Weaverly

What the Inside of My Head Looks Like at the Moment

Click to enlarge (if you dare). I'm getting ready for a studio sale, which will be held on Saturday, April 27, from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. If you're within driving distance of Upstate SC, please stop by! Lots of fantastic bargains. Yarn, hundreds of knitting & weaving books, small looms, sewing machines, sewing supplies, patterns, finished weaving & yardage, and did I say books? If you'd like location details, please email me (click on link in sidebar).

 

Complex Weavers Southeast Gathering

The CW Southeast Gathering was held April 12-14, 2019, at the Yadkin Valley Fiber Center in Elkin, North Carolina. Featured presenter was Jette Vandermeiden from Ontario. 

Jette gave lectures on drawloom drafting and blended drafts; presented a fascinating social, political, and economic  history of the napkin ("The Noble Napkin"); and shared her personal guidelines in entering and jurying weaving shows. Her presentations were highly informative & interesting, and her sense of humor kept us chuckling throughout. What a wonderful teacher! Highly recommended.

The group of attendees was small in number but enormous in weaving power and enthusiasm. One of the most helpful parts of the gathering was the Show & Tell session, where the participants unpacked works in progress or past works, and invited comments & critique. 

Many thanks are due to Leslie Fesperman and Leslie Killeen for their job in organizing the event.

Here are a few shapshots from the Gathering, in no particular order.

If you're a member of Complex Weavers in another part of the country (or the world), why not organize your own Gathering? It's a great way to enjoy the social and educational benefits of CW membership close to home, even if you're unable to attend an  international CW Conference. And if you're not yet a member, join! 

Thread History

In The Big Cleanup, I've now gotten to the sewing part of the studio. There are three large bins of sewing thread, and some decisions must be made. I'm going to put most of the thread in one bin and offer the whole thing for sale as is. If I were to sew eight hours a day, it would take me a hundred years to use up all this thread. What to keep? The newer threads, those on the tall narrow spools, are probably in the best condition (I'm told thread deteriorates with age). So tall narrow spools go in the keeper box.

The majority of spools are the fatter ones, and these fall into two major categories: plastic spools and wooden spools. Remember wooden spools? They used them way back when telephones had cords and milk came in bottles.

Now here's an interesting discovery. Half a dozen of the wooden spools are wound with short sections of various threads in different colors. Can this be? It appears that I've kept not only my mother's thread stash but my grandmother's as well! Granny was very frugal and never threw a usable piece of thread away. If she unpicked a hem, or pulled out a basting thread, she wound it onto a spool like the one pictured above. A wooden spool, of course. 

With each new discovery, I send my love, I say goodbye, and then move on. 

 

Found Cat

Yesterday while engaged in studio cleanup (again), my loyal helpers and I found some old samples of pick-up brocade, which were so soiled and ratty looking that I almost threw them in the trash; but said loyal helpers convinced me otherwise. I put them through the wash (the samples, not the helpers) with some cleaning rags, and they came to brilliant life again. Here's an example.

I'm toying with the idea of teaching a class in brocade for the rigid heddle loom next winter, and I am SO glad I saved these.