Robyn Spady – Daryl's Blog

Life Happens…

I finished up my last blog, and headed “down” the shore (a NJ expression) for an overnight, meeting up with an old college friend and her husband, who had just flown in from the West Coast. It was a lovely day that Sunday, and then hurricane Erin stirred things up, and Monday was a cold, rainy day, thrilled to get rain, but sadly not at home two hours north, and definitely not a beach day. I headed home Monday night.

Tuesday I spent the day with my sister at the NY Botanical Gardens, finally getting to see the Van Gogh’s flowers exhibit. It was pretty incredible. But more importantly, my sister is a superior gardener and well versed in native plants. We poked around, examining labels, identifying plants with my trusty app, and acted like two horticulturists, or in my case really, a horticulturist wannabee… We discovered all the different variations of Rudbekia (hirta, fulgida, and triloba, if you are interested…)

Tuesday night I started feeling sniffly, and by Wednesday morning I was sick. I was so sick, feverish, I got really suspicious. 48 hours before, I was with a whole group of people… hmmmm.

So I wanted to start this blog post with all the glorious pictures of my new costume, and my cello debut at the Montclair Early Music Medieval fest. Turns out, I couldn’t go because, I TESTED POSITIVE FOR COVID! Damn… Bad timing. So basically I cancelled my life for the next 10 days, until I tested negative once more. I was really disappointed, so many things planned for the end of the summer. Fortunately I was sick for just a couple days, and stayed in bed, and did what any weaver would do, took a loom to bed with me.

I cleared one of my Inklette Inkle Looms of a Supplemental Weft piece that has been on there for too many years.

I was on a roll, and couldn’t go anywhere, so I cleared another Inkle loom, this one set up for turned Krokbragd. Both looms were donated to Jockey Hollow Weavers for their loaner loom program. Two more looms out of my studio.

Meanwhile, the gardens, in spite of no rain, (in spite of being sick, I still went out and watered the critical things) my tomatoes are prolific.

So I made a pot of sauce…

And that warp from hell? The one that wouldn’t end? I was determined…

6 yards of 20/2 fine cotton. I initially worked through the Robyn Spady overshot sampler from a back issue of Handwoven Magazine, switching back and forth from Rose fashion to Star fashion, and then I just said, “Screw it”, and picked one of the patterns that appealed to me, and just wove. And wove. And wove…

So now I have this incredibly long sampler I will have to do something with. I think zip bags? At least a portion of it.

Which meant that I could move another warp onto that loom from my dwindling collection of Structos. I chose to move over an 8-shaft Quigley, the original pattern on the Structo I got from Tom Knisely’s book of Table Linens. It was designed by Diane Click and is a four-tied Unit Weave.

It is complicated to weave, and when I originally posted it on my blog, a couple of years ago, Diane actually wrote me, told me she taught a workshop in this structure at the 2015 Florida Tropical Weavers Guild conference (I’m pretty sure I was there teaching) and generously sent me her handout. Since I had already set the loom up, I didn’t do much with it, but now that I had the opportunity to rethread, bingo! Now I can work through her handout and really study the structure.

I was on a roll, and though I finally tested negative for Covid, I decided to move the warp on the 4-shaft Structo I had set up with Doup Leno. I wanted to prove to myself that I could weave Doup Leno on a Structo, but table looms are painfully slow, so once I moved the warp, I blew through a half yard in a sitting. This is 10/2 cotton.

Then I decided to move the warp on another 8-shaft Structo with a Honeycomb draft, from Malin Selander’s Weave a Weave. Here is the original piece I cut off the Structo before I moved it to my 8 shaft 36″ floor loom.

This probably wasn’t my best idea, I should have waited for a smaller floor loom, but I wanted to reach out to my contact at FIT in NY who is patiently waiting for me to clear Structos. I wanted to make it worth the trip for her.

This is going to be a bit technical, so if you are not a weaver, just skip to the picture and move on. Malin Selander’s book is written for a sinking shed loom. I have rising shed jack looms. In a sinking shed loom, in Honeycomb, only one shaft gets pulled down at a time, the rest stay up. Easy treadling. (Though I’m curious because I’ve never seen an 8-shaft loom with a sinking shed, at least from the era the book was written). I have rising shed jack looms, like I said, which means, to have one shaft stay down, I have to lift 7, 36″ wide rock maple shafts. This is quite the workout. And yes, I could weave it upside down, but trust me, you don’t want to do that in Honeycomb. Cause I’m kind of designing as I go… Not only that, one of the designs in her Honeycomb sampler calls for 18 treadles. I have 10. It is easy to weave on a table loom, you just pull levers and engage the shafts you want. (There are 254 combinations of shafts in an 8-shaft loom) Not so easy on a floor loom. So I jumped down a rabbit hole, determined to figure out a skeleton tie up so I could use more than one foot, and get the tie-up down to 10 or less treadles.

There is an old program on the internet called Tim’s Treadle Reducer. I went there, and either it is no longer functioning, or I blew it up. If anyone knows its status, please let me know, it was a really handy tool. So I was on my own.

I sat with the draft for an hour or so, after transferring the tie-up for a rising shed loom. And slowly I worked it out to be able to use less than 10 treadles, two or three at a time, but set up in a way that one foot could press two at once, having the treadles adjacent to one another. I was pretty damn proud of myself. (I tweaked it further, shifting the plain weave to the middle, the photo shows the middle of my calculations.)

I haven’t woven that one yet, but this is a different design in her Honeycomb sampler, it is a very cool weave structure, but I’m going to be with this one for a while, since there are something like four yards on this 16/2 cotton warp.

Yesterday was an interesting day. First, it rained. We have been under extreme drought conditions here, I’m struggling daily to keep my plants alive, and Wednesday we planted another four dozen native bushes and perennials. It started raining Thursday night, resumed on Saturday, and well into this morning. I’m thinking we got more than 2″ of rain. For that I got on my knees and gave thanks to the universe for taking care of its own.

Secondly, if you own a PC with Windows 10, you probably know that October 15th is D Day. Microsoft will no longer support Windows 10 with security updates. Which is really problematic, leaving any computer with Windows 10 vulnerable. My tech guy came over yesterday, I was not going to try this myself, to upgrade my two computer systems to Windows 11.

Yeah, so the first computer, my laptop I use for teaching online, which I can annotate with a pen, set up in my studio, the processor in it won’t support Windows 11. So $1000 later, I have a new laptop on its way. Apparently the processor in my desk top computer will also not support Windows 11, but my tech guy, who is really brilliant, found a work around, and got everything on my desktop updated. Of course I have high anxiety knowing by the end of the week, I’ll be ripping my hair out making sure all my programs work on the new laptop, finding registration codes, passwords, etc., and getting a new code for Fiberworks. Which I definitely need that critical piece of computer software.

So one computer is safe and updated. And it rained. And I’m Covid free. And my sister didn’t get it. And my garden continues to delight and astound me. Leaves are starting to turn, things are beginning to die back. And I just cleared a number of looms, all going to good homes who will use them for teaching.

And I looked at the calendar and my eyes got really big, and I realized I have six weeks to make as much stuff as I can for the guild sale, inventory sheets are due the end of October. OMG! Fortunately I have a 5-yard plus Overshot sampler to start with…

Stay tuned…

Signed, Sealed, and Delivered…

Last Sunday, I picked up my son, newly back from a deployment in Syria, and off we drove to Maryland for the day. It is about a 3 1/2-hour trip, and I was thrilled to have the company. He is such an interesting person to converse with, his knowledge of history, what led to what, and where we are now, is fascinating. Great conversation, perspective, and knowledge.

We got to my mom’s to deliver the quilt, and deliver it we did. First, she inspected the label I had made and attached to the back.

Then the unveiling… Of course she cried. I cried.

My son helped me hang it…

I got a great picture of my mom and my son. Mom will be 94 in May, each day is a gift.

She was so appreciative, but I think I was more appreciative for the gift of a project that kept me going, marking time through a difficult year. We talked this morning and she tells me that it is the first thing she sees when she wakes up, and she stares at it all day finding something new she hadn’t seen before.

Meanwhile, there was that flood thing… No progress on the restoration because…

I got this great idea… I have these spectacular perennial native plant gardens, newly planted last spring, and I can’t see them well from any area in my house. Long story… I woke up in the middle of the night last week to a voice in my head yelling at me to just change the window…

So this is the den currently. I am getting rid of the TV and credenza, and will move the piano in there, the cello, my recorders, and turn it into a music room. And I want to be able to look outside and see my gardens.

I have contracted Pella to replace the east wall pair of double hungs with a window wall with two casements. But the window won’t be ready for installation for 8 weeks. Sigh…

I moved my bar table and stool in there to have my breakfast and look out the current window.

Of course I’m trying to eat my breakfast and enjoy the view, and Mulder decides that he wants to see too. So much for my view…

It will all be lovely, and just in time for spring. Right now there is about 6 inches of snow on the ground, so I’m looking forward to seeing what that looks like tomorrow morning.

This is January. This is my month for dyeing. Once I got my rhythm, I can wind about 14-15 ounces of mixed cellulose skeins, scour them, move them into an overnight soda ash soak, rinse the dyed skeins from the previous day and hang to dry, and move the skeins from the soda ash from the previous day into a new dyebath, all in less than two hours. It is my morning routine. I’ve probably done 8-10 dyebaths. MX Fiber Reactive dyes from ProChemical. They had new colors for 2025, what could I do but try them…

This one is called Swamp…

And of course, I finished the twill sampler I had moved to my floor loom, and grabbed the next Structo. This one is a four-shaft overshot sampler, from Robyn Spady.

I pulled the warp forward, and transferred it onto my small floor loom.

I love this. I adore pattern samplers, I can sit down and in about a half hour, run through the draft, all five design areas, switch my tie-up from Rose fashion to Star fashion, and do it all again. This one should be on the loom for awhile, as I think there was about 6 yards of 20/2 cotton on those Structo spools…

As we head into the great unknown politically, and as so many have lost their homes to natural disasters, the world is looking a bit bleak right now. I try to stay focused on what is in my control, mourning the loss of giants in the textile world, Claire Shaeffer, and Jannie Taylor, and closer to home, the moms of two of my close friends, and one of my own, one of my oldest friends, we raised our kids together. She is gone, at peace I hope, and life will be a little dimmer without all of them. All I can do is put one foot in front of the other, wake up each morning and find gratitude in the day ahead. Yes, I’ll have to do a lot of shoveling tomorrow morning, but snow is pretty and healing, and I have northern dogs who think this is just the best! I want to be like them, roll around in the snow with abandon, and eat large gulps of fresh clean snow. Rest easy Judy, I will miss you terribly…

Derailed…

I had every intention of following up my last two posts with two more, because I was only halfway through talking about the 64 named looms in my studio and what’s on them. I had intended to just jump right into the Structos, which I have many, along with the five 10″ 4-shaft Leclerc Sample Looms.

But the universe had other ideas. Right after I posted my last blogs, apparently as best we can piece together, Microsoft did one of their famous security updates, which caused havoc over at Google (don’t ask me how I know this), and the end result was a suspension of my main business email account I’ve had since I could get a domain outside of AOL. Somewhere in the 90’s?

Because I started traveling a lot, and my late husband as well, for our jobs, my husband found a way to reroute my main email, theweaver@weaversew.com, which was part of a hosted platform, to IMAP through Google, allowing me to look at my email in my laptop, or tablet. This is before the invention of Apps. So for years, that email IMAP’d through Google, and all was well. Until about 10 days ago. When it became inaccessible. At first my tech support thought it would come back, that Google was scrambling, and all would be well. Then he tried updating my email program, Microsoft Outlook, and nothing would bring back accessibility.

As I freaked out, people close to me reminded me that no one died, and that I hadn’t lost my files and records, I just couldn’t email anyone and anyone who emailed me, the emails would bounce back as no such address. Some people called or texted and asked, WTF? I gave them an alternative email. I desperately thought about who needed to reach me in the next few days, like the tour company sponsoring my upcoming trip to Japan, I leave in a couple weeks. I thought about all the guilds I’m working with for upcoming lectures and workshops. I spent days trying to change my email address so I could be reached. I lay awake a nights haunted by MFA which is a nightmare, meaning Multi Factor Authentication, meaning each address change I could actual make happen, took 15 – 20 minutes with all the 2 factor authentication, email confirmations, snail mail letters generated, texts and whatever. I get the need for security, but this was ridiculous.

Anyway, I’m not out of the woods yet. I worked with my hosting company Pair.com (which by the way is incredible) and they gave me a multi page step by step on how to redirect the email off Google back to a hosted mailbox through my weaversew domain. Sounds complicated, I can assure you, I’m not so tech savvy and these last couple weeks have been my worst nightmare. (I know, there are a lot of things worse than this).

My tech support, who is probably the best in the state, is not so easy to get, largely because he is the best in the state… While waiting for him, I kept trying to figure out what to do, working with tutorials, working with my hosting company, and I was able to get my email working again, but not in my preferred email program Outlook. I spent hours trying to come up with the right set of settings or protocols to make it work. It didn’t help that two of my three email programs were affected, and that there were 11,000 emails in my inbox on my main email address, and apparently 5,000 emails in my back up gmail account. So I spent hours filling and sorting and deleting until I was down to almost nothing.

I was finally successful in getting the right settings and got both email accounts to work in Outlook, but only on my office computer. I was afraid to even start messing with my laptop. One thing at a time. Turns out that was a good move, because by the afternoon yesterday, all of my email folders I’d created over the years, disappeared. Gone. I’ve never been so devastated, and I’ve had some pretty crappy things happen in my life. “You should have backed everything up” was not helpful, because I didn’t know how. Because my laptop remained untouched by my successful transfer of the emails back to Outlook, my daughter and I successfully spent until about midnight last night, with my tech support logging in remotely, retrieving 33 GB (no that’s not a typo) of email data off my laptop, dating back to 2013? maybe beyond… So I have everything, at least I think I do, and my emails are all functioning. If you emailed me and got no response, I lost about a week of emails, they would have been returned to you. Try again.

I’m waiting for tech support to help me reinstall the 33 GB of data back into Outlook, but I have it. And those 11,000 plus emails? They are all back. I’m thrilled and yet devastated that I have to go through them again and sort, file and delete.

I wanted to title this post For the Win, part 3, but I wasn’t sure if I felt like I won anything anymore. My filling all my looms seems rather anti-climactic. Nevertheless, I’m going to plow forth, and document anyway, so bear with me, because at the time (2 weeks ago) this was a big milestone for me. I’ve already cleared one of the floor looms I talked about in my last posts, so before I clear anything else, here is the list.

The first 13 Structos and 2 Leclerc sample looms are all set up and ready to go for a Learn To Weave program I do annually, and they can be used for any demos my daughter and I should encounter during the year. They live up on shelves around the studio patiently waiting. But they are all warped thanks to the class we taught at my guild in January. Their names, all after Star Trek characters, are “Yar, Worf, McCoy, Sato, Kes, Chekov, Uhura, O’Brian, Bashir, Troy, Scotty, Crusher, and LaForge“. The two Leclerc looms are “Neelix and Phlox“.

I also have a baby 2 shaft Structo named “Rand” that is only 4″ wide. I keep that set up with a handpainted warp, because it is really helpful to be able to explain how a loom works, with one that is set up, and help students identify the different parts of the loom.

The other three Leclerc Sample Looms are “Lursa“, a 4 shaft loom with a Huck sampler from an article titled “Stuck on Huck / 4 shaft Library” by Lynn Tedder from Best of Weaver’s Huck Lace, edited by Madelyn van der Hoogt.

“Bettor” has a 4 shaft doubleweave sampler from Jennifer Moore’s Doubleweave, but I used the threading from Ursina Arn-Grischott’s book Doubleweave on Four to Eight Shafts. I don’t know why I did that, for a challenge maybe? It hurts my head…

And “Hemmer“, which I talked about in a recent post, another 4 shaft loom, threaded in a straight draw (I think), intended for intense pick up. I found a booklet from Elizabeth Tritthart, historicweaving.com called 100 Horizontal Stripes. I love this one, and yes, it is really slow cloth, tedious as most pick up is, but you really can lose yourself in it and take pride in seeing the design build. And it uses up embroidery floss!

The remaining dozen Structos have cool drafts and structures on them, and I periodically pull one out and just weave. I can take one easily onto the deck and weave outside! The documentation on each one is important, because I have to remind myself each time what I’m doing, where I am in the draft, and how it even works. I have a guild mate, a relatively new weaver, who comes once a week to explore a different loom. It helps to teach it, and we work out together what a newer weaver understands and doesn’t understand.

If you are still with me on this… in no particular order…

This little 2-shaft loom, “Chapel” was pulled out of the attic for parts, and I decided to set up a simple clasped weft technique after a workshop with Deborah Jarchow.

“Dax” has a 4-shaft Theo Moorman threading, which allows me to weave narrow strips of silk habotai, printed with an image in an ink jet printer, on a linen ground, using sewing thread as the tie-downs. I have a monograph on the subject, including step by step how I do this technique. This is a photo of pansies.

“Picard” is an 8-shaft Structo, threaded for a 4-tie pattern called Quigley, which I’d woven in a class with Madelyn van der Hoogt, and loved. This particular pattern was designed by Diane Click and is found in Tom Knisely’s Handwoven Table Linens book.

“Riker” has a 4-shaft overshot gamp, adapted from a draft by Robyn Spady in the May/June 2014 issue of Handwoven Magazine. Robyn does great gamps! I love Gamps, I define them as a sampler that works like a grid, each vertical stripe is threaded in a specific pattern, and each horizontal stripe is a specific lift plan, and the intersections of each creates stunningly different patterns.

“Sulu” has a 4 shaft twill variation on a twill color gamp, again by Robyn Spady in Handwoven Magazine, November/December 2008. Getting the beat correct so the twill lines move at a 45 degree angle is harder than it looks.

“Kira” has only 3 shafts. This is an amazing structure on only 3-shafts. It is a rug technique called Krokbragd, which no one can pronounce, but it is gorgeous, and also very tedious. This draft is from an article Vakker Mug Rugs, by Anu Bhatia, in Handwoven Magazine, May/June 2022.

“Archer” has a structure called Deflected Doubleweave, this one is on 8 shafts. I drafted this from the Marian Stubenitsky’s book, Double with a Twist. The real beauty of this cloth will come out after it is washed, when the yarns in the structure deflect into each other. The yarns are 8/2 Tencel.

“Burnham” has an 8 shaft Rosepath point twill threading. Carol Strickler’s book, A Weaver’s Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, has pages of little Rosepath designs, which are so much fun to weave.

“Kirk” has an 8-shaft Honeycomb threading, taken from a sampler in Malin Selander’s Weave a Weave. I’ve done three of the five variations, and within each of the variations are even more variations. These are really fun. They are named after operas, the first is Tosca, followed by Aida, and then Isolde.

We are getting there! If you are still reading I’m impressed. Remember I said a couple posts back, this documentary is for my benefit, a place to remember when I warped all the looms, with pretty pictures…

“Reed” has a 4 shaft Doup Leno threaded onto it. I wrote an entire issue of Heddlecraft Magazine Issue #19, on the subject. It is hard to see what’s happening in this small of a scale, but the lacy fabric is structurally sound because the turquoise warp threads twist back and forth because of a series of half heddles or doups.

“Sisko” has an 8 shaft Shadow Weave on from a draft by Joanne Wood Peters. You can purchase the draft from Webs, it is Valley Yarns draft #199, called Shadow Weave Sampler. The yarns are 8/2 Tencel.

And last, but not least, (because there are ton more “other” looms, like Inkle Looms, still to document), is “Pike“. He has an 8 shaft Summer Winter motif, heavily adapted from a draft I think I got from Madelyn van der Hoogt in her class. I had to rework it to fit the size of the Structo.

I know this is a long post, but like I said, this is my journal and I wanted to document something I was proud of. And I’m glad I did, because I feel like the entire email debacle pales as I look at all these images. The data is there, it will eventually get migrated back where it belongs, mostly. My greatest joyful moments come when I figure out something fun or cool in the studio. They are what keep me getting up in the morning, that and the cat sitting on my face, and I’m so grateful to have this craft, the looms, the yarns, and the library of reference books to sit and pour over while I drink tea.

Stay tuned…

I’ve seen the future and it’s looking bright…

I’m writing this on the plane, flying home to Newark from an amazing four days in Northern California at the CNCH Conference. That would be the Conference of Northern California Handweavers for those not in the know… First, I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to be asked to teach at this particular conference. Eight years ago, I was scheduled to teach at CNCH 2002, and six weeks before the conference, with sold out classes, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had to cancel a number of teaching commitments that spring, and CNCH was one of them. Eight years went by without another invitation, and I always felt bad that I never had the opportunity to make up for having to cancel.

I taught four classes at the conference this past weekend, Friday morning I had a large group for my Photographing your Work seminar, followed by a class called Warp Fast, a seminar on warping techniques that involve methods using multiple threads, paddle warping, sectional warping, and using an AVL warping mill. I had a very large class for that seminar, and I got a lot of very positive feedback after both classes, which always makes me feel good, that I’ve inspired and encouraged others with new information and sometimes a new perspective. Friday night was of course, the fashion show. Always a conference favorite, I had a front row seat, which I appreciated, since I would be giving the technical critique of the garments on Sunday morning. I had spent Thursday afternoon previewing the garments as they came in, so I had a chance to look up inside, check construction details and techniques.

I had already sensed that there was something different about this conference, a different energy and enthusiasm I haven’t felt at a fiber conference in a very long time. The conference committee was doing an exceptional job, the facility, the Santa Clara Conference Center, attached to our hotel, the Hyatt, so we never had to leave the building, was first class, my classroom perfect for my needs, all my classes in one room, and the food at the Hyatt restaurants, outstanding and very reasonable.

So my weaving buddy, great friend and roommate Robyn Spady and I sat up front for the fashion show, and what a treat. I found the garments to be largely in one of two groups. There were a number of lovely jackets, beautifully tailored, made from exquisite handwoven, sometimes handspun and handdyed fabrics, and the makers of the garments, or their friends modeled them on stage. They were so proud of what they had done, and celebrated the moment. The show opened with the wedding ensemble, the year long undertaking of relatively new handweaver Tien Chiu, who has painstakingly documented every thread woven and every stitch taken on her blog.

Then came the rectangles. A large percentage of the garments were quite the throw back to the 60’s and 70’s when handwoven clothing was a series of pieced together rectangles. Yet, there wasn’t a single bog jacket, that Bronze Age shape made from a couple of strategically place rectangles, based on the garments found in highly acidic boggy ground water. When I started making handwoven clothing in the late 1970’s the yarns available for the average handweaver were nothing like the yarns available today. Colors were classic, understated, and dyed more for rug weaving and tapestry than clothing. As a matter of fact, my art school, where I first learned to weave, had bins of rug yarn, and carpet warp for our use, and not much else. The first garment I ever wove was from a coarse wool, and it was actually a modified bog jacket.

Note: this photo, of a garment I did in 1976 represents how NOT to take a photo of your work!

Fast forward some thirty years and the yarns available to the average handweaver would blow your mind. We have the knitters to thank for that, and the brave spinners out there who have taken handspinning to a new level, spinning with the most amazing fibers that didn’t exist in the 1970’s, (like bamboo mixed with Angelina and soy silk) and the rectangles that are coming out of small simple looms are anything but classic. I’ve known that the knitting community has found handweaving and is embracing it with an excitement and an enthusiasm never before seen, but I hadn’t actually seen this phenomenon in action. Armed with the Knitter’s loom from Ashford, or the Rigid Heddle loom from Schacht, and some incredible yarn, in unbelievable color combinations, these new weavers are single handedly resurrecting the craft of handweaving, and taking it to levels I could have never imagined. And by young women half my age with pink hair wearing lime green hand knit socks they very competently knit themselves.

I don’t know if there is a Project Runway influence here as well, but the rectangular shapes of the garments that came parading across the runway were not the shapes of yore… I’m going under the assumption that since home ec is not part of the current curriculum in most schools in the US, that these amazingly talented young women are learning fashion skills somewhere else. The influence is pretty clear, since the rectangular clothing up on that stage was thoughtfully draped over someone’s body (a dressform?) and folded and tucked and seamed, stitched and embellished into some extremely creative clothing.

Alas, I have no pictures. I’m hoping the CNCH website will eventually provide some shots of the fashion show, but trust me to say that I was SOOOOO excited by what was in front of me. And in many of my classes, including the Saturday workshop on making a jacket pattern, there were numerous new weavers, first time conference attendees, and some amazing enthusiasm. The torch has been passed. And to my complete delight, the aging handweaving community seems to have opened its arms and embraced the new blood and the new creativity that has blown in like a fresh breath of air.

Keep in mind that this is California. In my travels, every new trend seems to originate here. It will probably take some time to make it across the country, but even in my discussions with the HGA Convergence Albuquerque committee, an international weaving conference happening in July of 2010, registrations have gone beyond all expectations. I have seen the future for handweaving and it is very very bright indeed.

Saturday night’s keynote address was given by Syne Mitchell. I first met Syne probably five years ago, a 30 something former Microsoft programmer with a very young son, she took my class in making a pieced vest in Seattle. Syne was a new weaver, coming from the knitting world with a huge background in technology. It didn’t take her long to find a need, and Syne jumped right in there to fill it. In a few short years, she has united the global handweaving community, connected them to the knitting community, and turned the fiber world upside down with her podcasts called Weavecast, (I’m episode 26) and her online weaving magazine Weavezine. ( I have agreed to write a monthly column on handwoven garments for Weavezine, stay tuned for that.) Weavecast has been listened to on six of the seven continents, still waiting for Antarctica to come on board. Syne gave a keynote that brought the global sources of handweaving found on the internet into the laps of everyone in the room. She showed the conference attendees what could be found with just a few keystrokes and a couple of URL’s. Online weaving publications, like Handwoven Weaving Weekly from Interweave Press; handweaving.net, developed by software engineer Kris Bruland with over 60,000 weaving drafts; Weavolution, an online global community of handweavers, blogs, and resources and information have revolutionized how we think, create, and interact with each other. Syne ended her keynote with some weaving karaoke that you had to be there to see, and she had the audience laughing with her through the entire address.

Keep in mind that this conference is right in the middle of Silicon Valley, and it isn’t just the 20 something pink haired knitters turned weavers armed with a drop spindle that are revolutionizing the handweaving community. Sunday night, after the conference was over, I went out to dinner with Syne and Tien Chiu, of wedding dress fame, and Tien’s significant other. I’ve always been one of the youngest of the handweaving community, having been trained in college and shortly after making a career of handweaving, but now, in my mid 50’s, I sat back listening to the discussions at the dinner table over Pad Thai and Ginger Chicken, about solenoids and dobby’s and software and 24 shaft looms, by two technologically savy women and a non weaving soon to be spouse of a weaver, and saw that the technologically trained programmers and software and web developers have not only found handweaving, but are running forward with the available technology at a speed that has left me in the dust. Tien is a web developer so it isn’t a surprise that she began her journey into handweaving finding a medium that would challenge and satisfy her amazing brain and blog about the journey so that others around the globe have followed the creation of the wedding dress, every intimate detail of it. Syne, Tien, and others like them are taking handweaving to places I never thought possible. It is all so very exciting, and I feel oddly enough like I’ve simultaneously gone back to my roots while feeling like I’m peering in the window of something truly wonderful and I want to come in and play too.

I do know how to spin, quite well actually, and I had a real desire to dust off my spinning wheel and find my drop spindle, and try some of that wonderful colorful stuff available at the conference. I only had an hour or so to wander through the vast displays in the vendor hall, but I did manage to pick up some beautiful silk/mohair roving to spin, hand dyed in gorgeous purple and orange shades by Red Fish Dye Works, and in the back corner of the vendor hall, at the booth next to the pen with three alpacas, I bought the first fleece from Montana, a baby Alpaca, and I’m going to start spinning some yarn. It was hard not to get caught up in the new enthusiasm of the future of handweaving, and to my great delight, in addition to all of the wonderful things to spin and weave and knit available at the conference, there was a Janome sewing machine dealer who was doing quite the brisk business selling sewing machines. I heard more than one person telling me about retiring that old Singer from 1940 and moving on to something that would inspire creativity and get them sewing again. Along with the rebirth of handweaving is the potential for a rebirth in the sewing world as well. Which makes my heart sing, since I keep a foot in both worlds. I weave cloth, to sew into clothing, and suddenly the possibilities have exploded and I couldn’t be happier. I have seen the future and it is indeed bright.

This morning, I had breakfast with Nancy Weber, one of the key organizers of the conference, and she showed me the “conference scarf”, woven by a committee of weavers, as a gift for all the organizers. It was based on my weaving buddy and guild mate Sally Orgren’s article in Handwoven Magazine, Nov/Dec 2008, on eight shaft and four shaft dimity. Can I say they were exquisite? The colors were hand dyed, and can I say I coveted one? I have a loom, I have tencel, and I have that issue of Handwoven Magazine. In addition, the table runner across the breakfast table in Nancy’s home was woven from self patterning sock yarn. Who knew? The beautiful ikat effects were just yarn that was engineered to pattern a pair of socks. My head is spinning with possibilities. These are perfect projects to put on all my baby Structo looms. Can you tell it was a mind blowing weekend? So now I’m heading back to NJ, on my last leg of the trip, sitting in first class, with my wine, and thinking that life is really good. And the future is very bright indeed…

The Fashion Show

What a great day! We concluded the three day workshop in Garment Construction Techniques, with a seminar in Closures, starting the morning with Bound Buttonholes, and then moving into Triangular Bound Buttonholes. When the students took a break to sample, I saw some really lovely triangular buttonholes coming from their sewing machines. We went on to discuss many ways to close a garment. Lots of ideas, some simple, some fun, no more excuses for outerwear with no closure!

I really loved this group! There was a huge range of skill levels in the class, some felt like they were beginners, and others were very skilled, needing some inspiration, there was even an experienced educator looking for ways to teach these kinds of techniques. I hope all got something from the class, and I’m looking forward to the weekend seminars.

After I packed up and brought my two 70 pound suitcases over to the dorm room, I went over to the fashion show rehearsal. I wasn’t actually participating in this show, but I wanted to preview the garments back stage, as I will be the judge.

As it turns out, because of the scheduling, I will have to actually judge the fashion show garments after the fashion show takes place. So I requested the privilege of actually judging the fashion show garments during the fashion show.

OK, so here is the problem. This is a pet peeve of mine. I have judged many many fashion shows over the years, and judging a fashion show, usually means, sitting in a room, with the garments, each one laid out in front of me, like a dead carcass on the table. See, I am looking at a piece of fabric, more often than not handwoven, sewn into a garment, laying on the table in front of me. I have nothing to judge the garment on but technique, suitability of weave structure, and originality of design. That isn’t really the problem, the problem is, I’m only seeing a very small piece of what this garment is about. A garment is designed to be worn, to be viewed on a body. A real body. A post menopausal female, with graying hair, and a wonderful outlook on life. I never get to see that part of the equation, who the garment was designed for, how does it fit them, does it wear them, or do they proudly wear it? Later, after judging, I get to view the real fashion show, and 40% of the time, I want to change my comments and my judging scores, because I find that the pieces come alive when they are filled out with the person whose hands created them. I love when the maker wears their own garment.

So tonight, I had a chair, and a clipboard, and a list of the garments at my disposal, and I felt like Nina Garcia on Project Runway, judging the work as it came down the runway. Wow. I cannot say how this experience has changed the way I judge a garment. I did get to preview the garments backstage before the show, but the garments came alive as they walked across the stage, and down the runway, I was really really blown away by some of the garments that just looked like nothing on the hangers.

I couldn’t actually take pictures of the pieces, I was too busy scribbling notes! After the fashion show, dessert was served, and then, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Michigan League of Handweavers, a vintage garment retrospective fashion show took place. This was so much fun. I laughed and squealed in delight, as I recognized fashion looks from the early years of handwoven clothing. I have been weaving clothing since the 1970’s, and this represented a history I really remember. I did manage to snap a few shots, the first model out wore, what else, but a 1950’s handwoven apron!

Of course every weaver remembers the horse blanket reversible poncho from handspun yarns. And then came the 60’s cotton shift, this one had cutouts in the waist area, it even had the fringe at the hem! And then who hasn’t made a leno skirt and shawl! I loved the orange color of this set.

Millie Danielson, a long time member of MLH, moderated this retrospective of vintage works, and some of the pieces were actually hers.

This very vintage ensemble of Millie’s featuring yellow hotpants, brought the house down. The commercial decorator fringe really completed the outfit! All that was missing were the white go-go boots!

Millie also created this outrageous coat, woven with warp remnants tied into the structure with Ghiordes knots. I don’t know what year she wove it, but it was a pretty impressive piece. And the model carried the whole look off effortlessly!

The finale of the retrospective show, featured none other than our own fashion icon, Anita Mayer, who wore Ann Flora’s contemporary felted coat and hat. It was a stunning piece, and she looked fabulous in it.

I of course, wore my now infamous Frosted Florals dress. Not only did I get to sign a few autographs on page 81 of the current issue of Threads Magazine where it appeared in the Readers’ Closet pages, but the latest issue of Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot has just come out on the newstands, and there were a number of copies floating around, with my new article on the Convergence Challenge project. I’ve gotten some very kind emails so far, telling me what a wonderful piece Loretta and I created. I got to autograph a number of those issues as well. My friend Robyn Spady has two articles in that issue, and since she was teaching across the hall from me, there was a lot of autographing going on!

So, tomorrow I do the final judging for the show, and I will write all my comments and choose the winners. Stay tuned…