selling my work I was aware of the tendency of weavers to 'copy' the work of others.  No big deal, except I was trying to sell unique designs and not have others do essentially the same thing and then undercut my prices.

So I was on the lookout for a more efficient multi-shaft loom when I found dobby looms, then scraped up my pennies so I could attend a conference and shop for a loom better suited to my needs.  I rejected a lot of the looms at the conference, but then sat at an AVL 16 shaft dobby loom with a single box fly shuttle.

The sales person told me that it could be ordered with a double box fly shuttle and an auto cloth advance.  

At that same conference I purchased two books - Production Weaving on a Fly Shuttle Loom by Laya Brostoff and Handloom Weaving Technology by Allen Fannin.  I read both on the bus home and decided I had to find the money to buy the AVL.  Using 16 shafts would mean less copying because at the time most weavers had four or maybe 8 but very few had more than that.  Not to mention I loved fancy twills and was drawn to the idea of being able to peg long treadling repeats and weave more efficiently.

That was 1981 and I got the loom in Feb of 1982.  At which point a whole lot of weavers - all of them older than me (the 'elders' in my community) informed me I could no longer call my cloth handwoven.

By this time though I was dependent upon earning enough money to pay for the loan to buy the loom and every time I took a 'real' job I would find myself in tears as I dealt with doing a job I didn't want to do, doing it just for the money I could earn.  I reapplied myself to designing new textiles, figuring out how to sell them, price them, and continued to call my textiles handwoven - because they were.  My customers weren't other weavers, they were members of the public and what I was actually selling were my designs and my skill at producing them.

I got pretty good at doing it, enough that at times handwoven textiles were our only income.  And I wove.  A lot.  And I continued to refine my processes and equipment.  And I got very, very fast at weaving.  So fast that when I would tell people how much I could produce, they either didn't believe me or thought I was bragging.

The very first time I posted a video of myself at the loom weaving - on a regular handloom, not the AVL - the first comment was 'well, that was interesting but I don't understand why you speeded up the video.'

Um, I actually slowed down my weaving rhythm so that people could more easily see what I was doing.

Some people felt I was trying to brag, or claim some kind of superweaver status, or make out like I was trying to claim some kind of notoriety for being Speedy Gonzales or something.  Like I was trying to make others feel bad because I was 'better' than they were.

That was not - and never has been - my intent.  The very last thing I want to do is make others feel bad.  I just want to show that people do not have to work artificially slowly just because they are using equipment that isn't designed well, or for them.  Looms come in different sizes, and there are looms that are simply impossible for some weavers to comfortably work on.  A very tall person is going to need a different loom than a very short person - or else accommodations are going to have to be made. 

If a person is not aware of these things, they can wind up with a less than satisfying experience, simply because they don't know why something isn't working and they can't then make the necessary adjustments.

Over the years I have repeatedly gotten Doug to make adjustments to my equipment.  From changing brake systems on the Leclerc Fanny to re-engineering parts of the AVL.  When some people find out these adaptations have been made they are shocked and in some cases express concern that we would drill holes to add extra spacers to keep the beater away from the shafts, for example.  A loom is a wooden machine and holes can be filled.  Or maybe the next owner will find the adjustments helpful and will leave them.

I no longer publicly tell people just how fast I was able to weave (I'm much slower now, but I'm 'retired' and old, and injured) because I'm tired of people being offended as if that was my intent.  But I do share that information with my students.  I also make clear to my students that I'm not telling them this to make them feel bad, but to let them know that they can be just as fast if that is what they want.  Because I share everything with them.  Everything that I do, everything that I have learned.

This morning I said on Twitter that I do this, not because I am throwing down a gauntlet, but letting them know that the gauntlet exists and if they want to pick it up, it is completely up to them.  There is no virtue is being able to weave fast.  It is just a skill.  But it is a skill anyone who wants to, can learn.  

Skills are acquired through mindful practice, not by buying a silver bullet or planting magic beans.  If people want to be more efficient, I can give them guidelines.  If they don't want to weave faster, they don't have to.  But frequently the side benefit to weaving more ergonomically, weaving so that injury does not happen, is more productivity.

If people want to interpret my attitude as arrogant, that is going to be their perception.  It is not, never has been, my intent.