Perspective
Most of my life I’ve lived on the ground, it’s a whole new perspective seeing the world from above. Instead of seeing individual trees I see ALL the trees. From up here I can pick out sugar maples, oaks and aspens. I can’t see all the tiny details, but I get a birds-eye view. Sometimes I actually see the backs of birds as they are flying below me, and some days I look out my window and it looks like there is no one else in the world as I’m in the middle of a cloud!
I love being on the ground, I like to feel the grass, I touch the trees that have interesting bark and anything that looks fuzzy. I’m very tactile…I’m the one the security guard keeps their eye on in a museum because I WILL touch: I can’t help it! I once got reprimanded for touching a wall at a museum (apparently it was a really old and very important wall), but the texture looked so interesting and my eyes just weren’t enough. (I spent the rest of the day with my hands firmly in my pocket.)
But what does any of this have to do with weaving? Funnily enough, a lot! Perspective in weaving is important…the close up and the far away. Just this week I came to the end of a project but had some extra warp still on the loom. I grabbed some Caterpillar yarn and started weaving. I take a tonne of pictures while weaving: mostly close up to measure ppi or to catch the pick-up pattern. And I’ll be honest, despite the colours I was a little underwhelmed. The colours looked all busy and jumbled and the pick-up pattern was virtually invisible. Well, said my mind, that’s what sampling is for and maybe washing will work a miracle. (It often does.) Then I left the room.
When I came back in later, I saw the piece from a distance. I saw how all the colours had aligned themselves in a way to make a lovely design. And the pattern was visible! What I couldn’t see up close suddenly because visible. It’s all about perspective. I don’t know about you, but when I am sitting at my loom I only focus on a very small piece of my work at a time. I might be paying attention to the edge, then the pick-up pattern, then checking that there are no floats. Even when I look at the whole piece, up close looks very different from standing back, or even a different angle.
There have been many times when I’ve been weaving a tone-on-tone pattern where the pattern is almost invisible while I’m at the loom and my fingers need to do the seeing for me. But when I lean to the left or right I see the pattern. And it almost always pops when I look at my weaving from the doorway of my loom room.
But that’s the perspective on the loom: there’s a whole new perspective once the cloth is off the loom. (Fun fact…did you now that the cloth on the loom is called a web? It isn’t actual cloth until it has been wet finished.) Once the weave comes off the loom, the yarns, which have been under a great deal of tension, snap back into their comfortable shape. Length is lost and patterns are suddenly visible. Then throw it in the wash and dry it and it’s a whole new thing - with two sides! I’m delighted to say that I love the wrong side of this piece. The solid warp floats really pop against the bright colours of the weft. And the softness of the Caterpillar yarn blends really well with Hempathy, a cotton, hemp and modal blend, which can feel a little…string-y on its own. Good for drying dishes, but on its own, not bath towel material. Mixed with Caterpillar, I can see baby blankets!
So, perspective. Sometimes we need to step back to see what is really there. Sometimes we need to let things finish before judging. And sometimes, we need to get close up and touch! (Maybe remember to ask before touching if you’re trying to deconstruct someone’s scarf or jacket!)
