Sarah Knits and Weaves

Wow, long time no update.

Since school ended for the semester I've been working on becoming a better 21st century spinner instead of being lost in the dark ages. I love the spindle, it's my first choice of spinning tools, but I have been doing more with production work and taking classes so I decided I need to learn on a wheel. I was lucky enough to have several people who wanted to help me and encourage me. Kandy loaned me her Schacht Matchless and Louet Victoria wheels and Ellen loaned me her Majacraft Suzie Alpaca. I was able to learn that I am ok with double or single treadle, and really like Scotch Tension more than Double Drive. I wasn't sure until this week what wheel was best for me and that leads me to tell you how I decided that.

I just got back from my first weaving conference. Midwest Weavers has been hosted every two years for 30 some years, this year it was in Grinnell, Iowa. I had so much fun and met so many people, though some of them I shouldn't have met. I may be on the committee to organize the 2017 conference here in Indiana. I probably won't still live in Indiana, I'll be 31 and hopefully have had quite a few life changes but I can do it. The conference had about 300 registrants and 100 guests, vendors, and staff.

The first class I took was Textures on the Rigid Heddle Loom with Jane Patrick from Schacht. She has a book coming out next year about expanding what you can do on my simple loom. Most people think that you can only weave plain weave but we were able to do several lace and texture patterns on our looms.


On Friday evening we went to a fashion show with handwoven and sewn items by many people at the conference. Of course two of the neatest pieces I saw weren't in the show. Board member Carolyn Hart and Midwest web editor/conference teacher John Mullarkey took a class with Darryl Lancaster on sewing a jacket from their own handwoven yardage at their guild. They both wore their finished jackets to the show. Here is Carolyn in her Tencel jacket and former Midwest board member Jeune Baker humorously modeling John's cotton jacket.

On Saturday I took a class title Weaving and Unweaving with Kids by Becky Kobos. She shared with us the lesson plans and finished projects she does with kindergarten through sixth graders every year as an elementary art teacher. The idea of having one weaving project in every grade made me very happy and as a future classroom teacher gave me more ideas. I will blog about the projects we did with her later.

One joke made was so many of the weavers present got their first loom from their mother in law, when she was going to weave less. Several weavers came up to me telling me about their sons and their looms, so it would get passed down . Others would just ask how to get more of me, 20 somethings interested in the culture of weaving. Most of the registrants were over 50, with a significant number over 80.

Something I learned this week that I wasn't familiar with is Kumihimo. It's a braiding technique done on some sort of octagonal loom thingy. I just bought the cheapest loom, made out of craft foam, and did it with cotton embroidery floss. It probably took an our to make a 7 strand round bracelet.
Starting on July 4th I'm going to be participating in Team Suck Less of the 2009 Tour de Fleece. Our group goal is to spin every day, produce at least one mile of yarn in one day, and suck less in general. I might manage to blog some of that.