It Depends

Thinking about things like drape, stability, wearability - all the variables that go into the creation of cloth.

I belong to a few groups and as the membership changes and new weavers join (which is great, love to see new practitioners!) the same sorts of questions come up.

New weavers want to have perfect results and are anxious about 'failing'.  First of all, get the notion of 'perfection' out of your head. 

Weaving is a skilled technology (as are other crafts) and it takes time to understand your materials, equipment and gain the physical skills necessary to obtain good results.  (Note - I did not say perfect results.)

It is really hard sometimes to get across to new weavers that I cannot tell them what to do.  I can only give them guidelines. 

So how do they learn?  They have to do the work. 

They can read.  They can buy kits and follow the instructions to the letter.  They can weave samples.  But doing these things will mean little if they don't also engage their analytical thinking and take a good long hard look at what their results are.  Then think about what needs to change if they want different results.

Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results won't actually achieve anything different. 

I've posted before about the variables involved in the creation of cloth.  I won't repeat them again today.  But there are many people who teach the same things as I do.  Because they are principles of the craft, not because we are some martinets or weaving police.

I am not trying to stifle anyone's creativity when I point out how density affects the nature of the cloth.  If someone wants to make fabric that has great drape but may not wear well, that is their choice.  (See the above photo - a prime example of a loosely woven cloth for a shawl - I wanted excellent drape but because it was intended for a shawl, it did not have to be constructed as densely as, say, a place mat.)

So, we get to make choices.  It just helps if we understand the impact our choices will make on our cloth before we set up for a big project.

If someone is new to the craft, does not have access to local teachers/weaving guild/resources, I highly recommend Jane Stafford's on line guild   She is currently doing a module on twill but once you join you can access all the previous lessons.

You can come to Olds and take level one with me in June.  

You can buy my books where I set out many of the variables that need to be considered.

It depends.