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How do you plan your next piece?
My friend Julie is a dynamo of a weaver.she has a warp on before one can ask “How is it going?” I am inspired by her, but have discovered we are vastly different. I would love to hear how this process goes for others.
I think of doing placemats for my daughter. I look over my stash. I ask lots of questions in peer weaving zooms about sturdiness, size, floats…then I drive 50 miles to Traverse City where Katie and I ponder certain Brassard or Lunatic Fringe colors.
I look over structures and pick how the colors will interact. Then I wrestle with Fiberworks and my Mac OS Ventura, which Fiberworks doesn’t like.
A month has passed. Now I am ordering more colors.
It is all delicious to me. We do babysit the grands, 3 and 10 months, so it is surprising I can think at all.
Joy
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8 Replies
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What a cute Assistant.
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Sandy, your ideas are exactly what I like to do! I go to the library and take old decorating magazines off the “free” table and tear out project color ideas. A d the number crunching! The ability to figure out how many yards I likely have left on some orphan cone is invaluable.
I too am nowhere near a weaving shop. I am lucky to live near weavers! We are 50 miles from any city over 50 houses down people up here in the woods of Michigan (which I love). So I buy sample cards for ordering.
You have a lot going on the looms for a woman who works as many hours as you do.
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haha honey I retired. I only work about 24 hrs sent you a message
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Carry on however. Years ago I stopped weaving for 5 years because I couldn’t fathom 2 young boys under my loom who wanted to treadle and pull the beater.
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I currently have towels on my loom as a WAL project at Vermont Weaving, I had taken towels off my warping board so to do the WAL, and have a short warp for napkins so two warps hanging. Then I have my warp for my shawl in this WAL half done on my warping reel. Handwoven had 2 scarves I am dying to make and I have the material purchased for them. One was a design by Merril Miller I asked if I could post pictures of her project she just finished. I had no idea she was a Handwoven contributor and a professional weaver. We chatted and she is also a member so she is going to post it here herself. I am so excited to have met her online. So the paperwork is done for those two scarves. Ok back to my planning. I also have a draft I had been working on at Christmas time and @kathy helped me make sure it was good to go and it’s waiting to go to the warping board. All yarn is in my bin and ready to go. My daughter-in-law saw my WAL towels that are, pinks and purples and loved it so I have now done a design for a shawl in the colors still need to calculate my yarn and decide I know how long but I need to decide on sett and other stuff, so paperwork is started yarn purchased. And if that is not enough I belong to Vermont Weaving Supply Kit Club 4 times a yr I get a kit. This last kit is for napkins and a silverware roll for picnics. Will go great with my cooler I have with wine glasses, plates, and even a tablecloth. So Joy it takes time to decide, to find a draft you like, or make one, but all those workbook pages from Crunching the Numbers class, are amazing to have handy when you find something to make. Do the booklet of ideas from Tien’s class, or the worksheets. Keep going. Have stacks of paper handy so you can play with colors and Handweavers.net for designs, and save them when you find them. and try Tempo Weave, it’s easier than Fiberworks, I use both because some things are easier on one, and some on the other. Your lucky you can go to the store and look at yarns together. I have to order. I am 3 hrs from Vt Weaving Supply, 4 from Webs, none of the local yarn shops have weaving yarn. I am 2 hrs from Brassard, and that would be awesome to go up there but they do not take credit cards or checks, cash only . Or you have to have a retail account.
So crunch numbers, use the tools we have been given here at the Academey and just love the process. Hugs.
https://tempoweave.com try it. I love it.
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<div>I have so many projects in the pipeline that I should never plan to make anything again! But my process? I’m a weave structure person, so I start with the draft. I may find one I like on handweaving.net, or I may sit in Fiberworks and create one. I love overshot, and have been playing with Janet’s name drafting app (she should post a link in this class). The draft tells me what it wants to be–a runner, a scarf, a dish towel. Right now I am trying to plan projects around yarn I already have (because I have a ton), but I may end up buying more yarn. The other day, I watched a video on how to put beads on fringe, so now I want to make a scarf and put beads on the fringe. I’ve been working in Fiberworks to get the draft down. I keep a list of projects I want to weave, which just keeps growing longer and longer as I get new ideas. Sometimes the hard part is deciding which one to do next.</div><div>
What I’d like to learn to do is design pieces around something I see–sunflowers in my garden, a desert scene, etc. And I’d like to say “I need curtains for my bathroom” and sit down and weave them around the bathroom theme. Hopefully I’ll get better at doing this as I take more Handweaving Academy classes.
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My head swims with possible ideas. I write them down to get them out of my head. I get distracted by other hobbies (Sock madness (knitting), Tour de Fleece (spinning) etc). I find out about something like a towel exchange, a WAL, a class and instantly abandon my list and do that shiny new thing with a deadline…that I never meet. Well, I have fun anyway….
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