warp speed

(noun) 1. to travel extremely fast (esp. Sci-Fi) // 2. to take a very long time (esp. weaving)

Weaving is not a craft one takes up for instant gratification. Warping takes forever. Threading even longer. The weave itself goes reasonably fast once I get the mojo flowing. And that’s before we even get to the self-sabotage-procrastinate-on-the-final-steps part of proceedings.

My first weave came off the loom over twelve months ago, and rather embarrasingly, has been languishing in my “current projects” box (supposedly where active projects live!) ever since. I kept telling myself I would get to it, but the thought of slicing into my first weave was terrifying.

On the weekend though, I needed to clean my craft room, and on my fold out desk was my sewing machine, still left out from where Butterfly had ben doing some sewing of her own. The woven fabric was on my trolley, having been pulled out when hunting for something else, and put on the trolley to try and guilt me into finishing it. The time, it seemed, had come.

I used my rotary cutter to trim off the ends, allowing for an inch more that the woven pattern. It. Was. Terrifying. And yet, it wasn’t a disaster. The ends were a wee bit loose, but a double hem (stitched at each fold) solved that issue nicely. I packed away the machine, tidied my craft room, and just in time for our dinner guests, I spread out my very first, hand-woven table runner on the dining table.

Its far from perfect – there’s a few lines where I mucked up the pattern, and there’s a few loose threads that need weaving in, but it’s so fun to have my very own fabric on the table. It added a fun, tactile element to the room which I also like, and another layer of personalisation to the space.

I also hemmed a second, smaller piece of fabric, and it is currently living in the laundry as a hand towel. The remainder of my self woven fabric I popped in the fabric drawer. I’m thinking one length I might turn into a couple of pouches, and the second, I’m not entirely sure. We’ll see. And now I have those cleared out of my WIP box, I am feeling more motivated to press on with my current warp, and see if I can get it leashed and back on track. With rain and even possibly snow predicted for the next couple of days, it is the perfect chance to stoke up the fire and get busy at the loom!