Myrtle & Robin Studio

Making time and taking time.

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Weaving gradient yarns as a weft can be a real pain. If you care about maintaining the smooth gradient in your piece and not having any strange jumps in color, it takes prep work and time. Maybe there is a magic solution out there that I don’t know about, but for me, choosing to work with this kind of yarn has to be something that I think about for a bit before hand. Because, to do it right, I need to make the time.

I am not a career fiber artist. What I mean by this is that I have a regular 9-5 (well more like 7 – 4 for me) outside of art. My job requires that I make a lot of choices for other people most days, so by the time I am off the decision and mental fatigue can be intense. Finding time to do art can be hard and having the energy to choose it can be even harder. So, materials that require extra processing time to use are an instant “Not Today” for me.

What is it about gradient yarns that takes so long? This is mostly a weaving problem in my experience. When you crochet or knit, you pull the yarn directly off the ball and work with the gradient. The problems that come up would happen if you need to swap colors or add another ball of yarn. But weaving is a little different. When we weave the weft, we can’t weave with the whole ball, we take off off pieces from the main ball and weave with that because there isn’t enough room in the shed to pass the whole ball through. This is where bobbins and stick shuttles come in. We weave segments of the yarn around a bobbin or shuttle and then pass that through the weaving.

Okay, but again, where is the issue? Well, we measure how much yarn goes onto the bobbin by winding as much yarn can go onto it then cutting it from the ball. Then you wind your next bobbin starting from where you cut off from the ball for the first bobbin. Then when you weave, the first yarn to go into your piece is whatever you last wound onto the bobbin. Here, let me show you what I mean.

Please excuse my poor diagram making skills, they are a work in progress.

Hopefully this image helps you visualize what I am talking about. Because of how we wind the yarn on to the bobbin, if we just leave things as they are, the colors will be broken up when we go to weave. Sometimes, that can be a fun look. But sometimes it is not what I want out of a piece. So, how do we fix it. this is where the extra time comes in. The only way I know of to fix it is to wind the bobbin 2 times.

After I wind the bobbin from the skein, I will then wind the bobbin from that yarn. This flips the orientation of the colors on the bobbin so that when we weave things blend how the dyer intended.

I know that was a lot of words and if you are still confused, I am really sorry. I think the best way to see what I mean is to try it out yourself. You don’t even need a bobbin, you could just use a pencil or a pen and some color changing yarn.

The Pay Off

If working with gradient yarns is such a hassle, then why would I even put in the effort to do it? I would like to present into evidence exhibits A, B, and C:

And also, exhibits D, E, and F:

There is something so satisfying about watching colors blend so smoothly into each other. Some gradient yarns that are more abstract and colorful do just fine when the colors don’t blend. I have woven quite a few things with little care to keeping the gradient and they have turned out beautiful in their own way. But some gradient yarns are dyed so smoothly, that I feel it is a disservice to the yarn to break things up. So, that means that I just need to find a way to make the time to put in the extra work.

I want to talk about time a little bit. If I took statistics on the types of questions I get about my fiber arts, by far the most popular category would be time.

• How long does it take you to make 1 project?
• How long does it take you to set up?
• How on earth do you find the time to do all this?
• Why would you spend your time doing these things? There are machines that can do it for you?

I want to be clear, I am not complaining. These are valid questions! Fiber arts are slow crafts that are work intensive. It is easy to see why many people think that the fiber arts would not be compatible with their lives. There are times where I wonder the same things. How on earth will I find the time to work my regular job, run errands, clean the house, cook for us, take the dog for his walks, get exercise for myself, and weave a project? I don’t even have to consider adding kids into the mix either. Our lives are so full of things that have to be done right now, how are we supposed to mix in one more thing and find enjoyment from it?

I think, I have landed on an answer to this question for myself. Our lives are so full of things that have to be done right now: feeding the family, completing work on hard deadlines, paying bills, going to appointments, etc. Why would I want to add one more thing that has to be done right now? Why would I put that pressure on myself. Is the value of art only in the finished piece? Fiber arts are slow for a reason. I am not looking to make myself into a machine. I am looking for a reason to slow down and be present in the moment. For me, winding a bobbin twice is one of those reasons. There is value in the set up, in the process, in breathing life into a piece (yes, even those quick crochet wash cloths have life breathed into them from you). For my mental health, I don’t just want to make time, I want to take my time. If that means that I can only work on things for 10-30 minutes a day, then that is what I do. If it means that I have to do things the long way, then I will. These small quiet moments are where the joy lives, and I don’t want to miss them.