I recently heard the phrase, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” and it caught my attention. After looking it up, I learned that is known as the “law of the instrument,” a term coined by Abraham Maslow in 1966. The concept
I don’t often have time to slow down and contemplate my weaving career and the events that have led me to becoming the editor of Handwoven. However, I joined Sarah Resnick’s podcast to do just that.
I’m at my happiest when I’ve got 1,000 ends to sley and thread. I love to see a disorganized warp become organized on my loom. I like to throw the shuttle and see the cloth develop and see my ideas become reality.
You can always start a weaving project from scratch: dream one up, find a draft. I do that, but I often use Handwoven to jump-start my projects, whether it is to explore a color combination I like or try a weave structure or yarn I’m not familiar with.
Tien Chiu is an award-winning designer and weaver, evident in her Flower Scarves from Handwoven May/June 2018. Based on colors from a photograph of flowers, Tien carefully planned a striped warp that highlighted her chosen colors.
It made me think about some of the weaving opinions you hear about today that I believe don’t actually hold up to scrutiny.
Deanna Deeds is one of my favorite weaving designers. She brings a fresh, insightful approach to all of her weaving projects, solving problems as she goes. The Plaid Windows Blouse by Deanna, found in Handwoven May/June 2018, is no exception.
As a challenge to myself and to prepare the way for the new cones of yarn I intend to purchase at the marketplace, I decided to weave stashbusting towels that would use up some practically empty cones of 8/2 cotton I already had.
The plain-weave Chanuka Placemats use an 8-shaft point threading to facilitate the inlay process. You can set the table with plain old placemats, but these really set the stage for the 8 nights of Chanuka.
There are a lot of people who are weaveworthy—who deserve the time and effort and creativity of a handwoven gift—but there are also many who might not be, and you have to be careful about where your handwoven projects end up.
