Learning to Code, One Thread at a Time
When I first set out to create free online tools for weavers, I had no idea how much I’d be learning along the way. I wanted calculators and charts that could make life easier for me in the studio—and hopefully for other fiber artists as well. What I didn’t anticipate was just how much I’d be teaching myself about HTML coding, patience, and perseverance in the process.
I’ll be the first to admit: I didn’t come into this with a background in programming. My “curriculum” was made up of a lot of Googling, a little bit of AI support, and a whole lot of trial and error. There were moments of frustration, but also small victories that kept me moving forward. Each tool—whether it’s the warp length calculator, the shrinkage estimator, or the interactive read substitution chart—represents hours of tinkering, reworking, and problem-solving.
Coding and Craft: The Same Learning Curve
The more I’ve worked at coding, the more I’ve realized how similar it feels to learning any skill—especially weaving or spinning. When you’re just starting out, you don’t even know what you don’t know. You follow instructions as best you can, but there are gaps in understanding that you can’t quite name.
Then, as you gain experience, the horizon gets wider. You realize just how vast the subject is, and how much you don’t understand. That realization can be humbling, even discouraging. I’ve had many moments staring at a wall of code, feeling like I was drowning in curly brackets and missing semicolons.
But slowly, with repetition and practice, you begin to find your footing. Just like a beginner spinner eventually learns to treadle smoothly, or a new weaver learns to keep their edges straight, a beginner coder learns to troubleshoot, debug, and experiment with more confidence.
Good Enough, For Now
What I’ve learned is that you don’t have to be fast to be effective. My coding process isn’t sleek or efficient yet, but it is effective enough to create the tools I imagined. And those tools are already proving useful to me and (I hope) to others in the weaving community.
Over time, I know I’ll get quicker. Just as with weaving, efficiency is a skill that builds on itself. But for now, I’m proud to be creating excellent, working tools—even if they take me a little longer to finish.
Explore the Tools
If you’d like to check out the tools I’ve been building, they’re all free to use on my website: www.theweftwright.com/tools.
And if you want a quick overview, I put together a YouTube video highlighting my Top 10 Free Online Tools for Weavers. You can watch it here:
👉 Top 10 Free Online Tools for Weavers
Support My Work
If you’ve found these tools helpful and would like to support me in creating more (and help me reach my goal of buying a new camera for my channel 🎥), you can do so here:
👉 Buy Me a Coffee
Thanks for following along on this journey. Whether at the loom, the wheel, or the keyboard, we’re all learning new skills one thread at a time.