Generation Gap: Learning to Weave on Youtube
About a year and a half ago I did something crazy. I bought a full sized floor loom! Not your typical impulse buy….but then again…I’m not typical.
What makes it even crazier is that, at the time, I didn’t know how to weave. I have knit for as long as I can remember. I have been spinning yarn for the past 2 years, and this seemed (to me at least) to be the next logical step in my textile addiction hobby.
I’m not sure what drew me to this particular loom. It looked so sad….it had just been moved out of a garage, and was sitting on milk crates, covered with a tarp…I’m wondering if this is what dog lovers feel like when they go to the animal shelter. Before I knew it, hands had been shaken, money exchanged, and I was hurrying home to remeasure all the doorways and elevators between the outside world and my apartment.
The first big challenge was to determine what kind of loom it was, so I could see what pieces it was missing (not too many thankfully) and figure out how it was supposed to work. A very friendly Ravelry group helped me to identify it as a LeClerc Fanny loom, a good solid piece of Canadian technology. Within a month, the missing pieces arrived in the mail and I was ready to weave….or so I thought.
The hardest part of weaving is “dressing” the loom, and I didn’t have the faintest idea of how to start. I knew that it involved putting lots of little strings in the right places so they will rise and fall when you push the pedals. Before I wasted my treasured yarn on a project doomed for failure, I decided I needed a bit of instruction.
Where do you go when you want to learn a dying craft?
Youtube of course!
No…seriously! I found some FANTASTIC videos. This one was by far the best, in the span of 6 minutes it gives clear and simple instructions, explains new vocabulary, teaches some weaving and textile history, and makes you want to learn more! I watched it probably 10 times while I attempted to dress my loom the first time.
Thanks to this video, I was able to weave something….it wasn’t excellent, but it was weaving! Later I became more adventurous, trying new patterns that I found on
Handweaving.net a great site that provides historical weaving drafts (patterns) in a digital format.
I was learning a lot by experimenting, and by accessing the tremendous amount of information on the internet. My skill was improving, but it still felt like I was missing something, some crucial information that would prevent problems with tension, or help make the woven edges more straight, or stop strings from breaking.
So, last winter, I searched out the local weavers and spinners guild and signed up for a weekend workshop: Weaving for Beginners.
one of my wonderful weaving instructors
At the class we were instructed in all of the skills that I had learned on the net. Within the first hour though, the instructors, sensing that I was not really a beginner, asked me how I had learned to weave. I told them about the videos on Youtube. They looked a bit puzzled, smiled, and muttered something about “kids these days”. I’m not sure if they understood. I’m not sure if they even have a computer. I do know, however, that they took one look at my work, analyzed what I was doing wrong, and gave me excellent tips to help me improve.
McLeod Tartan Scarf - A gift for my Uncle
That weekend I learned that even though I have all the information I need at my fingertips over the internet, it is still so important to learn a new skill from people. I discovered that what I had been missing was the reassurance of an expert watching me work, answering my questions and pointing out little things that I should do differently. I was missing the shared smiles, and the congratulations for a job well done.
Tags: best of 2009, scarf, tutorial, weaving
