Weave Experiments | My Flower Loop Weave

For this weave, I had a general idea in mind. I wanted to make a shape of a flower with loops and I wanted the top to kind of diamond with some fringe to mimic the shape at the bottom. So like many of my weaves I started on this vague idea and let the weave form as I went along.

The main body of the weave came together pretty easily and I’m very happy with the end result. I ended up making a stepped top in grey, making separate columns because I felt it gave the top more visual interest then a solid mass would have. I later sewed the columns together so that the weave had more structure. The steps for sewing the columns are documented here.

Once the main body of the weave was finished and I added the fringe I cut the weave off the loom and finished it. But then I ran into an issue. I really wasn’t sure how I wanted to hang this weave. I tried just stringing it to my dowel rod as I have done with my other weaves, but that just didn’t look right. I actually tried a few different things and was not happy with any of it. So now I had a pretty much finished weave that I couldn’t hang, ugh! You would think that hanging a weave would be the easiest part, and with most my weaves it is, but this one just needed a little something extra.

Well, like anytime I’m creatively stuck, I put my weave down in an area where I could go about my day and glance at it occasionally as I walked past. This strategy usually works very well for me, because I stop directly focusing on the problem and let it roll around in my head subconsciously. And thank goodness for my subconscious! It generally helps me with my creative problem solving since it doesn’t work in a straight line.

I’ve heard before that being messy helps people who are creative, which I agree with (well to an extent because being extremely messy doesn’t help anyone). Well I had this weave on top of some yarn and a warped loom, basically a small mess of stuff, and one of the times I glanced at my weave it came to me. Why not make a simple macrame top to hang this weave from the dowel rod. And there it was the problem was solved! A macrame top to hanging a weave is nothing new, many have done this before me, but I had forgotten I had seen weaves hung in this way which is why I have found it helps to not push when you hit a creative problem and try to let the answer surface.

How do you deal with creative problems or blocks? Do you also like to step away and let it roll around in your subconscious, or does a more direct approach help you when you’re stuck?

Happy Weaving!

Kate

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