Where does inspiration come from? Dunno. All I know is that I am nearly always in the planning stages of 3 or 4 warps 'ahead' from what I am actually working on.
Inspiration can be sparked by something I see - the weather, flowers - or by the yarns in my stash that I decide to weave up.
The types of motifs can be symmetrical, or asymmetrical, but I like to design curves and break free of the 'rigid' grid of the woven format.
Sometimes it is an aspect of weaving that I want to explore - which I then piggyback a project onto the end of the warp so that I get something 'material' out of it, not just the knowledge I gain by exploring the craft further.
Sometimes it will be a magazine article that sparks my curiosity and I'll put a warp on to see if I can work with the thought sparked by another weaver. Sometimes it will be a teaching 'sample', which could be 'just' a sample (or series of) or sometimes I will make a 'thing' - again so that I can possibly have some income to help cover the 'cost' of making the warp for samples.
The big thing is to always keep my mind open to the possibilities - the 'what if' questions.
The opportunity to go deep into the nuts and bolts of the craft was one thing that appealed to me - and still does. I love to learn stuff. And there is So Much to learn about how the way threads interlace and interact in the woven forms. I know that I will go to my grave still wondering 'what if'...
And no doubt with an unfinished warp on my loom!
On a chat group a few (many?) years ago several of us started talking about this very thing and I said that if there were no looms in heaven, I wouldn't be going there. Allen Fannin then responded that he would see me in the other place, then. Well, Allen died far too soon, but I hope he found a loom. I'll be looking to find him when I go there so that we can keep exploring...
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