Moving the Fell Line Forward

You learn pretty quickly in weaving that you really should advance your warp and move your fell line forward after every few inches of weaving. That doesn’t mean we always do—goodness knows I’m guilty of waiting until practically the last possible minute to move my warp. I tell myself that it disrupts my weaving, but, in truth, the only one disrupting my weaving is me by refusing to move things along as they should. Instead of focusing on the weaving as a whole—making sure each pick is placed right and the selvedges are even—I’m instead focused on what has already been woven.

I’ve been thinking a lot about moving forward now that Handwoven has found a new home at Long Thread Media, a home co-founded by Linda Ligon, the founder and first editor of Handwoven. It can be tempting, given this new venture, to spend our time focused on the past—both our most recent past and our original days as a magazine. It is very tempting to keep on weaving until we can’t fit our shuttle through the shed, but fortunately that’s not what we’re going to do.

What’s most exciting for me—and probably the rest of the editors here at Long Thread Media—is the opportunity to keep moving forward and really and truly focus on the things that are the most important, like putting out the absolute best issues of Handwoven we possibly can. We can focus on writing fun and informative blog posts for you every week—things that will help you discover new designers, learn new techniques, and hopefully learn something new about weaving and the world of fiber.

We plan on focusing first and foremost on Handwoven and our other beloved magazines, eBooks, and videos. Then, once we get a handle on our treadling (as it were), we’re going to look for new ways to change things up. Until then, we’ll going to keep on publishing beautiful weaving, interesting articles, and blogs about how the Victorians could not get enough of arsenic-based green dye even though they knew it could kill them. Join us, won’t you?

Happy Weaving!
Christina