Some days the things you try are wildly successful. They are incredibly motivating and exciting.

Then there are the days that are the polar opposite of Wildly Successful – the challenge is to find motivation in not winning and not give up in the process.

I have recently finished watching Janet Dawson’s wonderful Craftsy class on floor loom weaving (which is on sale today, FYI) and I was eager to become a beginner weaver again. After a couple of simple projects, I tried a project that was a bit more than I was ready for and rather than finding inspiration in Not Winning, I let it stymie me and my loom sat in silent abandon, warped with the doomed project.

Weaving is not like knitting, where you can unravel your mistakes and use the yarn again. Which makes weaving mistakes a bit of a challenge in and of itself. You see, to “unravel” weaving you have to cut the project off the loom.

Cut. It. Off.

Truly dreadful words and it took a push from a friend but cut I did and then, armed with my iPad and Janet talking me through the process I began to prepare my warp and with a little help, got my loom dressed.

I was ready to begin weaving and excited to do so!

I started as Janet suggested, with some sampling. The sampling started out just fine, but as I continued weaving, I began to have some issues with my warp. Real issues. Broken warp threads issues. Lots of them. In fact, the more I sampled, the more the issues grew. I soon realized the yarn I chose for the project would not work at all and no matter how hard I tried to keep going, it was not going to improve.

Sampling

I had only one choice.

Enter the scissors again. Let me tell you Gentle Reader, it is much easier the second time around.

However, I did not let this stop me – I learned some significant things in the process, what happens when you do not use good materials and how important sampling is.

The next morning found me with paper and pen in hand, planning a new draft to weave with a better yarn – a much better yarn. Turning not winning into a Wildly Successful moment indeed, which is truly winning indeed.

success-consists-of-going-from-failure-to-failure-without-loss-of-enthusiasm-4

Pin It on Pinterest