Author: Laura Fry
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Mistakes Will Be Made
One thing I hear frequently from new weavers is the desire to get to the point where they are no longer making mistakes. A-hem. I’ve been weaving for 51+ years and yes, I still make mistakes. Don’t I get frustrated? Sure. But here’s the thing: mistakes happen. It is what you do next that determines…
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Tools of the Trade
There is much discussion of which tools a weaver needs to have. Some people want to make longer/wider warps. Some don’t. Some want to make complicated stripe sequences. Some don’t. There are a variety of tools, most them with some limitations so when someone asks if they should have X, the first thing I need…
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Persistent Questions
There are routine questions that come up over and over again. Answers to such questions are varied, some more ‘helpful’ than others. When getting started at the loom, there is an approach I see pretty routinely. The weaver ties on, then begins weaving by jamming the first pick down against the knots as closely as…
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Reality Bubble
Humans have this tendency to assume that their reality bubble is applicable to every other human in the world. Which makes communication a bit challenging at times. Because what is ‘normal’ for one person might be very different for another person. Was talking to my physiotherapist this morning about having good proprioception – a keen…
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Memories
Recently I’ve seen a few people asking for ‘memoirs’ of people who have been involved in fibres, built their lives around them, and lived for and around them. Happens that I have one. My store isn’t a nice agrarian life. I didn’t live on a farm, raise sheep, etc. Instead I chose weaving as a…
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Beginnings, Endings
Life is full of beginnings and endings. Every ball of yarn, ends. Every cone of yarn, ends. Every warp, ends. The thing is, we need to get over the fact that it ends and learn how to begin again. I frequently see people posting about their angst about dressing their loom. Worrying about how to…
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Sunday Seminar
Today we talked about ergonomics and efficiency. As part of the presentation I talked about Katie Reeder Meek’s book Dance With Your Loom, but there are a couple other things that people might find interesting. First of all, a book (NOT AI!) on anatomy. I talked about the sitz bones and the tail bone (coccyx),…
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Credit Where Credit Is Due
This morning I saw a scientist laying out why it is necessary to always cite your sources, credit those who have helped you. And I had to think about my experience in learning, then teaching weaving. First of all, weaving has a history as old as humans. We did not arise this century (or last)…
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The Intentional Weaver
I’ve been seeing posts online about books and AI. It appears that AI businesses are buying up rare books, destroying them by cutting them apart in order to scan them, upload them to their ‘cloud’ and then trash the original pages. So far as I’m aware, no AI has scanned my book, possibly because I…
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Books, Books, Books
At the seminar on Sunday, I discussed some books that people might find helpful. Since the topic was A Good Yarn, I referenced A Guide To Textiles For Interior Designers by Jackman and Dixon. There are lots of textile science books around, I have almost a dozen, but this is the one that I turn…