I am not, in general, a fan of current technology. I see very few things that are socially positive in the computer-age tech. Since the 60’s when computers first came about, and then increasingly quickly since the advent of the internet and most particularly social media, society has by and large become fractured, contentious and a great deal less intelligent than was once the case. Huge numbers of once-common skills have been largely forgotten. Mass-availability has replaced quality. Everything, from products to personal relationships has become disposable. I don’t like it.

Much of our current lifestyle was designed to mitigate those influences in our home. We do things the old way. The hard way. The slow way. By choice. However….

When one practices ancient artforms, one understands quickly what drives technology. Some things, done the old way, are darn tedious.

This fingertip-width of plain weaving represents 4 hours of work. Admittedly, I was only starting out and hadnt found a comfortable rhythm yet, but it is still shockingly slow. In the last 9 days, I have managed 4 inches of weave. I can only do about an hour a day, given the various demands on my time, but that means 9 hours has given me 4 inches. A bit worse than half an inch an hour.

The technology of weaving is VERY old. For many centuries, it didnt change much. Eventually, the heddle shaft was invented, which changed the process and made it exponentially faster. With use of a heddle bar, one can simply toss a shuttle back and forth, rather than personally weaving the thread in and out. Time has added more and more shafts to a weave (allowing for intricate patterning), and eventually motorized and then computerized the process into impossibly unhuman speed, but the basic process remains the same. It was the heddle that changed everything.

I do not have one.

I am doing this weaving the OLD way. And boy, howdy, is it slow. However, it also allows time to learn, to undo mistakes, and to truly UNDERSTAND the process. It also allows me a great deal of time to pray for and bless the eventual recipients of my project.

Sometimes, tedium has its place…