Pushing Myself on the Path of Process and Product

The second warp I put on after I started weaving again after my surgery was for a very ambitious project. The pattern is called Lee's Surrender, and is a coverlet design from the 19th century. My plan is to do two pieces, each one repeat of the pattern. The finished size for each one will be about 24" x 26," and I'm going to make them into pillows.

Today I went to weave at the Callanwolde weaving studio to begin my second one. About an hour into the time I was there, one of my friends from class came to work on her loom. She asked me why I decided to do Lee's Surrender (at least two other of my weaving friends from class have done it recently and it has become a kind of joke that we will all have to do it at some time). I answered that I wanted to push myself. Doing Lee's Surrender has me doing overshot for the first time, has me beating harder on my loom than I ever have before, has me making one of the widest pieces of cloth you can on the Baby Wolf loom. I also learned to change my reed beating technique. I've never made anything that's threaded in different blocks to create a complicated design rather than just repeating the same threading pattern all the way across. I've never followed a draft where I treadle down and then reverse back up when I get to the end. None of these things are terribly difficult, mind you. But doing them all for the first time at the same time has made it a challenging project. I had to practice and reject my first attempts -- they were too loose and you couldn't see the design. I also have had to unweave more times than I'd like to admit. Today I lost about a half hour to unweaving after I wove two successive picks of tabby (they are supposed to be every other pick) and didn't catch it until I'd woven about 3 inches past the error.

People frequently ask weavers and knitters whether they are "process" or "product" people. This experience has shown me that I am both as a weaver. I already knew that about myself as a knitter, so it shouldn't surprise me. It's not enough for me that I will end up with something that I like -- I have to get something out of making it. And it's not enough to learn something while I'm making it if I don't like the end product. That was my experience weaving Summer Winter. It was challenging, especially since I was still a new weaver, but the end result was horrid because of the colors, the errors, and my fiber choices.

Where is the parallel in the rest of my life? Am I a process and product partner to my husband? Am I a process and product mother? I think maybe I am. Certainly I can see it in my spiritual life. The journey and the destination are both important to me. It's not enough for me to focus on the rituals, although I challenge myself with my observances of Jewish law and rituals and try to learn something new and deepen my knowledge and expand my practice. But I also have to believe in the why and the where I'm going. And it's also not enough for me to just say -- Here I am. I have to go through a process to get there. And every once and awhile I have to push myself, like I'm doing with Lee's Surrender, and get out of my spiritual comfort zone.