Blog
Making the Fringeless four selvedge warping class has been an adventure. A new online class always is. I totally love curriculum development. I like editing videos especially if I pick up some new skills for each class. And then the best part is when the class goes live and I see people's reactions to it. This class was extra special for me because I got to work with Sarah Swett who is always inspiring and a fantastic teacher. Also, the fact that she regularly makes me laugh is a big plus.
How does sett happen on various looms and what does this have to do with the equipment I choose? This post continues a series of articles about sett and tapestry weaving. The complete list is at the bottom of this post.
I don't talk about weaving tapestry on floor looms nearly enough. When you're just starting out, finding space for a large loom may not be in the cards. But once you've decided this thing is for you, a floor loom can be a fantastic friend for your work.
The very first loom I ever owned was a piece of junk. Literally. Judge for yourself.
This loom was found in a my partner's family barn in New England where I suspect it had been for about 100 years. I can hardly believe Uncle Les paid shipping to send this to Nevada, but there it was. It was missing a lot of parts but it was clear it used to be a two-harness counterbalance loom.
I've been teaching people to warp a Mirrix and other pipe-like looms with a continuous warp for years now. There are people who immediately understand how it works and don't have a problem with the pattern the warp must follow as you warp. There are other people who struggle with this a lot.
I believe this stems from a particular spatial ability some of us have and some of us don't. (Don't worry, if this isn't your skill, you can still learn to warp a loom. You undoubtedly have many skills the rest of us don't.) I have particularly good spatial abilities. In fact I'd say that my memory is very spatially oriented. I am especially good at remembering places and paths. I hiked the 500-mile Colorado Trail from Denver to Durango in 2003 and can still tell you details about all parts of the trail just by positioning myself there in my memory. When I have re-hiked hundreds of miles of the trail recently, I realized my memory from 2003 was quite accurate. But I most likely can't tell you the plot of a movie or TV show I watched last week and I'll never be able to tell you the name of the actors. I remember books that put me someplace in my imagination and I won't remember much about a book that doesn't--even if I really enjoyed reading it... unless I hold the book in my hands again and can somehow dredge up the sensory experience of the place I was while reading it or can flip through it as an object and see comments I wrote in it.
When it comes to warping, I think this ability to imagine things in space is very helpful. But there are many people who don't have this sort of brain.
I made a new holiday video this year of the Christmas Loom being decorated. There was a little problem when we moved into this house that involved two spatially incompetent and rather scrawny college movers, my very heavy 40 inch Macomber, and a set of stairs to the studio that turn on a small landing. The loom now lives in the living room and is a pretty good stand-in for a Christmas Tree.
Halloween is bearing down on us like a freight train. Even if I never left the house, the Pinterest-y projects would tell me this was the case. I love Pinterest because it is a nice way to tag interesting things I find on the internet to return to later. Mostly I am looking for tapestry-related content.
But I can't help but laugh at the blog and Facebook posts that start this time of year with titles like, "Nailed it!"
... Today I am going to tackle one of the final projects for the upcoming Tapestry Weaving on Little Looms online class. I'm making a new copper pipe loom. I expect it to be so much fun that I'll run right down to the corner hardware store for more pipe.
