Binge Weaving is for the Birds

So I have a confession. I am a certified binge weaver. What’s a binge weaver you ask? Well, I weave in bursts. I tend to go days—even as much as a week or so, without weaving. When I do finally reunite with my loom, it’s an all day and night occasion. I will literally start a project in the morning, sometimes remember to break for lunch and dinner, and then weave through the night into the wee hours of the morning if needed. It has worked for me in the past—that crazy pressure that artists press upon themselves to crank something out under some sort of pressure. It often fuels me into some sort of creative whirlwind, and usually a pretty great end product is spawned from this creative storm.

But this method is not without its downfalls. Often my creative gusts rob me of the innate calm and relaxing aura that flies tangent with the weaving process. It robs you of some of the joy that comes with taking your time admiring your progress, and pausing to assess any techniques you are incorporating. The very day after my latest binge weaving session, Elena posted a an insightful post, that pretty much summed up how I felt. I needed to carve out time, to dedicate to weaving—not just in large beautiful bursts of energy and creative chaos, but also in some smaller scale, daily fireworks. And who does want to add some fireworks to their day?

The all or nothing style does not work with weaving. It doesn’t work on the macro or micro scale. This weaving below was a result of a binge weave session, and I do indeed like how it came out. I only realized after how apropos it was that I was weaving, and musing on my unusual, extreme creative process, I somehow settled on the ultimate contrast of colors: Black and White. My original thought when attacking this weaving, was to hone in on one skill. I wanted to work towards mastering the art of *hatching. Hatching involves using different *weft threads and seemingly connecting them to be one. *Also, I’m giving myself 10pts for using 2 technical weaving terms in one paragraph, and actually knowing and understanding what they mean; baby steps. “Connecting them to be one” is what truly made it click in my brain, and helped me to stop creating little errors; such as having two separate weft threads go under back to back. Although it’s a small error, if you keep weaving rows despite correcting your error, you are stuck with an awkward area with exposed warp. Not the biggest deal (ok fine yes I’ve tossed a weaving or unraveled half a piece due to this little mistake, but that’s neither here nor there!).

By practicing and hopefully perfecting hatching, I will be able to do more complex pieces—some of the weaving I see in the gallery are simply breathtaking. So while I strive towards that, I want to make sure I am solid on the basics. I have made a pledge to myself, to throw out this practice of binge weaving, and to take each day, or at least a few times a week, to spend a little time with my sweet mirrix loom. It’s portability and ease of use gives me no excuse to do otherwise. As a whole, I really like how this one came out. It’s a little special to me because a lot of lightbulbs lit up—you could say that a few  things just connected perfectly!

And I am already sticking to my new weaving regime—I’ve already started my next one! I know, I know, pictures or it didn’t happen:

SaveSave