[M.K.] Why did you choose “perebory” as your first technique? [K.CH.] Honestly, I didn’t think much about the difficulty of the techniques. When I sat at the loom, I simply started weaving — without considering progression or levels of difficulty. Perebory felt like a natural choice because that technique had always been present in my family home. What’s more, my first warp was already wound onto the beam at home. When I retrieved the loom from my mother, I also inherited that warp — nearly 20 meters long and partially woven. My mother always joked that this warp would last me a lifetime. In the past, warps had to be woven within a specific timeframe — between the end of Christmas and the beginning of Holy Week. Otherwise, it was believed that an unwoven warp could bring misfortune to the village, such as a summer drought. If a warp was left unfinished, neighbors might track it down and destroy it, chopping it on a wood block. My mother taught me, among other things, how to make harnesses. I com- pleted my first set of harnesses only recently. My earliest attempts, however, date back to elementary school. Back then, I started creating something akin to a harness — half-finished — that I held onto for years and only recently completed. I remember my mother visiting once or twice to help set up the warp and adjust the harnesses. It wasn’t always easy — after all, two women from different generations were working on the same project. Still, I completed part of the work on my own, without her. I greatly value being able to ask my mother for advice on weaving details to this day. [M.K.] Are there specific patterns best suited for the pick-up weaving technique? [K.CH.] It depends on your creativity. *Perebory* doesn’t impose limitations, so you can create any pattern—ge- ometric, animal, or even abstract. It all comes down to how you design and translate the pattern onto graph paper or squared paper. While the patterns often take symmetrical, geometric forms, they don’t have to be confined to simple grids—you decide how your fabric will look. [M.K.] Do you use weaving drafts (“spiski”)? [K.CH.] I have weaving drafts “spiski”, but I haven’t used them yet. Why? Because it would require a lot of confidence that the recorded pattern is correct, and working with a draft carries risks. It’s a shame to waste a warp and time on weaving something that might turn out flawed. However, if I wanted to recreate a pattern from a draft exactly as it is, I would do so fully aware of the risks. Even if the pattern “fell apart” during the work, I’d persist to show what might have gone wrong. Often, patterns in drafts were copied from other weavers and might already contain errors that no one corrected. Looking at old blankets or fabrics, you can sometimes see unintended differences—a suddenly added square or a missing part of the pattern. [M.K.] Do you draw inspiration from blankets or other fabrics when creating your patterns? [K.CH.] Absolutely. One of my recent inspirations was the *pansy*—a pattern my mother wove before she turned 18. I only learned about this recently, but it seems that this motif left a deep impression on me. Over time, I noticed that pansies are one of the more popular designs. [M.K.] Do you also use patterns borrowed from embroidery, such as cross-stitch? [K.CH.] I’ve noticed there’s a connection between weaving and embroidery. Motifs that were once part of weaving often later appear in embroidery. It works the other way around, too — sometimes embroidery inspires weaving.
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Woven Heritage Interviews
Tkane Dziedzictwo Wywiady
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