Weaving Epiphanies and Rigid-Heddle Weaving

I had some weaving revelations this past week. I was watching Liz Gipson's new workshop video, Life After Warping: Weaving Well on a Rigid-Heddle Loom, and I was amazed at how much I learned. I admit, I was antsy to get back to actually weaving, but intently listening to Liz turned out to be beneficial. I was so grateful I did take the uninterrupted time to watch the video.

In her newest workshop video, Liz will make you say, "Aha!"

There were several moments in the video where I literally exclaimed "You can do that?!" Liz made things that were common issues for my weaving understandable and ultimately fixable. Here are just a few of my "ah-ha" moments I had while watching Liz's workshop:

• The wave I get in my weaving most likely isn't from poor beating skills: Do you get a weird wave in your weaving as you work along, usually in the center? I tend to always get one and I had always thought that I never brought the reed down center when I beat, that one side was hitting before the other or something like that. Well, Liz shows that this is actually caused by the middle warp threads being slightly looser than the outside threads. Just tightening the threads where the wave is occurring will help straighten the piece out!

• Advance often for better results: Advancing always seems like such a nuisance and takes time away from what I want to do which is weaving, but Liz discusses how not advancing can actually mess up your selvedges by forcing you to change the angle at which you hold your weft thread before beating. She even gives an example where I went “Oh, yes, that_ is_ how my selvedges tend to look at times.” So, it may mean a little more work, but advancing more often will also mean a better looking piece of cloth.

• "Weave more, fuss less": Liz has a plethora of sayings that I now want to quote over and over. She makes the weaving process fun. And the one thing that she got me thinking over and over and over again is to relax while I'm weaving.My piece is not going to look perfect, but chances are, when it's all said and done, it's going to look just fine. As Liz says multiple times in the video, "It will come out in the wash." I just need to enjoy the process more and learn to let go of minor details (which is going to be extremely difficult considering I'm a perfectionist!).

Those are just a few of my "ah-ha" moments from this video. There were many more, too many to write really. The one thing that Liz's video did for me, as do most weaving workshops that I watch, is that it made me want to weave more, and I love anything that makes me want to do that.

~ Whitney