Inertia

Inertia is everywhere and in everything and as such, it affects our daily lives. Like many other things, it's a much larger problem for some than for others. It's defined as the resistance for any moving or stationary object to change its state of motion. It's the hard work it takes to "get the ball rolling" when you know the ball will keep rolling once you get it moving. It's putting off starting a project that once started you run with until its finished. It's "no, I'll get to that tomorrow...." because starting seems like too much work.

I am able to make normal regular expected progress in most areas of my life. I can get the dishes into the dishwasher without stalling. I can get clothes washed, gas in my car, get the gym on time. But somehow, with my weaving, inertia is a problem. As soon as there is a problem that needs to be solved, everything comes to a halt. And the process can stay in that halted state for a very long time. The inertia just keeps building for me. 

I can not tell you the number of times I've worried about a problem for months not wanting to have to deal with it. When I finally I sit down and address the problem, really think about it, I can get the answer in mere minutes. Then, of course, I'm beating myself up for waiting so long. 

I did that very thing with my big Louet loom. I managed to break one of the texsolv lines that make the whole thing operate. I have no idea how I did it but the loom sat for about 9 months before I managed to make the one phone call I needed to make. Louet is wonderful to deal with and we had it repaired sharpish so I have no complaints. Except that I let that beautiful loom sit there for that long while I tried to get over the inertia of making that phone call.

Today's example of inertia is the warp on my Gilmore loom. It's the first warp I've put on the loom since we moved here to Katy so everything seemed different. Of course the process of warping the loom isn't different at all but somehow in the middle of it, I left out 12 warp threads. I didn't realize the oversight until all the warp was wound on the loom and I was getting ready to thread all the ends through the heddles and reed.

Well, crap. I studied on the problem for a while, looked up information on the internet and talked to some of my weaving friends. A week goes by, then a month. I finally figured out what to do. This past Saturday I proceeded with my fix. Well, that didn't work. By the time I realized I had left out an important step, the warp was 528 warp threads, each 12 yards long, now in a huge tangled mess. I struggled with it for a while but In the end I cut it all off the loom and started over. 

That was Saturday. Here is where the inertia seemed to float away. That afternoon I decided on my next project. I was not going to simply re-warp with the previous plan. I picked a new plan. Sunday I got the warp all wound on the loom. Monday I got the heddles and reed threaded. I tied on to the front beam and wound my bobbins in all three colors. This morning I was weaving.

Sometimes inertia isn't my biggest enemy. Sometimes it just is.