Thursday, October 16, 2008

Weaving and Thinking

What do you think of while you're weaving?
After the first ten centimetres the rythm is set, I know the repeat and I know when to change the weft - so I just go on automatic, while I listen to music or some interesting radio programme...

The weaving proceeds and I follow my train of thoughts.

It is usually triggered by the music, as I have my favourites (that I listen to over and over again) that recall particular moments, or just trivial things like 'what am I going to prepare for dinner?'

This time I tried to jot down a few ones, so as to have an idea of what goes into the weaving apart from warp and weft.
It starts with the memory of
- a yellow vintage coat bought in a sinister place in Koln when my best friend used to live there
- a series of mental pics of Germany
- a bouquet of flowers, possibly roses, yellow and pale pink
- autumn colours, we haven't seen them here, yet
- I'd love a new woolly hat, I can see the shape, maybe with some fantastic yarn from Noro - or Malabrigo
- my gran, who used to knit a lot - and wouldn't teach me how to crochet because I was (an still am) left-handed...

And so on, like this, for hours - until I get to the end of the warp.

I now got the habit to keep a notebook by the loom, so I can write down anything worth remembering - because most of the times, once I move away I will definitely forget what I was mumbling about!

In the studio I keep a photo of my gran when she was young - she is always with me.

2 comments:

Peg in South Carolina said...

That's a lovely scarf! I am afraid that the kind of weaving I do is much too complicated to even think about daydreaming or listening to music! Even when I do something relatively simple (I have some towels for my daughter coming up), there will be enough changes of color that I will have to keep on my toes.

Donatella said...

Peg, I know what you mean! When the repeats are long or the colour changes are too many I need to concentrate too - looking forward to see your towels!