Saturday, May 9, 2015

Second Annual Learn-to-Weave Class


Suzanne welcomed our seven students to the Second Annual Learn to Weave class.  We are fortunate to have meeting space available to us, free of charge thanks to generosity of Sky Peaks Retirement Community.

The space has everything we could ask for except for curtains.  Before we could begin anything, we had to hang sheets over the windows so the PowerPoint presentation would be visible.

Our approach requires a lot of volunteer time from guild members who warp up the looms in advance and then attend the session as mentors.  We want students to have a positive weaving experience.

The guild has acquired a number of looms for the equipment library so students can use them in this class and use them while they begin their weaving journey.

Not every one is starting from scratch. Sally was a weaver 40 years ago but "life got in the way."  She is refreshing her skills and recently purchased a used floor loom locally.

Jen demonstrated how to repair a broken warp thread because it will happen and it's really not a terrible thing to repair, once you know how.  She said her weaving teacher would snip a warp thread as she was weaving so she could learn how to repair it.

While everyone was busy at work, Suzanne was winding balls of yarn for the students to take home.  They each have two bobbins that will need to refilled a number of times before they weave all the 60+ samples in the Weaver's Craft Issue 13  instruction book.
We concluded with a discussion on how to read drafts.  This was a lot of information for our students to digest in the 5 1/2 hour instruction period, lunch break included.  We packed everyone up and sent them home to work independently.  They'll be back here again for two days at the end of this month to learn how to warp a loom.  I enjoy dressing my looms as much as I like weaving, so I hope we'll be successful in passing on some more of our enthusiasm.

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