There was a time when I would very happily wake up at 4 a.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving, grab a to-go cup of coffee, and head out to the mall with my mom to see what deals we could find. As I’ve gotten older, the allure of Black Friday has dimmed. No longer will I wait in line in the freezing cold just to get one of a limited number of mystery coupons or a free commemorative snow globe. I can think of many other things I’d rather be doing with my time. In fact, here’s a list of ten things I’d much rather do than stand in line on Black Friday.
1. Warp and weave with linen on a dry day in the desert with no humidifier or spray bottle to keep the yarn damp.
2. Miscalculate my warp length so I have to use a pick-up stick for every pick just to open the shed wide enough to carefully pull the weft threads through by hand.
Who wouldn’t want to weave like this instead of doing some Black Friday shopping? Photo by Christina Garton
3. Put a complicated and colorful warp chain back in order after my toddler pulls it off the warping board and the cross becomes lost.
Dropping your loom's heddle thereby losing your warp end order is a drag but not as big a drag as standing in a mall line. Photo by George Boe
4. Forget to tie my warp on the apron rod of my rigid-heddle loom so I end up accidentally pulling the whole thing out of the heddle as I "tighten" the warp before weaving.
5. Thread all my flat heddles back on the heddle bars one by one.
6. Realize once I’m completely done warping that I accidentally threaded half the ends meant for shaft 4 onto shaft 5 and I need to rethread.
7. Finish threading my heddles and end up with one extra thread and having no idea where I messed up.
8. Twist or braid a lot of fringe by hand and then notice that I missed 3 threads in the middle so I have to undo everything and start all over again.
9. Find out that the wool I thought was superwash is actually just regular old wool—after I ran it through the washer.
10. Tie up all 10 treadles on my eight-shaft loom only to find out that I was looking at the wrong draft and I have to do it all over again. Then, after finishing it for the second time, realizing that I had it right the first time.
There you have it! Even fixing a time-consuming weaving mistake sounds more fun than waiting in line or fighting crowds at the mall. I think I’d much rather skip the crowds and focus on what really matters: weaving.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Christina
Published 11/16/2018 Revised 11/15/2023