Weaving Police

Craft fair booth

People want definitive answers to technical questions.  It was one of the things I had to accept while learning how to weave - it all depends.

In many cases my weaving instructor was almost as inexperienced as her students, but her approach to teaching was to tell us to go look it up.  Try it and see.  Experiment.  Analyze.

All of this ensured that I became a weaver who wasn't afraid to fail.  Not that failure ever was of much importance to me.  I'm not competitive and I don't mind 'losing' at a game because I'm not playing the game to 'win' but for other reasons.  To pass time.  To challenge myself.  Of course 'winning' is always pleasant, but it is a very minor interlude and not my actual objective anyway, so...

I ran afoul of the weaving 'police' when I bought a dobby loom with fly shuttle and auto cloth advance.  A number of highly respected people in the weaving world informed me that I could no longer call my textiles hand woven.

This attitude puzzled me because I was still designing the cloth, winding the warp, threading it, weaving it, wet finishing it.  After doing some research, I discovered that at the time the government of Canada defined hand woven as 'each and every action of the loom is initiated by the weaver'.  Which I was very much doing.  I could not throw a switch and walk away.

After much thought, I tweaked my public profile and my hang tags read "Laura Fry Weaving Studio".

I called myself a 'weaver'.  And I ignored the naysayers.

As I learned more about how cloth was constructed I began to see the variables.  All the 'it depends' scenarios.  And realized that weavers need to focus on the principles of the craft, not the details - which usually need to change when changes are introduced.

Scaling up from 5 yards to 10 yards to 100 yards meant I had to change how I did what I did.

Scaling up from 12" width, to 60" width meant a fly shuttle or risk injury.

Changing from wool to cotton meant changing my approach and sometimes my tools.  It certainly meant changing the physical action of weaving.

In North American society, weaving (and many of the textile arts) are practiced by women (mostly).  Sometimes the practitioner is doing it for creative fulfillment, intellectual curiosity or creative expression.  Very few try to earn an income from weaving. 

But some do.  And they need to make different decisions from those who don't. 

Rather than 'police' how someone practices their craft, we need (I believe) to respect the fact that weaving (and other textile arts) are - first of all - not 'lost' and not 'dying'.  There is a large number of people who continue to work their looms, needles and hooks making textiles for what can be very intense and personal reasons.

A small core of people need to understand the bones of the crafts so that good patterns can be designed for those who don't have the time or opportunity or interest in taking a deep dive into the principles of the craft they practice.

That core of educated practitioners may need to generate an income and many of them do that by designing patterns or teaching classes. 

There has been much discussion about #fairfiberwage over the years and how people need to 'share' what they know with others.

I have also seen people insist that on line classes are 'cheaper' to run than in person classes so instructors should be paid less.

Um, no.  What is being 'saved' in terms of on line classes might be the cost of bringing the instructor to a venue, the cost of renting the venue, accommodation/food for the instructor.

The instructor is bringing the same knowledge, the same experience, the same information.  While the experience of an on-line class is not the same as an in person class, the amount of prep time it takes to do a good on line class means extra prep time.

Typically that prep time is not paid for, only the actual in-person experience.  So most instructors tend to quote a daily rate that will cover that prep time as well as the in-person time the student is receiving.

Since I live so far away from, well, everywhere, I tended to keep my daily fee low knowing that guilds were going to have to pay a high travel cost.  While I visited various guilds I was able to promote my book (at the time I had only the one) and frequently had a suitcase of tea towels I could sell as well.

The life of an itinerant instructor is a hard one.  You are generally travelling on a very tight schedule, and I can't tell you how many times I missed flights due to weather or other reasons, and arrived in the middle of the night only to have to be up in four hours to teach. 

Because I live in the Pacific Time Zone, I was frequently jet lagged on top of everything else.

Since I have food allergies there was always the worry of being exposed to allergens.  I finally made it a condition of teaching that the class be scent free.  Too many classes where I lost the ability to form a coherent sentence due to an allergy to perfume or hair spray.

I did not always perform to my best and the students suffered for it while I suffered headaches, aphasia and feeling generally ill.

Over the years I had to come to grips with what level of 'standard' I would weave to.  I had to learn when an 'error' or 'not perfect' was important - or not.  Would my customer even notice?  They would not, after all, be closely examining my textiles with an eye to checking for 'perfection' but for usefulness and function.

I have, at times, found myself being the weaving police and learned to rein myself in.  I learned how to accept others, gently give information, mostly encourage and support.

If we want the textile arts to remain viable, especially during this very difficult time of pandemic, we must figure out a way to help those who are struggling.  But I would also like to suggest that people who are requesting more of the pattern designers/teachers understand that they also have a role to play in their learning.  And that is to recognize that they do need to learn.  To seek out the information for themselves - because it is there.

We now have the benefit of the internet where I had the public library and a research librarian who sought out the books I felt I needed to consult.  And found all except two, plus two that were going to cost too much - they each had loan fees that were beyond my budget.

Don't know where to look?  Start with the bibliographies in published books.  Allen Fannin's Handloom Weaving Technology has an excellent one with lots of technical books listed for those who want to do a deep dive.

Other books have lists as well.  If you belong to a guild, check the guild library.  Consult http://handweaving.net

Pay the very modest fee to subscribe and then you can consult the books that have been uploaded to their site.

Heddlecraft usually has a good bibliography in each issue.

Take an on line class.  Tien Chiu, Janet Dawson, Daryl Lancaster, Jane Stafford and others had been moving to on-line presentations before the pandemic hit.  They had already put systems in place and have been able to provide good quality instruction for a modest price.  Be aware that these people have teams producing their classes.  It isn't just them with a single camera.  They might have several cameras, a couple of people organizing their samples, setting up the next shot, keeping track of what shots/information needs to be filmed, then an editor to edit the footage and create the video.  If they provide captions, that is another expense - time and quite possibly money.  So in reality an on line class might have just as much administration cost as an in person class.

There are also the costs of registration, banking fees, high traffic in terms of mailing lists, the cost of high speed internet - while these things may remain 'hidden' from the customer, they are very much part of doing business and teaching on line.

There are a number of bloggers who routinely provide information including resources. 

The information is available.  But first a person needs to recognize that they need to know something, then figure out where the information currently is available.

In the meantime, I am holding out hope that next year the Olds classes will begin again.  But we all need to survive this time.

So stay home if you possibly can.  If you need to go out, wear a mask.  Wash your hands when you get home.

Survive, my lovelies.  Until we can meet again in person.