by Carol Lerner

​The 50th Anniversary Celebration at TFAC this past month was a wonderful event, and an amazing opportunity to 1) see people face to face again, and 2) meet new people and actually have broader conversations to get to know one another.A watershed conversation for me happened over our boxed dinner, when I sat next to someone I had never met before, and, in the course of our discourse, the conversation came around to warping.
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As background, I recently bought a couple of used looms (yes, you read that right) from someone moving away from weaving because of the difficulty of warping (dressing the loom).  I had to admit, I am not a stellar loom-dresser, either, and I sometimes wonder what ever possessed me to take on weaving in the first place, and what is this incomprehensible attraction to looms, that they seem to multiply in my studio. 

So, in our discussion over deli wraps, I expressed frustration at the predictably consistent way I manage to get my warp tangled to one degree or another while warping.            Oh!  She says.  That is part of the process. 

            You mean it always happens?  I query.

            Sure, she says. Someone should tell…

              …the world!  I finish her sentence for her.

I do know she was going to say that someone should tell new weavers that the tangling is endemic, in the sense that it is “common in or inherent to an enterprise or situation.”*  But my times of self-doubt and frustration, stemming from persistent tangling no matter how careful I am or how much warping experience I have (at least so far), led me to blurt out:
   Someone should tell the world!

​So I am.

The truth of the matter is, I can always fix whatever tangle I get into, one way or another. Weaving seems to require a sense of acquiescence to the process, and flexibility in problem solving. That is not to say that the tangles aren’t frustrating, but they are more common than you might think.  You are not alone.

If you have any photos of your “favorite” tangles, or a tangled tale to tell, I’d love to hear about it.  Of course, it could be submitted anonymously, as I do intend to…

​…tell the world.