Just the Facts

I've been around for a while.  Joined the internet in 1994 when Usenet was the place to go to find other like minded people.  The textile group then moved to quilt.net, then Yahoo.  Now it seems most chat groups are proliferating on Facebook.

In the 'old' days, people interested in weaving mostly learned from books if they didn't have a local guild or yarn shop that ran classes.

Books were factual.  Information was presented in a straight forward way, generally by very experienced authors.

Lately it seems as though one person's inexperienced opinion is given as much validation as someone who is much more knowledgeable.  The internet is filled with people who earnestly want to know, people who only want to dabble and everything in between.

How is a person who really wants to understand cloth construction to learn the principles?

Not everyone can learn from books.  I find this over and over again in teaching the Olds program.  There will be at least one person who either can't read due to dyslexia or other processing issue.  It's one reason I have jumped into teaching this program so completely.  Students come, get 5 days worth of in depth spoken, demonstrated, personal feed back experience as well as the written word.

As part of the class I have prepared my own personal handouts to amplify the course materials.  One sheet of paper is a full page long, single spaced reply I made to a thread on a social media site.  One of the students who had difficulty processing written information was able to absorb my written word, which made me feel like I had done a decent job of describing what is a physical activity - getting good selvedges.  There is no 'silver bullet' to getting selvedges because first you have to understand WHY selvedges are 'bad' in order to take appropriate remedial action.

There are many ways to approach weaving.  It can be a therapeutic approach with little emphasis on 'correct' process or results.  It can be a release from the tensions of living in our current state of uncertainty and divisiveness.  It can be the making of gifts for family or friends or donations to fund raisers.  It can be an intellectual study of the intricacies of how threads come together to make cloth.  It can be an examination of the principles and conveying those to others through teaching, either in person or through the written word.

The thing is, there ARE principles that underlie the craft of weaving.  I refer to them often enough that most of my regular readers or in person students will have learned them.  My hope is that those principles then get applied and shared.  Rippling out into the community.

There is no reason that weaving need have tangled messes (unless we make some kind of 'error' in judgement.)  For all those people on the internet that moan about hating beaming or threading?  Look at your process.  Perhaps there is a way that will cause fewer issues.

There are facts and there are opinions.  If people want facts, there are resources.  Judith Mackenze has written a number of books as have others.  Try to find A Guide to Textiles for Interior Designers.  This is a textbook, now in it's 3rd edition.  Look for the 1st edition, which is still routinely available for around $5 on re-sale sites.

Can't find that one?  Look for 'textile science' or 'fibre science'.  There are lots of books available.  You only need to know that you need to look for them.

New to the weaving community?  Look for the voices of the more experienced weavers.  Take some time to identify who they are and pay attention to what they say.  We don't always agree on details, but we do agree that there ARE principles that need to be paid attention to.

Still not sure who to pay attention to?  Check out Interweave Press for the names of people who have had books and DVDs done.  There is a whole array of people.  Again, there isn't complete consensus, but principles shine through.

As human beings we learn most effectively from our mistakes.  Don't let something not turning out turn you off weaving.  Every experience brings a student closer to success.  Find a supportive group who will encourage, but also educate, even if it is just sharing their own mistakes/learning lessons.

People who are very experienced didn't get that way by never making a mistake.  One of the things that makes me an effective teacher (according to the students at Olds last week) is that I have made nearly every mistake it is possible to make.  But I didn't stop there, I kept going to find out how to recognize it, how to fix it, and when to cut my losses and start over.  Students say I present the material in a way they can learn from.  One comment was that "If I don't understand when you say it the first time, repeating it exactly the 2nd and 3rd time will not help me understand.  You say things in different ways."

But the student has to be willing to listen when the voice of experience speaks and consider that perhaps they need to do some of the heavy lifting in terms of their learning.

Again, this is why I support the Olds program - I get to convey principles and help the students gain understanding by encouraging the application of analytical thought processes.

This is what I did, this is my result - which is not what I wanted - what do I need to change to get closer to my intention.

So I took the title of Judith's book and applied it to weaving.  Because intent matters.  And in order to get to where we want to go, we need facts, not opinions.

Just the facts, ma'am.  Just the facts.  When I stand on a solid foundation of facts, I can spring board off of them into my own personal creative journey.

When you don't know what you don't know, you don't know that you don't know it.