Just when I thought I was safe, knitting and felting away in my wooly comfort zone, my dear friend C. introduced me to the dangerous and exotic world of weaving.
We met last week, both of us driving over two hours to see each other. Though her main goal was to warp and weft me into her own obsession. I thought I could politely try it, make a mess of it, declare myself incompetent and go on about my life.
No such luck.
Here I am working the first passes...
That's an inkle loom if you have never seen one.
I took it home with me and proceeded to work on it, in a casual way.
I practiced getting it tidy on the edges. And began to succeed after a while..
I'd sit and weave for 5 or 10 minutes and then go do something else. I wasn't working on it every minute mind you, but pretty soon, I had this...
It went remarkably fast!
I was having a weaver's high at this point and decided if I was going to pursue this craft, I had to face my fear of warping.
No. Not Star Trek warp.
Warping the loom.
Which seemed scary as hell.
I don't like to be scared. So I ran straight into the dragon's lair and following the directions I found on line, and warped that puppy up before I could lose my nerve.
I didn't really have proper yarn for the job, and I found out pretty quickly that fuzzy, soft, lightweight alpaca wasn't a good choice, but hey, I'm in learning mode. And believe me, I learned a lot!
I forged ahead and created a rustic wonky strap which actually sort of fits in the general scheme of my life here on the edge of the woods.
I experimented mightily to try to make good weaving out of this yarn but as you can see, none of my efforts worked all that well.
However as is my wont, I saved my dignity by getting philosophical...
Here is what I wrote to C. this morning... more or less covering my fanny...
***
That's an inkle loom if you have never seen one.
I took it home with me and proceeded to work on it, in a casual way.
I practiced getting it tidy on the edges. And began to succeed after a while..
I'd sit and weave for 5 or 10 minutes and then go do something else. I wasn't working on it every minute mind you, but pretty soon, I had this...
It went remarkably fast!
I was having a weaver's high at this point and decided if I was going to pursue this craft, I had to face my fear of warping.
No. Not Star Trek warp.
Warping the loom.
Which seemed scary as hell.
I don't like to be scared. So I ran straight into the dragon's lair and following the directions I found on line, and warped that puppy up before I could lose my nerve.
I didn't really have proper yarn for the job, and I found out pretty quickly that fuzzy, soft, lightweight alpaca wasn't a good choice, but hey, I'm in learning mode. And believe me, I learned a lot!
I forged ahead and created a rustic wonky strap which actually sort of fits in the general scheme of my life here on the edge of the woods.
I experimented mightily to try to make good weaving out of this yarn but as you can see, none of my efforts worked all that well.
However as is my wont, I saved my dignity by getting philosophical...
Here is what I wrote to C. this morning... more or less covering my fanny...
***
"I tried several different things to play with tension and trying to get even… ‘packing’ as you say, but really it was a bust. This yarn is so soft and thin and fuzzy, that it was more like an endurance thing, just to get it off the loom!
However…. and here’s where I began to feel a certain connection to the whole craft… If I were a Scottish lass weaving with what I had on hand (which is what I did!) and I was making a strap to tie onto my heather gathering basket for some common reason or another… this strap would be just peachy. Functional and soft to the touch.
There are different ways to look at crafting. I mean quilting didn’t start out as frickin’ art murals… people used their scrap fabric and made something functional with it. Yes, some of them were pretty… but if they were, they were pretty by the serendipity of the scraps you happened to have on hand.
Don’t get me wrong, I admire fine work! But I don’t like to lose sight of how it all started out… and this strap will always remind me of the original function of weaving.
I’m going to try to think of some way to use it around the homestead. :-)
Chicken garters????? ha!"
***
Now that the second strap is off the loom, I find I cannot abide the sight of a naked inkle. So I begged some cotton thread from my sister-in-law and am about to warp again.
I guess this would be warp 3.0.
To boldly go where no Cupcake has gone before.
(You need to go to metaphor school. The remedial wing. ASAP.)
I'd like to see YOU warp the inkle.
No wait... you can warp C's home made loom....already famous for its innovative design by the way...
Oh, and just for the record C., don't EVEN think I'm following you into THAT ion charged nebula!
Ain't happenin', just ain't happenin'.
I don't have a philosophical fanny covering big enough to wrap around this level of weaving!
Though I must say, God, in His infinite wisdom, has given me the coolest friends.
EVER.