Numbers

 

upcoming warp - unless I change my mind

One of the comments I've heard over and over again is how patient I must be to do such 'tedious' work.

Um, no.  Something is 'tedious' if you really don't want to do it but need to.

Weaving is time consuming.  Attitude will determine whether that time being consumed is tedious, or not.

I learned a long time ago - no warp, no weaving, no food on the table.  So I focused on becoming as efficient as I could be.

Rather than spending the time required to thread each thread in a warp (currently 760 for the upcoming warps), or getting upset at throwing the shuttle about 1200-1300 times to make a tea towel, I look on that as a working meditation.  

I sink into the process rather than fight it.

Someone commented that they couldn't imagine how many picks were in a towel - I was able to tell them right down to the exact number.  Because I use a computer assisted dobby and the software tells me those numbers.  

Yesterday I wove the first towel in the new warp, but I'd miscalculated how many picks were needed to make a towel the length I wanted it to be.  Happens that I'd also made a sleying mistake, which I was finally able to see once I started weaving.

So, I cut off the first towel, fixed the sleying error and added more picks to the treadling to make the towel longer.

That first towel will likely get given away because I don't want it in my inventory.  But shorter, and with a sleying error?  It will still dry dishes.

So I didn't get particularly upset about it.  Just sat for a moment and thought - do I 'fix' the sleying error?  And the answer was yes.  It was a simple fix, it was just going to take some time.  But that warp should yield 20 towels and now that I knew precisely where that sleying error was, I couldn't see myself weaving another 19 towels when I could - relatively easily - fix the problem.  Especially given the towel was shorter than I wanted it and I needed to edit the weaving file for the rest of the warp.

But also?  Now I have a better idea of how many picks I need, I can edit the above file and make sure those towels will be long enough before I begin weaving those.  And all the rest of the towels to come, in this particular weave structure, at this density.

The first warp in a series is the proof of concept, and tweaks like changing tie up or treadling are expected, so accepted as part of the process when they happen - as they generally do.

While I don't like making mistakes, I accept that I am human and *will* make them.  How I react to them is part of becoming a better weaver, a (hopefully) better human.