Be Delighted with the Magic

I LEARNED HOW TO WEAVE!

And yes, the right teacher makes all the difference. I traveled to Clover, SC, to study with “The Barefoot Weaver,” Sue Helmken, for two days last week. And I was able to make this sampler of different weave structures while there. IT WAS LIKE MAGIC. I MADE CLOTH OUT OF STRINGS!

Metaphor Alert: When you make a mistake while weaving, if you repeat the mistake, it becomes a beautiful, different pattern. Embrace the mistakes as a potential source of new beauty.

Here are some other things I learned:

• You sometimes can’t know the beauty of something until you see it in relationship to other things. I wasn’t very excited about the colors of the thread I was going to use. I would never have put any of the base colors together with the weaving colors, but wow, when woven together, they made magic.
• Doing something you have never done before awakens your brain in exciting ways.
• Asking “why” is an important way to learn. I needed to “see” the architecture of what I was doing to understand it. Perhaps you do, too.
• I spent the whole first day preparing the loom for weaving. I didn’t weave until the second day. When I do live training with a group of people, I spend at least half of the first day creating a safe, free, open environment for learning. This preparation cannot be discounted. It is vital.
• Let yourself make mistakes. See what happens!
• Examine your own relationship to the idea of “perfection.”
• Contrasts are important. Otherwise, the weaving looks muddy. METAPHOR ALERT.
• Learn to read patterns. In life, too, not just in knitting or weaving. What are my patterns? What are yours? How can I read them?
• Ask for what you need in a learning environment, and be prepared to make mutual adaptations with your teacher, too.

I will follow these two intensive days with many days of learning on my own. I want to only create “samplers” for a long while, playing with the ways colors interact, playing with the creation of patterns and their juxtaposition, and playing with different ways of creating texture. Only after months of that will I move to actually make things like scarves or table runners or whatever one makes when weaving. I am delighted by the prospect of play and experimentation for a good, long while. That will continue the learning.

I squealed when I saw what was happening as I concentrated on pushing the right treadles to get the design I wanted. I remembered my last, failed attempt at weaving in a class that befuddled me completely–so completely that when the teacher asked where my pattern was, I had no idea there even was a pattern, much less how to read it.

This time, I asked all my “why” questions. Sue was patient and wonderful, and she was delighted by my glee at watching fabric be born right in front of me.

I love learning. I hope you do, too. Notice what you notice about yourself while you’re learning. Do you stick it out? Do you run away? Do you embrace surprises, or are you steeled against them?