What Weaving Taught Me About Patience
I used to be impatient. Not in an obvious way—but in that quiet, restless need to move on to the next thing. I liked results. Finishing. Progress.
Then I found weaving.
Or maybe weaving found me.
Every weaving project begins with a warp, and every warp begins the same way—with math. You calculate the sett, consider fiber type, shrinkage, the finished dimensions. You estimate yardage, sometimes with trial and error. It’s not hard math, but it requires focus. One small miscalculation can throw off the entire piece.
Then you measure each length of yarn on the warping board. A simple scarf woven on a 4-shaft floor loom might require hundreds of warp lengths in a predetermined pattern. It’s repetitive and exacting work—you count, loop, adjust tension. You’re not weaving yet, but you’re laying the groundwork.
Warp of cotton, silk and wool yarns wound on a warping board. Warped for a 10” wide summer scarf.
After your warp is wound, you beam the warp onto the loom, threading each length into individual heddles. You sley the reed—again, one thread at a time. The process varies with each loom type, but the process remains.
All of this happens before a single pass of the shuttle.
As a new weaver, I found this frustrating. It felt like a lot of effort just to begin weaving, which was all I wanted to do. There were so many steps between the idea and the cloth. So many chances to mess it up. So many moments that asked me to slow down when all I wanted was to see some progress.
But the more I did it the more I understood its value, and not just as a precursor to weaving.
Every step in the process matters; each step shapes the one that follows. If I rush, I pay for it later with tangles, tension issues, broken threads, or a fabric that doesn’t behave the way I hoped it would. There’s no real shortcut. The beginning is part of the cloth. Whether you took your time, whether you cared—it shows in the final cloth.
A Practice of Presence
Over the years and through the warps, weaving has taught me how to slow down and stay present. It’s made me more thoughtful, not just at the loom but in the rest of my life. I notice this when I prepare food more intentionally, or when I take time to clean up my workspace, or when I pause before reacting to something. I’ve come to see patience not as waiting, but as a kind of quiet strength—a choice to stay engaged in the process.
“I’ve come to see patience not as waiting, but as a kind of quiet strength—a choice to stay engaged in the process.”
There’s a kind of respect embedded in each part of the process. You begin to recognize it when you wind a warp without rushing, or when you fix a threading error instead of ignoring it (yes, I used to ignore it.) These aren’t delays—they’re opportunities to practice care.
And the effects spill over.
Now when I sweep the floor or prepare coffee or fold laundry, I find myself in a rhythm—not trying to get through it, but allowing it to be part of the day. Weaving helped me realize how many moments I’d been skipping over or skimming past. Not out of malice or neglect, but out of habit. Out of hurry.
Rainer Maria Rilke wrote:
“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…”
In weaving, so much is unresolved for so long. You don’t see the pattern emerge right away. You might not know how the cloth will drape, or whether your color choice will sing or fall flat. But you keep weaving. You trust the structure. You come back to it.
Eventually, you embrace it.
Homemade tensioned copper pipe loom, warped and ready to weave a small tapestry.
A Quiet Kind of Strength
I’ve come to see patience as a kind of intimacy—with time, with process, with material. It’s not something you either have or don’t. It’s something you practice. You cultivate it, like any skill. Weaving just happens to be a particularly honest teacher.
There’s also humility in it—you can’t strong-arm a loom. You can’t force it to cooperate; if your warp is uneven or your tension is off, the loom will show you. Not out of spite, but out of truth. It reflects exactly what you put into it. That kind of honest feedback can be hard, but it’s also a gift. In weaving, you get the chance to begin again. To fix it. To adjust and keep going.
That lesson—start where you are, fix what you can, and keep going—has helped me far beyond the loom.
“That lesson—start where you are, fix what you can, and keep going—has helped me far beyond the loom.”
Patience now shows up in how I talk to others. How I listen. How I teach. It reminds me that progress is often invisible at first. That sometimes, laying a foundation is the work. That presence can be more valuable than speed.
And isn’t that what most of us are after in some way? Not just to make something, but to feel connected while we’re doing it?
Weaving has become a way for me to practice presence without striving. It’s not a meditation that requires stillness or silence—it’s one that flows through movement and rhythm. Through choosing to stay with the thread in my hands, even when my mind wants to wander to the next task.
If you’re someone who struggles with patience (like I did), weaving might offer more than a finished piece. It might offer a new way of approaching the rest of your day. It might shift how you interact with time, or how you treat the in-between moments of your life.
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If you’re in the Philadelphia, PA area and need guidance to start or rekindle your creative journey, contact me and let’s work together!
I believe in slow craft, real connection, and thoughtful conversation. If something in this post sparked a question or memory, reach out—I’d truly love to hear from you. -Karri
