Weavers’ School - Part 2

I can see why Madelyn decided to move her Weavers’ School from Missouri to Whidby Island - with views like this, who wouldn’t? Just off the tiny downtown of Coupeville we discovered the village wharf. It was home to a tiny museum-like display about whales, a fun gift shop and a cafe. Becca and I went one day for lunch and did our souvenier shopping. I was really proud of her - we shared a seafood sampler and she actually tried an oyster. Didn’t eat it, but she tried! Most of the time we spent weaving as these photos, mostly from the last day, show. 

Becca and John - who came from England and spent two weeks at the School - were the only ones to weave on the Oxaback draw loom. He made little Halloween witches, she wove her doodles: mushrooms. To give you perspective, each of their pieces took more than a day to weave. 

The class at work.

 

Sometimes work is hard. This is Becca. Lucky for me, no one had a camera out when I took my noontime nap! 

This is the Louet Megado loom, the big sister (brother?) to the Octado we have at Heritage. The Megado is a 32-shaft computer driven loom that can do some really incredible things. I spent a little while with it so I could compare it to how the Octado works and found that it weaves about the same way. Moving that many shafts up and down isn’t difficult and, in fact, is almost effortless. It is a joy to weave on.

When we were all done weaving we cut off our projects and measured them. All together we wove more than 40 yards of fabric in the five days we were there. If you’ve had a chance to look at the current Handwoven, you may recognize the double weave windows on the left. In Handwoven, Madelyn shows how to use this same warp to make a table runner, napkins and tablecloth. The black and white sample on the right is deflected doubleweave in 10/2 cotton. This photo was taken after it was washed, allowing the yarns to move and the more circular structures to appear. Fun stuff with great potential.

Every class needs a class photo. The one above shows all of us, with Suzie (one of our helpers) and Madelyn in the front row. The photo below shows us with all of our individual samples. Wow! We worked hard!

  

Now that the class is a couple weeks behind me, I am very grateful to have a two reference books to go back to: Madelyn’s Complete Book of Drafting for Handweavers and the workbook she sent us home with. Both are invaluable resources because it is going to take more than just this week to make the structure side of weaving easier for me. I’m glad that we are just starting another Weaving Boot Camp because that will reinforce for me what I learned about weave structures over this week. Madelyn reminded us frequently that there are two kinds of weavers: “structure and pattern” and “color and texture.” I really enjoy the structure and pattern and want to learn more about it because it is endlessly fascinating. As for color and texture, I really enjoy playing with it on the rigid heddle. Not that it can’t work on a larger loom, but it seems more like “play” on the simpler loom.

Bottom line is I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the Weavers’ School and wish I could stay and play on Madelyn’s looms forever!

SOAR 2007

It’s official. I survived! What a week! A bit exhausting so close on the heels of the Washington weaving trip (more on it in my next post), but very, very cool. Being accepted to teach at SOAR was an honor and a goal met. I remember leaving SOAR in 2000, my very first one, knowing I wanted to come back and teach someday. I absolutely adore teaching. I love the “ah ha” moments and watching people grasp a concept and run with it.

 

The first three class days, I taught a class called Spinning for Weaving: an Introduction to the Rigid Heddle. It was ambitious, but my wonderful class rose to the challenge. The goal was to spin the yarn - a two-ply yarn for the warp and a single for the weft, learn to weave on the rigid heddle, and sew a bag from the resulting fabric. Each of the pieces of fabric was unique as were the bags. Not everyone made it through to a bag, but more than half did. Here are some photo memories of the class:

 Under that fine bag is one very creative lady!

 

 A great bag with great tassles.

The Grand Canyon weaving. On the loom the weft colors reminded me of the Grand Canyon at sunset. Beautiful!

 A brave first cut (that’s the lining on top of her handspun, handwoven fabric). Bonus: if you like to listen to podcasts while crafting, check out Heather’s CraftLit podcast and enjoy a scholarly listen.

A proud weaver . . . who succumbed to the siren of the loom and has one winging her way.

Now, this is one incredible lady. The gauge of this bag is HUGE for Susan. Her normal spinning is done on a charka and woven on a multi-shaft loom.

Fresh off the loom - is Virginia a proud weaver or what?

After the three day class we got a day-long break from classes and went shopping at the market. Oh my! I’m usually pretty immune to the market, but not at SOAR. It is the best spinning market I have ever been to. I love the woodworking, especially the Woodchuck products. I also got a Woolee Winder for my Schacht Matchless. I gave it a test drive earlier this evening and love it. Expensive, but worth it. Now I want one for my Joy! Makes spinning even more relaxing. Peace of Yarn was there with free samples of their luxury spinning fibers, but I didn’t have a spindle that was worthy of the fiber so I added another one to my collection. It’s a very lightweight Forrester. Bottom line, it cost me more than $50 to spin the free fiber!

Friday and Saturday were tough. I taught a class called “Making Your Wheel Do the Work” four times! My smallest class had 14 students, the largest 17.  Here’s a photo of Sara with her experiments in front of her:

The skeins on the floor show the differences when different whorls and tensions are used.

Many people learned about the joy of steaming wool to set the twist for the first time - that’s a student steaming her skein in the background, not conducting an orchestra!

This photo is interesting for two reasons. The short wheel in the center is a Hitch Hiker. It’s treadle is shaped like a foot print and the carry handle like a hitchhiking hand with thumb extended. A cute little wheel, the first time I’d seen one. And, the spinner on the right is Stephanie, the Yarn Harlot. Also, in the same class I had Amy Singer (knitty.com). I think it is through blogs and because of people like these two, the demographics of SOAR is changing. There seemed to be many younger people in attendance than at my previous SOAR experiences. The web had certainly created an active, wonderful fiber community. Who’d have thought that something so hi-tech would have such an impact on low-tech passions like spinning and knitting?

Spinning with this carpeting as a visual backdrop was a challenge, but many rose to the occasion and even excelled! They made some beautiful yarn. The most common comment was how they didn’t think they could ever spin soft, fluffy, large yarn and now they had. I totally understand. That’s how the class came to be. I admired Holly Shaltz and Stephanie Gaustad’s spinning and set out to replicate the loft of their yarns.

SOAR is also an opportunity to see old fiber friends and make new ones. I enjoyed sharing several meals with Carol Rhodes, a frequent Spin Off contributor, and hope that we can schedule her to come to the shop to teach knitting and spinning sometime in the next year or two. Carol is a lovely, gentle soul and an incredible fiber artist. I also got to catch up with Cindy, the US Ashford distributor, and Richard Ashford (did you notice his signature on Sara’s Joy wheel above?). Cindy and I serve together on the membership committee for the Spinning and Weaving Association (SWA), so we regularly teleconference, but since she lives in Washington State, we rarely get to visit in person. Face to face is so much better! I also got to meet some of the Interweave folks with whom I work frequently. The people part of SOAR is pretty incredible - unlike any other conference I’ve ever been at. 

Next year’s SOAR is the second week in October in the Poconos. See you there!

Immersed in Weaving

Our Washington state adventure started last Friday at Pike’s Place Market in downtown Seattle. It was what I remembered best from the brief time I lived here nearly 30 years ago! Inside the market, I don’t think much has really changed. The atmosphere is the same. A bustle-ness, an odd sense of community what with people from everywhere blending with Seattle-ites and vendors. A good place to shop and eat. We went to the Market twice, once when we got there on Friday, and a second time on Saturday. Lunch and breakfast. We had the “world’s best macaroni and cheese” for lunch and a spectacular view of the harbor at breakfast. Fun stuff. Saturday we went with Syne Mitchell of WeaveCast. She was as delightful in person as she is in her podcasts. It is always fun to put a face to a name (and not be disappointed). No disappointment there. Syne is a weaver, what more can we say! Pictured around the pig from L to R: Joan, Syne, Becca and Su.

Here’s a general view of the market - all the colors really are inspiring.

 After breakfast we stopped in at Seattle’s Weaving Works, enjoyed poking around and getting our fiber fix. Then we headed out to Snohomish and a bezillion antique shops. The three of us love to check out old textiles for unique weave structures and ideas. Most usually these are in the form of old towels. This picture shows a fun find of an old coverlet that was put together wrong. First we thought they’d done a bad job matching things up, then Becca realized that one side of the coverlet should have been flipped 180 degrees! The arrow points to the center seam. Always learning! Sunday was rainy. We went to a community rummage/antique sale in Mt. Vernon, but we were all tired of dusty old stuff, so we headed to Whidbey Island and enjoyed a slow rest of the day. Good thing, because things started with a bang on Monday morning.

Madelyn van der Hoogt’s Weavers’ School is located in the lower level of her home in the town of Coupeville — a town so slow and relaxed that we couldn’t find a can of Red Bull anywhere! Each day is divided between weaving and lecture. I haven’t even counted the looms that are available for us to weave on - but there are 10 students in our class and you never have to sit and wait for a loom to go to next. Samples are significant samples - large enough to do something with. My first one was on a Glilmakra draw loom and was a five block double-weave sample. 

Here’s Becca with Huck, our mascot.

 

And Madelyn demonstrating how NOT to fill a bobbin!

This is Su weaving on the new love of her life: a second Glimakra draw loom. See how she is “drawing” down the cords over her head? That is making the pattern that you see in the next picture.

More photos and story once we are done!