When You Know, You Know

 

I'm preparing to write an article for School of Sweet Georgia, and I needed to show what happens when things go 'wrong'.  

The problem is, I'm so trained to do it 'right', I had a really hard time weaving the way a newer weaver might do it and create the 'wrong' effect so that people could see how it looked 'wrong'.

But I think, as a teacher, it is a good idea to show the unwanted results to show that *I* know what a newer weaver is experiencing.

Because so many things in weaving are 'it depends' and 'change one thing' considerations.

But I have to tell you, my entire body was screaming at me the whole time with the alarms clanging (wrong, wrong, wrong)!

The section with the selvedge loops was especially difficult to weave because every pick I had to stop and prevent the weft from seating itself 'properly' around the selvedge ends, which meant it was very slow and very irritating (to me) to do.  And why *that* section is so small - it was all I could stand to do.  It was SO inefficient!  Completely 'ruined' my weaving rhythm, slowing me down enormously.

Once you have it 'right', doing it 'wrong' feels bad.

There is another effect that is more subtle and doesn't really show well on this particular sample, and that is the warp begins to look different at the selvedge.  The ratio of warp to weft changes with the 'extra' draw in at the selvedge and the cloth can begin to have a 'taped' appearance, as some of the older weavers used to say.  In the purple area of the sample you might be able to see that the blue warp begins to look more blue just at the selvedge, especially on the face where the weft is more prominent.

While it was in the loom the distortion wasn't very obvious, but once it was cut off the loom the whole thing curved - the 'fell' had a very distinct 'smile' to it.  However, that did resolve after wet finishing.  It might not have, if the web had been larger.

So, better to practice doing it 'right'.  Attune yourself to getting an appropriate amount of tension on the warp, learning how to advance the fell and re-tension (and *don't* weave right up to the beater - I talk about these things in more detail in Stories from the Matrix), and become proficient in throwing and catching the shuttle.  It's well worth it, IMHO.