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Thursday, March 28, 2013

Backstrap Weaving Workshop

So, I'm catching up from March 8th which was the start of a fun-filled women's weaving
 weekend in the hills outside of Santa Cruz. We have all shared this room and our lives
 in bits and pieces over the last two years, meeting for this, our fourth time to study
 backstrap weaving with Laverne Waddington.
Some of us keep in touch and see each other at other times, but the group workshops 
when we come together are a real treat! 
Each time Laverne has to come up with a combination of techniques that will keep this group entertained and amused for three days. We all work at different rates and in different ways.
The room is small for a group of 8 weavers and one teacher, who often has to crawl under someone's weaving or the table to make it all the way around to visit everyone.
We are sort of unruly and our teacher has learned that she might as well just wait until we
 are done talking and ready to listen before she tries to make herself heard above 
the constant enthusiastic chatter and joking and running commentary on life and weaving. 
This workshop focused on two techniques, supplementary weft overlay (brocade) 
and two-heddle intermesh.

These are Laverne's examples of the two-heddle intermesh. 

These two photos capture me working on my piece. Rather than try all sorts of motifs as a sampler, I like to do the same thing a few times to get it fixed in my head. I like the result! 




This is a fine example, woven by Laverne, of the weft overlay technique. 

And my experiments.

At the end of our weekend, we all put our samples together for a family photo.
Laverne also wrote about the workshop and has more photos here on her blog

 Laverne brought copies of her latest book, which we were all happy to add to our libraries. 



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