When I tell weavers that I like to think about color in terms of how our brain and visual system see it, sometimes I get the response: Oh, I have an intuitive feeling for color.

OK, but none of us are born knowing that red and green will look muddy if blended together. How does anybody “get” that intuition?

The Briggs-Myers Type Indicator (MBTI) is a psychological tool that evaluates how an individual takes in information; “intuitive” is one of the four pairs of attributes of each individual.

Intuitives tend to quickly see the big picture, and then fill in the details, if needed. It sounds great, but we need to remember that there is no guarantee of the veracity of the information whether taken in quickly or not.

Just because we have the intuitive attribute on the Brigg-Myers Type Indicator doesn’t mean that we have an intuition in all the areas of our lives.

Intuition is one of my MBTI attributes. I have NO intuition for gardening. I love flowers, plants, and walking in our garden. Growing plants? I have killed several. Luckily I am married to a gardener.

Here is “Sunlight Stepping through the Garden”: weaving my Marcy, garden by Terry!

Being an intuitive, I have thought long and hard about how I learn the things I know because I firmly believe that intuition is internalized knowledge. I think there are two ways that I internalize knowledge, and I think this may be true whether an individual is an intuitive or not.

A common way to internalize knowledge is coming to it without really remembering how it occurred. I remember being asked by a weaver how I sett 8/2 Tencel^TM. My answer was that I don’t use 8/2 Tencel^TM, so I don’t know, I use 10/2 Tencel^TM. How come, she asked, it’s harder to find. I can mix and match 10/2 Tencel^TM with 20/2 silk, was my answer.

I have been mixing them for years. When did I start doing it? How did I figure that out? I honestly don’t know. This is what I call “I don’t know how I know what I know.” (Ironically in the Fall 2026 issue of Handwoven Susan DuBois of Treenway Silks states the same similarly between 20/2 silk and 10/2 cotton, which is the same size as 10/2 Tencel^TM).

Here is a scarf: 20/2 silk warp from Treenway Silks, 10/2 Tencel^TM weft  from Teresa Ruch.

 Another way I have acquired my intuition is from the past; while I may not know the exact time and space, I know the circumstances.

When I boil water to cook pasta, I toss salt in. A visiting friend saw me do it and asked how much salt I tossed in. Not only I didn’t know, but I couldn’t reproduce the amount because it is so automatic. I suspect I learned it by watching my Grandma and my Mom do it a million times. No measuring anything, no recipe. I wasn’t specifically paying attention; I just internalized the process.

Similarly knowledge can become intuitive through planned learning and carefully paying attention. A lot of what I know about weaving has come that way. Each project has a planning sheet, providing knowledge over the years. If I am using a yarn I have used before – and 20/2 silk is a favorite – I know whether to sett it at 30 or 36 epi depending on the twill floats. The 20/2 silk of the 40-shaft undulating twill below was sett at 36 to have a drapey but not sleazy shawl.

I know the shrinkage of the yarns I use because I have planned and measured after wet finishing. And I know about color by studying the spectra the brain sees and how it works by subtraction.

These details may not be what we traditionally consider intuitive, but they may seem so to the inexperienced students. “How do you know that?” Ask students. “From paying attention to my doing” is my answer.

Happy Learning!