I’ve been thinking about skill again, and how we develop skill not only through repetition, but by making mistakes. Not necessarily big, bad mistakes, but all those small misjudgments that need correction. This happens sometimes on a larger scale, and often in the moment, almost constantly, infinitesimally. While it helps to have someone point out the larger errors before we make them, the tiny ones are how we learn, and they are necessary steps to learning - they’re even joyful, because that’s when the mind suddenly sees the right way, the best option for here and now, or at least a better one. It’s the kind of learning that sticks because we’ve discovered it ourselves, we know it with the body.
I’m just going to meander through the things I’ve been doing, and see how these thoughts may apply. I’m also surely going to get distracted by the robins whooping it up in the madrona tree outside. The berries are ripe and red, and I’ve never seen such a robin party. I’m still not used to seeing them in the fall, anyway, having grown up in Missouri where they are a springtime bird. We have flocks and flocks of birds right now, as if trying to make up for the quiet of August and the eerie silence of the fire smoke weeks. Goldfinches, in their duller plumage, are still here in force, favoring the madrona across the way, but occasionally visiting my bird bath. You’ll have to take my word on the bird scene, because I don’t have equipment or skills for good bird photos, and backlit tress with indecipherable blobs in them would not be convincing.
Anyway here are the berries - madrona tree branches laden, no robins at the moment (they flee if I come this close, of course.)
Same handwoven natural cotton tape, with wooden sword beater. Not handspun yarn. Woven with string heddles.
Handwoven tape!! This has grabbed me for real. I’ve been enthralled by the idea of it for some time, seeing both the Susan Faulkner Weaver book a friend owns, and another friends’ exploration of the Japanese manifestation, Sanada himo (Ravelry link). A few months ago, I got out the “knee heddle” that I own (because people give me weaving tools) and tried some tape weaving. I got quickly frustrated with this heddle, because not only is it unclear how many hands you’re supposed to have to open the shed, pass the weft, and beat, the distance between knees and waist is short enough (on me, at least), that the warps remain spread apart and it’s difficult to get a true warp-faced look. Which is fine if you don’t want that, but all the tape I’ve seen has it, and it’s what I want.
Wooden “knee heddle” with crochet cotton tape being woven in stripes of rust and grey, with blue down the middle. This image shows how the warps are closer together in one section, which I’d prefer for the whole length.
Handwoven crochet cotton tape, spooled on top of a navy blue T-shirt being converted to a skirt.
Any long woven band with integrity is a functional thing, and this worked nicely as a skirt drawstring. But I immediately warped for another, to be woven with string heddles in my more accustomed manner. Much more satisfying - and I did not like the crochet cotton either, so I chose a natural colored laceweight which lives in my weaving yarn bin for some reason. Very much better!
Warp-faced natural colored cotton band in progress, brown-green-brown lengthwise stripe, about 1/2 inch wide, held in the sun against my fingers (this was in May, when life was sunnier.)
This same cotton was also used in my current band, shown in the first two photos. I warped up 4 yards or so this time, because I aspire to the hefty bundles on the cover of that book. And with that much to weave, I can already see one reason why people may have preferred heddles: less abrasion. I still want to see a demonstration of this knee heddle thing- I can find only pictures of it and written explanations, and haven’t seen anyone showing how it’s done. I find it awkward, and ended up pushing it away beyond my knees, and letting it hang. In which case, a sweet little, small heddle would be much better.
Cover image of Susan Faulkner Weaver book Handwoven Tape, with my crochet cotton blue and white band on top. I was imitating the pattern third from left in the bundles shown.
At any rate, this warp-faced tape is a surprisingly deep rabbit hole, teaching me more than I expected very quickly. The one above, for example. While I’m still not convinced that the one in the picture has more than one dot in the center, and absolutely could not find a way to make that happen and still have symmetrical embracing wavy lines, we’ll leave that aside. Just to get those symmetrical lines, I had to discover that mirroring the pattern doesn’t just mean warping another blue round in the same position. No, look here. The lines are crooked, right? They jog right and left with each pick. and they all jog the same way. So the first one comes from winding a round of blue - it forms the left and right jog. But for the second one, we want the jog to move in the opposite way, so it has to be wound half white, half blue, then half blue, half white. I don’t expect this to make sense unless you’re either well-versed in warp-faced structure, or way beyond me in the logic department. I had to make use of Warp Visualizer’s oval chart to spell it out for myself. I’m the opposite of whatever logical mind it takes to grasp this kind of thing at a glance.
Anyway, moving on - that image on the cover is what really keeps me coming back to this book - those beautiful bundles! So much handwoven tape, in natural dye colors that look so reassuring and earthy. The second from left also wouldn’t let me go, with its two zig-zag lines of indigo. So I wound another warp, since I was conveniently located in an undisclosed location (not my home!) with a very large amount of available yarn.
Brown and blue warp-faced band, 5/2 cotton, weaving in progress with small rigid heddle. Short sample with different warp scheme, woven with string heddles.
And look! There was also a wee, handy heddle in this place, so I could try again to compare the rigid heddle experience, without the bulky knee heddle causing me frustration. The truth is, my habits are so ingrained that I heddled up with string and started weaving before I remembered that I meant to use the wooden heddle! But this was good, since I’d also noticed that I wasn’t getting the double zig-zag I intended. My zig-zag was happening in the middle, where two blues were right next to each other. Second thing I learned about warped in design for warp-faced bands! When I cut off the string-heddle bit, I was able to place the threads in the correct position in the rigid heddle to get the double zig-zag. So cool! So fun! So pleasing!
I may still favor the type of fabric I get with string heddles - the difference is clear in this instance, with the same yarn.
Double zig-zag band in progress, with small wooden rigid heddle, draped over my lap - and I’m wearing my new rust denim jumper, recently designed and sewn by me.
One thing leads to another, and an Instagram post of the blue and white band got the attention of Cassie Dickson (Instagram link - she’s also profiled nicely here.), who is a masterful weaver and flax whisperer. Seeing her handwoven flax and her tantalizing processing pictures reminded me of how much I want to get better at spinning flax for weaving. At this same location with all the yarn, there was also some well-aged flax which needed hackling, so I took it home to test it out and see how it compares to the varieties I have. It’s beautifully blond, and seems in fine shape, after hackling. Not long ago, I got the tip from Sharon Kallis, who was told by Karen Barnaby (more IG links), that spinning flax from the fold is a good way to go when using a spindle. This was revelatory, because it’s true, and it gave me a way to take my flax with me as I wander about, which is my preferred spinning method and gets a lot more spun than the stationary techniques.
Hackled flax, folded and tied, and spinning in progress on Ashford high whorl spindle.
My addition to this approach is to wrap a cloth around the flax, so it can be held in the hand without mussing it up as too much handling will do. This is a great use for some of my vintage ladies’ hankies, which are delicate and lovely and I never use them (I prefer a larger, less precious man’s style hankie for actual hankie needs.) But I have a sweet collection of beautifully hand-worked hankies, most of which came from my grandmother. Perfect chance to show one off below, which has been washed and pressed - different from the one in use with the flax.
Spindle with flax cop and flax fiber folded and tied into a hankie. Green plants and trees in background.
Vintage hankie detail. Whitework and cutwork embroidery and edging. not showing scale, but this is very fine work. The whole thing is only about 9” square.
Spinning flax is what made me think about learning and making small mistakes. I’m constantly making mental notes about what works and what doesn’t because I’m still getting to know this fiber. I learned, while spinning the largest of the three clumps shown above, that I should use smaller amounts at a time with this from-the-fold method. It has less chance to tangle and mat within the wrap of the cloth. I’m learning what’s too thin and what’s too thick, and how to join, and how wet I want my fingers…. and that this is a great choice for the rain/sun/rain weather we’re having, giving me lots of little drops of water to dip my fingers before drafting.
I hope to keep this up and compare some different types of flax, before getting distracted by something else, although there is a new warp going into the bamboo reed at the moment, and another on standby. And I also intend to keep increasing my bundles of handwoven tape. And of course, my wool spinning and weaving is always calling to me as well… the dance of learning is quite syncopated around here, but it continues.
Handwoven warp-faced wool with pickup designs, Navajo churro is the main color, bundles of cotton handwoven tape, a few skeins of handspun wool yarn, in a basket on top of a Turkish handwoven salt bag.
If my captions seem obvious, it’s because I was looking up the low vision accessibility of Squarespace, and saw that the captions of photos will appear as alt text image descriptions automatically. Trying to make sure this works for people. If anyone reading knows of other things I can do, I’m open to suggestions. I enlarged the main body text a while ago because it was hard for me to read, but the caption text remains very small. Some things are within my control, and some are not.
Slug’s eye view of me spinning on the trail the other day. Lots of sky, clouds, trees, me in a skirt made from a Lao handwoven sarong (sinh mukh kho) a handknit sweater, and spinning a little Turkish-style spindle made by Allen Berry.
Thank you for being with me, and keep doing those things that keep us real.