Puzzling

 

Many of my childhood memories revolve around working on jigsaw puzzles.  In our home, there wasn't a lot of room to devote to the building of a puzzle, so we were pretty much confined to 500 or 1000 piece puzzles, which we built on the coffee table in the living room.  These days, I'm still 'confined' to that size, but it is familiar, and a comfortable challenge (usually).

I came to the world of weaving well prepared to deal with multiple issues within a challenge.  To examine the various pieces.  Learn to recognize shapes, colours and sizes.  Work out the logistics of joining them up to create the pretty picture (because I prefer to work on puzzles with pretty pictures). and by sheer stubborness, eventually get them built.  (Not always.  If they are too much of a challenge, I will give up and switch to something less challenging and more enjoyable.)

Weaving really isn't any different.  There are multiple layers to the way cloth gets built, multiple pieces to the puzzle.  The weaver can (and frequently needs to) choose different pathways to get to where they want to wind up.

New weavers assume that there are hard and fast 'rules'.  Sorry.  There are hard *facts* - but then you add this consideration, that one, tweak your processes...and you can wind up making a very specific cloth for your particular purpose.

As a new weaver, you will not have the knowledge to be aware of those variations.  You will not have the facts at your fingertips.  So you ask questions.  Good.  Questions are good.

However, it would be nice if more brand new weavers would take a little bit of time and read about the 'facts' of the craft before they start tweaking the information they are given.

And then complain because what they are doing isn't working.  The designer of the project must have made a mistake.  And they are mad that the thing they chose to do isn't good.  It's someone else's fault for giving them bad information.

Um - when you chose to sley your reed at a completely different density from what the instructions specified, why are you surprised the results are...wrong?  Oh, you didn't want to do the 'hard' thing, so you did the 'easy' thing and it's not working?

You haven't bothered to learn the language, and get mad because people are not helping you properly?  

Personally I get chastised for repeatedly (and rather boringly, I admit) tell people to *sample*.  When a new weaver complains that they don't have enough yarn to 'waste' on a sample, I wonder why they are willing to waste the entire project by having it not turn out?  First of all, stop buying expensive knitting yarn.  Buy some weaving yarn.  Weaving yarn frequently comes in half pound tubes, or 6 ounce cones, sometimes even pound cones.  You might pay $30 for that pound, but you will have plenty to weave a sample.  Maybe even 3 or 4, trying various approaches.

New weavers buy a kit, don't follow the guidelines for epi/ppi, and complain the kit designer 'shorted' them yarn to make the project.

Personally, I gave up making kits - kits designed to create *two* colour gamps, then had a couple people bitch that there wasn't enough yarn in the kit I made to make four napkins.  I was called a 'rip off' artist.  What part of a kit that specified *two* square colour gamps ever equated to four square napkins?

By that time most of the people who actually *wanted* colour gamp 'samples' had bought (if they were going to) and I just...stopped.

I wrote a book that I wished had been available when I was just starting out, with the same sorts of questions new weavers have.  When I did a demo for my class at Olds, one student asked where they could find a book with that information in it.  I had to admit that no one book contained that information.  So I set about to write one.

I won't claim it is the Compleate Book of Weaving - but hopefully I sowed enough seeds for new weavers to learn more and then follow their own trail of learning.

This new year has just begun - with a bang.  I expect plenty of 'whimpering' to follow.  One person and his coterie of enablers has just done the unthinkable - except that he has been telegraphing his intentions for years.  So, while I am not surprised, I am sickened.

Resisting such actions is necessary.  Being aware of the ramifications is imperative.  And continuing to help the craft stay alive is absolutely necessary.  Weaving was one of the pillars of human beings surviving in the beginning.  It may become necessary again.  

For as long as I am able, I will continue to explore, experiment, and - hopefully - document what I have been doing.  If what I do isn't destined for WEFT, I will continue to share here.  There are over 4000 posts - so far - with many of them labelled as to topic.  If you can't find what you need, you can contact me directly.  But first?  Get a book.  Get several books.  Not 'just' mine - there are many many very good books (none of them generated - I won't say 'written' - by LLM/AI) available.  Some are out of print.  Mine are not.  They are available as usual, here.  All three titles are in pdf download or print.  They are printed in the US, so not subject to tariffs.  

Weaving is not difficult.  It IS complex.  

The life so short, the craft so long to learn...