The Woolery and the Weave Off hold a special place in my heart. I started weaving in Colorado but my love for it really expanded while I was living in Kentucky, relatively not far from The Woolery. The Woolery had amazing resources to help me get started on this journey. Then we moved back to Colorado and I bought my first floor loom through The Woolery. They announced the first Weave Off shortly after that. It is a beautiful, friendly competition, that supports a great cause.
I have entered the competition in the past but certainly don’t make it every year. Time seems to be flying by in these years of early parenthood and weaving does not always get to take a front seat. This year they created a new category to enter the competition which struck me as really fun. They named it Weave If You Dare. The category parameters will change each year and it seemed to me to be a great way to really push myself to try something new.
Thankfully The Woolery announces the competition early enough to allow time for ideas to percolate and for the weaving to happen before a series of trips that we had scheduled throughout April and May. Ultimately I settled on trying a Monk’s Belt pattern and an ombre color transition to meet the asymmetrical parameter.
When I enter the Weave Off I tend to think of it as a donation to a women’s shelter that also helped me build my skills. In the back of my mind I hold on to the date they will announce winners and once it is passed I put it out of my mind completely. I see the winners posted each year and look for new techniques I can practice. The date this year came and passed and then we left on a trip to visit family and I didn’t think about it again. Now, technically it says “winners will be notified on or around…”, but I tend to take it as a hard deadline. I was genuinely shocked, when on vacation I opened my email to find an email from The Woolery notifying me that I had come in second place. It was a shock and a thrill.
There are so many incredible weavers in this world. I have not yet encountered a weaver that I could not learn from. To hold my own respectable place in the weaving world has been such a victory for me. It has been a slow and self-taught journey and it feels good to know that my skills continue to develop. This is not an endpoint on the journey, but rather another step along the way.
Weaving is the only art form that has ever made sense in my soul. Competitions, while pushing entrants artistically, cannot judge what the work means to an artist. However, they can tell a story of technique.
I am in the process of shutting down commissions. When my weavings are spread in the world, a piece of my soul is gifted with them. I send it willingly as a gift, rather than in exchange for payment. Weaving is something I love that feels true to me. As great as it sounds to do something that I love for work, weaving is something I want to hold on to for myself and my happiness.
TMurphy Textiled 