Trying to Create Order

My family likes to tease me. One of their favourite topics is my cooking. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a good cook, they like my food, but they also know they will never ever get the same dish twice! My cooking consists of choosing a couple ingredients I want to use, finding multiple recipes then taking a little from this one and a little from that one and replacing this with that… It drives my kids a bit batty. They want to make something I regularly make and ask for a recipe. I can tell them how to make it but I certainly don’t have a recipe or even consistent measurements! They’ve mostly given up asking. (They go to the recipe book my M-I-L put together instead!)

I weave the same way. I’ve only woven someone else’s pattern once (and even then I changed it). One of the things I find myself saying over and over at work is “patterns are just guidelines”. Now, if you want something exactly like the pattern you do need to follow the pattern exactly. But even something as simple as changing the fibre or colour can have a significant impact on the finished project.

Three very different Log Cabins

There are pros and cons about weaving this way. Not being tied to a pattern gives you freedom to use whatever materials you have on hand…it also means that what you pictured in your head might not be what you get. Too much choice can lead to weaving paralysis (a condition that occurs when you have so many choices you get overwhelmed and quit before you ever get started or alternatively, spend the whole day putting different combinations together, thus accomplishing nothing, it’s a thing!).

I’ve had to pull myself together a bit though, and I’m sure it will be good for me in the long run. In a few weeks I will be teaching a “Design your own Shawl” class. I’m really excited about this; I love to teach, I love to inspire people and I love seeing people who thought they “couldn’t possibly” realize that yes they can!

Teaching requires order. Over the last few weeks I’ve been creating some order in my brain. Thinking through the weaving process from beginning to end. I can clearly see the end, but there are many different ways to get there. Should we start with yarn choice? Or available reeds? Or with what the desired end result is? Each of these is a viable starting point. At the same time, each can also be the wrong starting point. The more I think the more I realize how complicated weaving really is. And I start getting overwhelmed. And then I see all I have woven and I think “just do it, it’s only string!”

And it is only string. A weaving failure isn’t life altering. There are no long term effects. I’m not even sure that weaving failures exist. It’s really just learning what not to do. And if, in the end, your finished project holds together, that is success. You may hate it, but hold onto it because someday a friend will see it and absolutely love it!