Abbie Groves Creative

  A Five-Color Repeat and Abandoning the Shuttle I am engaging in a course of self-study for the Ontario Handweavers Guild, Unit 1. Here's a humbling one: I misread the instructions. Was not the first time and probably won't be the last. The project was plain weave with a five-color repeat. I read "five colors" and ran with it — picked five, wove each one in 3×3 blocks, and felt quite pleased. Except a repeat is a different beast. The point isn't five colors sitting next to each other; it's a repeating sequence that builds a rhythm across the cloth. Lesson one, before any weaving lesson: read the whole instruction, then read it again. The surprise of this one was a happy one. Carrying five colors meant managing the selvedge, and I made peace with going bobbin-only for three of the five — no shuttle. On an 11-inch warp that's no hardship at all, and I found I didn't miss the shuttle one bit. In fact, it was freeing in a way, to know that I was not tet...

  Plain Weave: Let the Beater Fall I'm weaving samples for self-study, specifically for the Ontario Handweaver's Guild Unit 1. The first basic weave is plain weave, the most fundamental structure there is. Simple, right? That's exactly the trap. The first time through, I beat the way I always had, which is to say, way too hard. I'd read that new weavers tend to overbeat, and reader, I am a textbook case. There's something in you that wants to pack it, to make it dense and certain. So, on the re-weave, the whole assignment I gave myself was just this: monitor the beat. Don't drive it home. The first few rows took real concentration; I had to consciously stop myself. But then something nice happened. My loom is a Norwood Cherrywood, and the beater has genuine weight to it. Once I stopped fighting it, I could let the beater fall and find its own place. The cloth told me what it wanted. Beginner takeaway: Your loom is a partner, not a thing to muscle. If your beat...