Let's get this shed-dig started!
I guess an introduction is needed, isn't it?
I'm Jenn. I'm PassionKNITly on Ravelry, though I'm not a fan of their recent intolerance towards differently abled people. I'd like to move away from Ravelry adn facebook, which is one of the reasons why I'm starting a blog again, in 2020, so I can have more control over my content (yes, I recognize that Blogger is owned by Google. Google already probably reads all of my emails, I can only do so much to be in the world and social).
The other reason I started this blog is that I'm finding it hard to find the resources that aren't, well, stodgy. I like to think I have a modern aesthetic (not like minimalist, everything is white modern - I like color!) and maybe this is just a product of the resources my grandmotehr gave me, but most of the resources I'm finding on weaving have an early 90s vibe to them. The books I have are great, don't get me wrong, but I was hoping tehre'd be an online space for weavers off of facebook and Ravelry that could have some folks that are more my age. I guess I was hoping for a Ravelry for weaving or a a space like KnittingHelp.com for weaving, but there doesn't seem to be anything like that. Maybe I've just been a knitter for so long that I only thought of Ravelry as a knitting/crochet website.
I started knitting in 2004 and at the time I knew immediately that knitting would be my new obsession. Starting to learn weaving has felt very similar. It feels like a hobby that will be in my life for a long time. Since COVID started here in March, I haven't really knit much at all. Maybe it's because I never really looked at kntiting as my sole method of stress relief, or maybe it's beacuse I usually like to knit with other people, (but if I'm honest, it's probably more because I've been depressed as an extreme extrovert that's basically been alone for 23 hours a day for months at a time). I haven't read much either, and I really love to read and be in worlds that are not my own. Instead, I've been engaging in worlds that are not my own by playing a ton of Animal Crossing: New Horizons on my Nintendo Switch.
However, once we started planning to brng the loom here and the date got closer to its arrival, my crafting mojo has started to come back a bit. I knit a bit a few weeks ago adn I've been working on Christmas gifts as well. In preparation for the loom, which I think I decided at 3am last Friday to call Rey (Rey Skywarper!), I've been reading and researching about looms, specifically those like my Macomber floor loom, and weaving.
When I was a kid, I used to love weaving on the table looms (both Schacht, one had 4 and one had 8 shafts) my grandmother pre-warped for my cousin and I to weave on. I especially loved the 8 shaft one because I could make more complex patterns. It was smart, on her part, to pre-warp the looms. I'm sure that my cousin and I never would have been interested in actually warping the looms ourselves!
Several years ago when my grandparents moved from that house on Cape Cod to a smaller one closer to my aunts and uncles she gave me the 8 shaft table loom. I was so excited and I signed up for a class at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn. There, I learned how to warp a loom from teh back to the front. I felt super confident leaving the class and put together hte warping mill and measured out a warp for some brown and teal kitchen cloths (the colors of the apartment at the time).
Something you should know about me is that I usually dive into new things by doing something more challenging than basic. I figure that I can lean a lot this way, but I'm also a product driven crafter, so I usually want the end result which keeps me motivated when I screw up.
And screw up I did!
I miscalculated the number of ends I needed per dent and wound up with a tangled mess of a warp after I tried to fix it. It languished on teh loom that way for about 6 years until I finally cut it off of the loom so we could move the table loom back to my parents' in Rhode Island to make room for the Macomber.
I'm trying to take a more calm approach this time. I'm working through Deborah Chandler's Learning To Weave (I hate Amazon, so you won't find any links to them on my blog). I've measured a warp for a sample according to the book and am taking this step by step. This is the hardest part of learning a new hobby for me!
Just like when I start a new job, starting a new hobby has me feeling like I should know more than I do, or possibly even could know wihtout having taken the time to learn. I'm going to get there, but I wanted to blog my learning process in case it might be helpful to me or someone else later.
So here we go!
I'm Jenn. I'm PassionKNITly on Ravelry, though I'm not a fan of their recent intolerance towards differently abled people. I'd like to move away from Ravelry adn facebook, which is one of the reasons why I'm starting a blog again, in 2020, so I can have more control over my content (yes, I recognize that Blogger is owned by Google. Google already probably reads all of my emails, I can only do so much to be in the world and social).
The other reason I started this blog is that I'm finding it hard to find the resources that aren't, well, stodgy. I like to think I have a modern aesthetic (not like minimalist, everything is white modern - I like color!) and maybe this is just a product of the resources my grandmotehr gave me, but most of the resources I'm finding on weaving have an early 90s vibe to them. The books I have are great, don't get me wrong, but I was hoping tehre'd be an online space for weavers off of facebook and Ravelry that could have some folks that are more my age. I guess I was hoping for a Ravelry for weaving or a a space like KnittingHelp.com for weaving, but there doesn't seem to be anything like that. Maybe I've just been a knitter for so long that I only thought of Ravelry as a knitting/crochet website.
I started knitting in 2004 and at the time I knew immediately that knitting would be my new obsession. Starting to learn weaving has felt very similar. It feels like a hobby that will be in my life for a long time. Since COVID started here in March, I haven't really knit much at all. Maybe it's because I never really looked at kntiting as my sole method of stress relief, or maybe it's beacuse I usually like to knit with other people, (but if I'm honest, it's probably more because I've been depressed as an extreme extrovert that's basically been alone for 23 hours a day for months at a time). I haven't read much either, and I really love to read and be in worlds that are not my own. Instead, I've been engaging in worlds that are not my own by playing a ton of Animal Crossing: New Horizons on my Nintendo Switch.
However, once we started planning to brng the loom here and the date got closer to its arrival, my crafting mojo has started to come back a bit. I knit a bit a few weeks ago adn I've been working on Christmas gifts as well. In preparation for the loom, which I think I decided at 3am last Friday to call Rey (Rey Skywarper!), I've been reading and researching about looms, specifically those like my Macomber floor loom, and weaving.
When I was a kid, I used to love weaving on the table looms (both Schacht, one had 4 and one had 8 shafts) my grandmother pre-warped for my cousin and I to weave on. I especially loved the 8 shaft one because I could make more complex patterns. It was smart, on her part, to pre-warp the looms. I'm sure that my cousin and I never would have been interested in actually warping the looms ourselves!
Several years ago when my grandparents moved from that house on Cape Cod to a smaller one closer to my aunts and uncles she gave me the 8 shaft table loom. I was so excited and I signed up for a class at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn. There, I learned how to warp a loom from teh back to the front. I felt super confident leaving the class and put together hte warping mill and measured out a warp for some brown and teal kitchen cloths (the colors of the apartment at the time).
Something you should know about me is that I usually dive into new things by doing something more challenging than basic. I figure that I can lean a lot this way, but I'm also a product driven crafter, so I usually want the end result which keeps me motivated when I screw up.
And screw up I did!
I miscalculated the number of ends I needed per dent and wound up with a tangled mess of a warp after I tried to fix it. It languished on teh loom that way for about 6 years until I finally cut it off of the loom so we could move the table loom back to my parents' in Rhode Island to make room for the Macomber.
I'm trying to take a more calm approach this time. I'm working through Deborah Chandler's Learning To Weave (I hate Amazon, so you won't find any links to them on my blog). I've measured a warp for a sample according to the book and am taking this step by step. This is the hardest part of learning a new hobby for me!
Just like when I start a new job, starting a new hobby has me feeling like I should know more than I do, or possibly even could know wihtout having taken the time to learn. I'm going to get there, but I wanted to blog my learning process in case it might be helpful to me or someone else later.
So here we go!
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