You know what it’s like, I suspect….
I’ve had a warp on the loom that didn’t like the humidity changes we experience here in France. There were lots of different yarns in stripes, which I am quite used to, but a couple, in particular, didn’t want to play ball. I had a ramie that kept getting slack as I wove and proved a real ‘pita’. Then there was the matt cotton, fine and definitely not happy as a warp. I put quite a bit of warp on as I was hoping to develop quite a few ideas from the warp, as usual. But the first few samples were not what I had hoped in the weaving. I had to keep weighting the ramie band and the matt cotton kept snapping, no matter what I did.
Do you find that people say ‘wow, you must have a lot of patience’ in relation to weaving? It seems to be a common refrain, but one I can understand. My response is typically ‘you have patience for what you love doing’, but I confess this warp has turned into a nightmare. Another phrase for it is ‘the dog on the loom’. I love my dog, but I don’t love this warp and it’s been sitting there looking at me since I finished the first set of samples, and that was a while ago.
Today I took the bull by the horns, and decided that I had to cut the warp off. No matter that there is a lot of it left, if I leave it there, it will tie up my loom with mental recriminations and reluctance to weave, so whilst walking the real dog, I started thinking about what to do next. Having made the decision that the warp must go, the mental release was almost immediate. My mind started filling with ideas of how to develop the work I want to do and I had to rush home and write all the ideas down.
So my words of advice today are – if you have a ‘dog on the loom’, be brave and take it off. If you can, and especially if it is of precious fibres, save it for other things, but if, like me, you really want it gone, then get it gone! Now my loom and my mind are free to start something new! And I have learned a valuable lesson – when the humidity levels are changing dramatically day by day, do not put warps on that can’t handle it!!
Now back to planning the next warp!
Happy weaving!