Gees, I remember the very first Handwoven I held in my hand!   Do you?

  Not to date myself too much, but it was the very first issue of Handwoven! That was 35 years ago!

   It was back in 1979 and I had just learned to weave. I was mesmerized by every word, every image, ever article dedicated to this newfound love of mine: weaving!  

  I felt like a kid left alone in a candy store!  Just didn't know where to begin. Do I read through the entire magazine, or do I drop it right here and now and get to my loom and warp the very first project I see?  I was just that in love with the whole idea of weaving.

    If you are a weaver, you know what I'm talking about.  If not, read on to see why you might have a hidden weaver within, that needs to be discovered!

  It's kind of like baking a double chocolate cake from a new recipe. The end results sounds so delicious, and as you gather the ingredients, measure, pour, stir, lick, bake and watch the clock, you can barely wait until that first bite.  

   Then you realize that you love the process just as much as you do the end results.  

    You love the whole idea of choosing yarns and drooling over colors; you get into the rhythm of winding the warp, feeling the yarns glide through your fingers.  You take the time to wind the yarns onto your loom, then get into the meditation of threading them through the heddles (back to front weavers). Finally you see your mediation coming to an end as you sley each thread through the reed and tie onto the front beam, making sure your tension is perfect.  There's a certain sense of accomplishment in seeing a fully warped loom. The cake is in the oven!

   Weaving weft thread under over with the use of shuttles and harnesses flows along until you're at the end of your warp (but not the end of your rope because that sense of calmness has stayed with you from beginning to end.)   Take it off the loom and it's as delicious as that first bite of double chocolate cake!

     This is how I've felt all 35 years of my weaving career.  It was all inspired by that very first issue of Handwoven magazine (then named Interweave). I still have that original copy tucked away with my favorite weaving books, just to remind me of my roots.

     While this is another story to be told at another time, 1979 was also the birth of Cotton Clouds.  So there's a lot of sisterhood between LInda Ligon, Handwoven publisher and me.  We had a dream and because of all of you, it came true!  Thanks and Happy Anniversary to us all!

     Happy Weaving!