Guestbook Loom

I run the Textile Makerspace at Stanford, and as with any kind of physical space or activity, it's useful to keep track of metrics. Because the Makerspace isn't part of any official program with an advisory committee or elaborate processes or requirements (here's the backstory of how it came to exist), there aren't specific requirements for what I need to track and how; I figured some ballpark numbers for how many people are using the Makerspace, for what purpose, should be enough to cover it. I could have used the ubiquitous sign-in sheet to gather more data, but without a good story for how I'd use it, I decided there was a case to be made for data minimization. In the spirit of the ethical research training for humanities and social sciences, I got to thinking about whether I could offer something of value in what was fundamentally a mildly annoying bureaucratic process. And that's how the guestbook loom was born.

Nobody enjoys filling out the ubiquitous sign-in sheet in spaces or events. But a guestbook loom gives people the chance to do a craft they probably wouldn't have thought to try out on their own. It's a simple task, explainable in a short sentence. Even the frame loom we use is sold as educational supplies for elementary school teachers. "Cut off a piece of yarn slightly longer than the loom, and go over, under, over, under in the opposite pattern of the yarn below you." There's a piece of paper showing people what color yarn to use (depending on what brings them to the Makerspace), and there's a box of colorful beads and a chart mapping the beads to feelings. Recording your feelings (and it's okay to have more than one feeling) as part of the weaving is completely optional, I tell them, but it can be really cathartic. Certainly I have had days when I've vented into the loom using those beads.

The initial list of feelings was drawn from the game Kinder World. I ended up editing the list after the first year to cut down on the number of feelings that were almost never used. There have been some additions over time, too: Textile Makerspace assistant Akasha Hayden added "hungry", and when my then-5-year-old misread "focused" as "ferocious", that obviously had to be added as an option in her favorite color.

I ask the student assistants who help run the space to ask people to use the guestbook loom, and backfill based on their impression of how people were using the space, if it seems like the number of new yarns don't quite add up for that shift. Still, I expect we're 30-50% off in the total number of yarns, depending on the day and how well the students are keeping track of the data. I don't actually think those numbers are much worse than the standard sign-in sheet, and I've seen people really get into the guestbook loom weaving: as a moment to reflect on their day, as a way to shift into the headspace of making things, or just feeling like you can contribute to a group project that means something. Now that I've done this for a few years, I can point to the guestbook loom data from previous years hanging on the wall: the ultimate destination for the students' own additions, however small.

The Guestbook Loom idea is one that has legs; it's been picked up by other people in other contexts, and I'm happy to see it spread. Miller Library at the Hopkins Marine Station has a guestbook loom with a single color of yarn, but a full assortment of feelings.

The Graduate School of Education Makery at Stanford took the guestbook loom concept in a different direction, designing and carving rubber stamps for the different activities they support, and offering visitors the chance to contribute to a stamp art book.

There's other perks to the Guestbook Loom, including getting to make jokes about "manual (lossless!) data compression" when you pack in the yarn in hopes of postponing the day when you need to re-warp the loom for more data.