I flew to Seattle this morning, after a lovely end to the Asilomar CNCH Weavers’ Conference. I have so many weaving friends on the west coast, and Linda and her husband drove me north to Palo Alto, and took me to the San Francisco airport this morning. It is fun to stay in places I’ve stayed before, cementing friendships, and just plain catching up.
The conference was of course terrific fun. Weaving conferences always are. I never got to visit the vendor hall, but I did catch a glimpse of the beach one afternoon. The weather was warm and lovely and I was surrounded by all kinds of wonderful textiles and enthusiastic weavers, and instructors.
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This is the first time I’ve taught an advanced Inkle Weaving class, over a 2 1/2 day period. As an instructor, there is always the fear that the timing won’t work, or that the students won’t get it, or that the expectations are too high about what can be accomplished in the allotted time. And of course none of that came to be, they students were wonderful. They were able to keep up, really take charge of this simple inexpensive and very portable loom, and there were some beautiful samples coming out of these humble two shaft pieces of wood.
The classroom was dark, a common complaint at this facility, it is a retreat center after all, but what’s not to like in a room called the Afterglow Living Room. We were snug but very productive.
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They learned supplemental weft…
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Supplemental warp…
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2:1 Pick-up…
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And there were the overachievers who tried to do pick up and keep the supplemental warp going at the same time…
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Saturday morning they re-warped and explored name drafts…
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and freeform…
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and Paired Pebbles…
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It was at that point that I realized there were a couple of real mistakes in my handouts, which is always annoying when it happens, I’m so good at proofing and checking, and yes, in spite of all my careful attention to detail, there were a couple of serious boo-boos, but I’m hoping that if those are the only errors I make in the whole west coast trip, I’ll be really really grateful. I figured out and corrected my mistakes after some intense calculations Saturday evening, and had the corrections to the students Sunday morning. Apparently you can swap the paired pebble rows 1 & 2 and you’ll get a different pattern. Who knew?
Sunday morning they re-warped the loom again, and explored 3 shaft turned Krokbragd. Don’t ask me to pronounce it. The set up is tricky, but the weaving goes fast and the bands are so pretty.
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By lunch we were mostly packed up, a quick farewell, and we were on our way north. I’m in Olympia, WA now, and will be starting a series of workshops for the Olympia Weavers. Stay tuned for more of Daryl’s Excellent Washington State adventure…