Chance 'Discoveries'

 

Yesterday I spent some time messing with the next draft since I cut the warp off the loom and it was time to prep the next.

I've woven this motif multiple times over the years. But I finally(?) noticed that if you combine the straight draw threading with a straight draw treadling, you get a 'windmill' effect.  Hmmm.

Given a windmill is part of the tie-up, you'd have thought I would have noticed this effect a long time ago.  But I didn't!

I'm reminded of someone who was a 'teacher' who would pay their employees to go take classes from other instructors.  At one point, one of their employees returned from such a sponsored workshop, raving about what they learned.  Finally the teacher said, but, I've been telling you that for a long time!  How was this 'new' to you?  The employee said "But this time I heard it."

Or, the other way to put it is that when the student is ready the teacher will appear.

I've gotten past using this adage, because the truth is, the teacher is *always* there, waiting for the student to be 'ready'.

And that includes me, apparently!

When we assume that we already know everything there is to know, is when we stop learning.  We are never too old or too knowledgeable to continue learning new stuff.

Human beings find comfort in familiar things - and we get uncomfortable when challenged by new ideas.  But without continuing to learn, we stagnate.  By challenging our brains, we stay open to new ideas, new techniques.  

Granted, we will also 'fail' at times, but knowing what *doesn't* work is sometimes a lot more valuable than just knowing what does.

In many ways I am incredibly grateful that WEFT continues to engage with me as an author.  They set me 'new' challenges to explore.  Given the brain injury, it is helping me to get back onto my feet, so to speak, and exercise my brain wondering what would happen if...  

And sometimes the lessons are not what they - or *I* - expect!  Because sometimes the results are surprising.  Unexpected.  And then I have to have a wee think (or a huge one) and try to explain what happens, and why I think it turned out the way it did.  And honestly, I think that process of thinking it through is a lot more 'interesting' and in many ways, 'important' than putting a warp into the loom and producing exactly what I expect.

This week I started writing down the process, but since I essentially 'failed' in doing what I expected, and I still haven't fully digested the whole exercise, AND I have a word count I need to be aiming for, it has been a bit of a challenge.  Especially with the adverse effects of the current pain meds.

But I have been thinking it through and once my hands stop hurting so much (pleasepleaseplease) I will finish tagging/labelling the samples and go through them to find what information I can tease out of them.

Part of the difficulty is that threads don't always do what you expect.  When that happens it might be a very tiny and very subtle effect that is at work.  And generally it almost always winds up being the fact that threads have a mind of their own.