Finishing Up Fall?

It seems as if Autumn has barely begun and we're already finishing up our Fall Weaving Session at the Hermitage Museum & Gardens Visual Arts Studio. Our overshot projects have created a frenzy of weaving and imagination and challenge. We're VERY proud of our students for rising to the challenge and tackling it with gusto despite vacations, family challenges, and sleying errors.

After October 28 we have a couple weeks off to catch our breath and then we begin the Holiday Session. We've split Holiday Session into two mini-sessions for beginning weavers, and the project is a warm winter scarf. Students who choose their colors via two or more skeins in wool/wool-blend yarn from the fabulous inventory at Baa Baa Sheep in Ghent receive a 5% discount. We are really excited to partner with Roz and her team at Baa Baa Sheep. To say we are thrilled to have a yarn shop in Ghent would be an understatement. I swear, if she ever goes out of business I'm going to take over!

Meanwhile...

Kerry is wildly weaving  __________s (ahem, no spoilers) and is on the last 10% and wishing someone else would take over. It's a long warp. Almost everyone in class and nearly everyone who has visited has taken a spin on Niles, who is right now living at The Herm. We've decided that we DEFINITELY like having an easy work in progress on a long warp and it's like a loom tasting. We should definitely have a Wine & Weft Tasting this winter. Something to chase away the chilly January blues.

Kerry is VERY good at winding long warps. I need to barter with her to finish winding my 12-yd warp in 20/2 bamboo.

I acquired a third loom. Because I'm a weaver and that's what insane weavers do. It's a Tools of the Trade loom (ToTT for short) whom we are calling Tutti. I'm not very good with names. Anyway, I cut this sample off Tuttie yesterday.

I love this little 4-shaft loom. Well, not little, it is a floor loom after all, and weaves at about 32" I think. I want to find another just like it so I can bolt the castles together and create an instant 8-shaft loom. The price was perfect - cheap even - so I could NOT pass this up. And my pay from the Herm basically paid for it. The only downside was transporting it 90 minutes from Richmond in the rain. With the eight miles of green tarp we have even that wasn't a problem.  

Because this is a gift I want it to be well done without any really obvious threading goofs. Except that I treadled my sample incorrectly. However, I know that the pattern weft is a good color, and i know that I missed an 8-thread repeat on the right border. So I'll remove eight from the left side to bring it symmetrical and treadle the next sample correctly. I like how it finished, too. I'll actually press the hem before I sew it next time, too. The warp is 8/2 Tencel in Mountain Stream colorway, the tabby is 14/2 unmercerized cotton in dark hunter green and the pattern weft is 8/2 Tencel in a golden peachy color (referred to as Straw) combined with some leftover .Bambu 12 in Golden Wheat. These are all colors I already had on hand, and I obtained the 14/2 from a source on eBay and I don't know where it originally came from. The pattern is based on BGH #40, Peggy's Choice, and adding 2" borders along the length, and an inch on the ends for the hem.

Share your projects with us!!

Cheers,

Erin