Friday, February 17, 2012

Ready to roll

Actually, I'm all set and ready to teach the next weaving class.  The looms are warped and ready, the handouts are printed and the samples are on the table.  Now, all I need are the three students who will arrive tomorrow morning for class.
I like having everything out and ready and then I can face whatever comes along.  There are always problems or typos I missed or something.  That's to be expected.  I am looking forward to class tomorrow and hope to sleep tonight.

I also put out my collection of books about Rigid Heddle weaving; Betty Davenport"s Hands On Rigid Heddle Weaving and Patterns and Textures, Liz Gipson's Weaving Made Easy, Jane Patrick's Idea Book.
You may notice the business cards on the left, they are brand new, and the brochures for Weavolution, which I helped co-found and ran for 3 years.
I am pleased with the business cards and recommend Vistaprint for their good service and reasonable prices.  I wish I could have added the QR code for my website and blog on the back but will do that next time.

Here's a photo of the business card.
Front and back.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

All the looms are busy!

Broken twill wool fabric
I am enjoying three very different projects on the 3 looms I use most often.  First, on my brand new Julia (8 shaft countermarche) I am working on a broken twill wool fabric that is almost finished.  I think it will be a small handbag.  It started as a sample, hoping to be a scarf but fabric seems like a better idea because it is very coarse and has little drape.


Pendleton selvedges rug
On my Glimakra Standard (8 shaft countermarche) I am weaving 2 rugs using 8/4 cotton warp and Pendleton selvedges for the weft.  I am loving the way it looks and can't wait to get it done and off the loom to see it on the floor.  I hope to sell these.

Cotton placemats


On the Schacht Flip rigid heddle loom, I am weaving new placemats for our home.  The yellow yarn is a supplemental warp.  I had hoped to do something different with the supplemental warp but the sample came out awful so I regrouped and decided to weave it in over the brown yarn underneath.  The supplemental has longer floats than the rest of the placemat.  I am using 2 heddles so it's slow going.  The line of 4 weft threads is the cutting line for the 2nd placemat.
Happy weaving!

Monday, February 6, 2012

Three day weekend

That's sounds nice, right.  A 3 day weekend.  Unless it's three days spent trying to get my website online. I use a Mac and they have this nice program called iWeb that allows you, as a Mac owner, to create a website.  It used to include hosting but when they decided to trade in MobileMe for iCloud, they decided to do away with hosting.  Truth is too many people used it for business and then wanted to hold Apple responsible when things went wrong.  So, Apple decided to get out of the hosting business as of June 2012.
Meanwhile, you can no longer publish a site to MobileMe because there is no MobileMe.  Just the cloud.  The illusive cloud.
I bought hosting with the same company I bought my domain name.  Keep it simple.  Then, proceeded to try and add all the required paths, server names, and new passwords to the publishing process.  No luck.  I tried everything and finally called Apple (love Apple Care) and they referred me to the hosting company for the technical ftp information.  The domain/hosting folks only work Monday through Friday and this is Saturday.  Some of us work on the weekend.  After all, I spent almost all week re-creating my website.  How silly of me to imagine someone might be around on Saturday.
Come Monday, call the hosting people, change a few settings, spend 45 minutes eating up cell minutes and NOTHING!! It won't publish.  It doesn't like the assigned password.  I finally realized I knew as much as the dude on the other end of the phone so I hung up and kept trying new things.  Something finally worked!  Eureka! Website!
Please visit my updated website at:  weaveonstudio.com and feel free to leave a comment here or on FB and let me know what you think!
Happy Monday.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

News and views

I am working on a new version of my website, Weave On Studio , which is the studio where I teach weaving, knitting and spinning.  I also sell the many items my friend, Janet, and I make on Lotsaknots.net.  Both websites will be refreshed and I am planning on blogging here weekly.
I hope to connect my blog with Google+ but haven't figured out how quite yet.  I'll have to work on that a bit further.
More news and more frequent blog posts starting next week.   It's a good day for new beginnings, February 1st.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Fall classes start

I am not great at keeping up with this blog because I  spend most of my time on Weavolution.  There is so much to do there that I have neglected this blog.

The second set of Don't Treadle...Go Rigid heddle classes started today.  With 2 new students and 1 student who is taking the class for a second time we are off to a great start.

Friday, June 11, 2010

First class success

Our first class session was a bit success.  I know, you are nodding your head saying, Of course, the teacher always considers her first class a success.  Well, let's break it down.

I had a syllabus, a plan of action for our first class and we achieved most of what was on the list.  We sat at the table and chatted to start and learned a little bit about each other.  Then, we began the introduction to weaving.  The looms were partially warped and, after demonstrating and explaining the direct warping process, each student began warping her loom.

Once the warps were on, we set at the task of learning to beam the warp under good tension.  I always spend a great deal of time covering the importance of tension in your warp and beaming it under tension.  We did it in teams but I also demonstrated various methods for doing it alone.

Next, everyone rethreaded the loom, bringing a thread through the holes in the heddles and we covered tying it onto the front apron bar.  Tension again became the focus of discussion.  I taught how to lash on since this is my favorite way of securing the warp to the front bar.  Once on and the tension evened up, the weaving began.

That's where we ended.  Homework was obvious.  Some students are process oriented and some are product oriented.  I have one of each in class.  I urged both to sample!! and sent them on their merry way.

Lots to cover this Saturday.  And pictures, for sure.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

For love of weaving

I love to weave.  I love all of it, not just throwing the shuttle across the warp.  I enjoy the math of project planning, measuring the warp on the mill, threading the heddles, tying the warp to the front apron bar.  All of it.  And, teaching became a natural outlet for this love affair.

Teaching weaving on rigid heddle looms is fun.  The looms are affordable, portable and easier to handle than a floor loom.  I enjoy all the variation in the rigid heddle looms you can buy just as I enjoy the variation in floor looms.  In fact, I own 2 Kromski Harps, a Glimakra Emilia, and  a Schacht 25".  Pretty diverse.  I also own 2 floor looms, a Schacht Baby Wolf and a Glimakra Standard.  Again, 2 very different looms.

Saturday is the start of another 4 week session of classes.  I am as excited as a 5 year old beginning kindergarten.  It's all brand new.