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Monday, June 13, 2011

The Best Kind of Day

Recently I was invited to teach an inkle weaving workshop for the Carmel Crafters Guild. Ann, who is a member of that group as well as the Santa Cruz Handweavers Guild to which I belong, organized it all and hosted us in her lovely home.
 With 11 weavers we filled two sunny rooms, covering every available table. Most of those present had experience weaving on other types of looms and made good students.

I wish I had taken more closeup photos of each person's weaving, as the choice of colors and patterns ran a whole range and was interesting to see. Some of the pattern charts which I colored in last week turned out to be helpful visual tools for some. Others were just sort of willing to do experiments and see what happened, which was great. Thanks to Somerlynn in the Inkle Weaving Yahoo Group for sharing this pattern page!

We had an assortment of looms, new and old, home-made, second-hand and newly manufactured. It is always interesting to see looms, too. Sometimes the looms present a challenge for me to figure out the intended warp path. I'm glad no one this time had a two-sided loom so we were all able to set up continuous warps.



We spent 6 happy hours; everyone got warped and weaving and I demonstrated how to do pickups and weave letters. By the end of the day one student tried her hand at weaving letters on my loom and did a good job of it!


 We discussed yarn weights, which I am not very good at. Ann pulled some 10/2 pearle cotton out of her stash and gave it to me to try out for the project I am working on below. The pattern is great, now I need to reduce the width by 100% and see if I can make it work. This yarn should help. Lucky me!


On the way home, I made a stop at the always interesting Monarch Knitting and Quilts in Pacific Grove and picked up some DMC pearle cotton to compliment what I got from Ann. Lucky again!

And to top off the day, I attended the opening reception for the art exhibit "Sculpture Is" at the Sierra Azul Nursery in Watsonville. There was a real crowd, including many artists of all varieties and I got to visit with some very cool people. I'll have to go back when there is not a crowd to see more of the art, and highly recommend it to anyone in the area.
What a day!!!

8 comments:

  1. Oh, that would have been the perfect class for me, as I am one of them, experienced on lots of other looms, except for the inkle. I got it last Christmas and still haven't gotten to warping it!

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  2. Thanks for the great class Annie! We'll have to invite Sandra to the next one! Cheers, Ann

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  3. Sandra- Although it's not the same as being there in person, there are many good videos and tutorials on the web. Click on the resources tab here to find the ones I think are good.
    Ann- Your place and the receptiveness and good nature of the students made it so great! ~Annie

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  4. I really enjoyed your class, Annie. Next project will be a dog leash with her name on it. All because I made an A!

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  5. Annie, thanks for a wonderful day. I haven't had much time to continue weaving, but it was such a fun day and sorely needed as work has been so busy for me lately! Simone Mortan

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  6. Anne,

    I absoultely love that pattern your working on.The colors are to die for.

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  7. Dawn- I love that you want to weave letters. It's fun, isn't it?
    Simone- Glad you could get away! It was a pleasure to have you in class.
    Gail- Thank you! I think those colors always look good together. This was a test piece, and is much too wide for it's intended purpose. Now I will have to figure out what to make it into. More fun.

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  8. I love your blog! As a new fiber arts enthusiast (I started weaving/knitting/crochet in january), and your blog has been entertaining and helpful! Thanks! Maybe you could check out my blog one of these days. ^_^

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