Two months and counting

Two months and counting, plus notes from Midwest Weavers Conference

Today marks two months until the due date for the I Made It on My Schacht Contest. I’ve been hearing from all over that people are excited about our contest and are working away on their entries. This is the time to focus on completing your projects and entering our contest. It’s easy to do. Just visit our web site at www.schachtspindle.com and click on the contest for entry details! Also, don’t forget the You Tube challenge!

We have fabulous prizes, including a cherry Wolf Pup and a Cherry double Treadle Matchless. The show opens during spinning and weaving week, the first full week in October. We’ll have a 40th anniversary celebration and show opening on Thursday, October 8th. So get your wheels and looms going. There’s no time to waste.

Midwest Report
This year’s conference was held on the beautiful Grinnell College campus in Grinnell, Iowa with about 300 attendees. I had fabulous students in both my rigid heddle patterns and textures class and my beginning inkle weaving workshop. Madelyn VanderHoogt, editor of Handwoven magazine, presented the keynote address which was both entertaining and informative.

A reoccurring message throughout the conference was urging guilds to reach out to younger crafters to encourage them in weaving and spinning, as well as to join their guild. Guilds, generally, are aging, and without new members and younger weavers and spinners, it won’t be too long before membership will dwindle and with it our weaving and spinning traditions.

Off to Midwest Weavers Conference

Tomorrow I’m off to Grinnell, Iowa and Midwest Weavers Conference where I’ll be teaching inkle weaving and patterns and textures on the rigid heddle loom. I always feel like I’m “going home” when I return to the Midwest. I’ll give you a report upon my return. If you will be attending, I hope you’ll track me down and say hello.

More than the Niddy Noddy has arrived

Good news! We have started shipping our new fabulous niddy noddy. It addresses everything I wanted to see in a niddy noddy: lightweight, well balanced, easy to collapse, folds flat for storage, 1 ½ yd and 2 yd capacity, and beautiful. We’re making it in cherry and maple. Check it out at your favorite Schacht dealer.



The other good news: James William Yaeger has arrived. Some of you may remember the picture of my daughter Nora in Handwoven shortly after she was born. Now that little girl is a mother herself. And I am a grandmother. I’m filled with so many hopes and dreams for him, one of which is to find him in my studio some day fascinated by the loom and wheel.

The importance of stash

I've written about stash before, but I'd just like to say once again that it really, really is a necessity. REALLY! NO KIDDING.

This week end I've been weaving samples for my upcoming book (my colleagues at Schacht Spindle have been very forgiving of my absences). Since I'm designing all of the pieces, it's not like I have a list of yarns for what's about to be created. I try this or that. One idea, one combination leads to a better idea and another try. What if I tried a different color...a different size...a different texture.... This is where THE STASH is essential. I know I have just the color...but where oh where oh where is it?

I think I'm super clever storing my yarns in clear, stack-able plastic containers. You can just see right in there, locate what you want, etc, etc, etc. But, in which bin is the yarn I WANT RIGHT NOW? (You can't see every yarn inside by looking from the outside.) You see from the picture above what happened--not just with these bins but with about six other tubs--all dumped on the floor of my studio! Aha! All was not for naught--I DID find just the color I was looking for.

Now I've finished weaving for the day and I'm putting all those dumped bins back together. There are ever so many ways to sort the yarn: by fiber, by size, by color, by manufacturer... I can't ever seem to decide what's best (part of my find-that-yarn crises of the day). For now, I'm putting all like-yarns together, such as all of the pearl cotton in one bin, sport weight wools in another, and so on.

And let me just say never ever ever throw those bits away. I needed an very short length today--and had it, stashed away in a little baggie in my big bad bin.

Navajo Weaving, Diamonds, dreams, landscapes

You gotta go! This is a sensational show--and I've seen a lot of textile exhibits in 30 some years as a weaver. This exhibit, the first in a series of three installations, running over the next year, showcases the extraordinary Joe Ben Wheat Textile Collection at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, Henderson Bldg, Boulder, Colorado. Congratulations go out to curator Judy Newland!

The exhibit designer should be congratulated for bringing the pieces out from the wall--which somehow gives them more life and impact. I found the pieces and the installation thrilling. But don't take my word for it. This is worth planning your vacation around. And while you're here to visit the exhibit, call me and come for at factory tour.

I've been working on the finger-control chapter of my upcoming rigid heddle weaving book, due to Interweave mid August. If I don't post much between now and then, you now know why. I've haven't escaped to the garden (though I'd love to) or gone on an extended bike ride (miss those rides). I'm home weaving (do love it, though not the pending deadline), writing, taking photos.

Anyway, I was lamenting to a friend about all of the great weaving books that are now out-of-print. She mentioned a bit of good news: The photo illustrations for Mary Black's New Key to Weaving can be found on-line through the Canadian archives. Here's the link. http://www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/black/Results.asp?Search=cs The REALLY good news is that these photos are in color and better than the original printed book copy.

Weaving in love and memories

Perhaps I’ve failed to mention that I’ll be a grandmother. Grandmother? Is it really possible? Only weeks ago it seems we were coming home from the hospital with our little bundle. Days seem to tick past and it is easy to not notice their passing. Soon the day is gone, then a week, a month, a year.

Today a neighbor had a baby shower for Nora and it was one of the sweetest I’ve ever been to. We had civilized tea and cake and munchies. There were no party games, but we did have an activity in honor of the mother-to-be and her weaving family. Stacey selected a variety of ribbons, then cut slots around the edges of a piece of cardboard into which the ribbons could be slid. She slipped a ribbon into each slot along the top, then she passed the cardboard loom around the table, each person choosing a ribbon, and as they wove it into the growing cloth, a story about Nora, or motherhood, or advice were shared. Later, Stacey inserted our community weaving into a shadow box, a lovely memory of those who have been a part of her life, wish her well, and a memento of our afternoon neighborhood tea.