Weaving and catching up

Echo weave samples, L. Hartshorn

Better late than never

I focused a great deal on the MidAtlantic Fiber Association (MAFA) biennial conference before the event, but dropped the ball in following up. That had nothing to do with the event and everything to do with me. Lots of catching up--and lots to prepare for the fall shows. 

Polychrome turned taqueté samples, L. Hartshorn

First, the MAFA conference was outstanding from opening evening with Madelyn Van Der Hoogt's keynote to the very last lunch. Yes, the hot weather created some challenges, but I remember the days of no air conditioning. It was nothing humans haven't been coping with for eons.

Second, my workshop was excellent.

Complex doubleweave samples, L. Hartshorn

Networks in weaving

During the time I was away from weaving, network drafting, echo twills, and taqueté techniques entered the weaving vocabulary. I had read the seminal book on the subject, Alice Schlein's Network Drafting: An Introduction, as well as Marian Stubenitsky's Weaving with Echo and Iris, but wanted more insight and some hand's on experience. Linda Hartshorn's workshop, Weaving in a Parallel Universe, delivered both.

The workshop was a round robin, which means that each participant weaves on each of the prepared looms. Each person brings a loom with a different warp and threading (and tie-up with a floor loom) that have been assigned by the instructor. In the class, everyone takes a turn weaving on each loom and labels his or her section. (The labels are visible in the photo of student samples below.) At the end of the workshop, the samples are cut apart and each weaver leaves with a sample of each the weaves.

Although some techniques are possible with on 4-shaft, eight-shafts is really the jumping off point for exploration. This workshop was for 8- or more shafts. My table loom has 8-shafts, as did most of the looms in the workshop.

I came home with a nice sample book--and with plans to weave some of them. Some really aren't practical for me. Even though I have a 12-shaft loom, patterns with very long treadling patterns would be all but impossible with my limited number of dobby bars on a strictly mechanical dobby loom.

Student samples: (L) Complex doubleweave. Note the difference in color effect on the sample in the middle. (R) Echo twill weave