Designing by Chance

Have you ever felt weighed down knowing you must make a design decision before you can start the next weaving and yet feeling unable to begin because of the seemingly endless search for the right design option? Consider this: Let serendipity help you move ahead. “Wait,” you might ask, “If the act of designing means planning, while serendipity is a happy chance accident, how can these two opposite concepts come together in a useful way?” I’ve found an approach for enriching design options by occasionally turning things over (somewhat) to chance. No, it’s not the same level of risk as jumping out of an airplane or investing in an unproven venture—but it might feel like a leap that big when you think about changing up ways to plan designs.

All weavers have been in this same spot, facing the dilemma of how to choose from many possibilities. What if you could set up a system for decision-making that allows you to move forward without agonizing over whether you’re creating the best and only design suitable for a project? Sometimes I use a process that takes the design decision slightly out of my hands and lets serendipity play a role. I find that once I start letting chance help out, ideas begin to flow.