Developing…

One of the biggest parts of my job as an educator and a writer (’cause those are the parts where I actually get paid) is the development of new courses and content and samples.  The same goes with writing articles.  To articulate what I know in my head, mostly from personal experience is a great exercise in solidifying that knowledge, not because someone said so, but because testing and trial and error make it so.

During the handwoven yardage class I taught last May at Peters Valley Craft School, I spent the evenings while students worked, prepping the design and samples that I wanted to use for the Beginning Weaving workshop which I’ll also teach at Peters Valley the end of August.  It is always a nail biter to get the content to match the skill level of students, in this case they have none, and be able to accomplish the goals within the time frame set by the workshop.  In this case, it is five days.  The goal is to have students become familiar with setting up a multi shaft floor loom, learn to read a draft and understand structure, and go home with a finished product.  And of course, want more… 🙂

I already teach a beginning class, a one day exploration of the loom using my little collection of Structos (I have 14), and I took that content and expanded it to five days and a much bigger project. The threading of the loom involves a straight draw, with both solid warp and stripes, and a center section of Traditional Bird’s Eye, 1,2,3,4,3,2,repeat.  (I apologize to the non weavers who have no idea what I just said.  Take the class!)  I expanded that to become a handtowel width, about 18″, about 350 ends in 5/2 cotton sett at 20epi, because I think that’s about as much as a brand new weaver can tolerate for a first project.

The idea is to create an environment for exploring treadlings on those threadings, and then select from that sampler the best or most effective and weave a couple of actual towels.

And so, I set up the loom well before I left for vacation.

Right before I left I managed to create the sampler, it is pretty cool.  I tried different treadlings and different wefts, all 5/2 cotton.

Then I looked at the finished sampler, still on the loom and decided to weave two towels, one with a complementary weft, rust against the blue,  in a twill treadling, and the other with a darker weft, actually brown, in a bird’s eye twill.   The photos are reversed.

The towels are finished, washed and dried, and hemmed.  I’m smiling.  I think this will work.

Stay tuned…