Learning to Weave

I took a 2-day weaving class a few weeks ago and loved it. Absolutely adored the whole process. The class was taught at a local place called The Textile Studio owned by a lovely couple who have been weaving together for years. It's both a production studio and a store where they sell clothing made from their own cloth. So cool.

Three of the floor looms were already warped when we arrived so that we could get busy creating but they'd left one loom empty so that we could see how to tie up a warp. Oh my. It's not hard exactly, but it does require attention to detail and time. That's obviously a skill set that will have to be developed.

Table runner warp with example weft in Natural

I thought a darker color would make the warp colors pop more so tried black. It worked!

Changing the weft to Black

We were shown how to change warp colors mid-stream too. Not for the faint of heart!

Changing warp colors

There were three of us in the class and with Cecelia and Richard on their looms we had five going at once. They're surprisingly quiet and we really enjoyed the whoosh and clack of the looms as we went along.

A productive studio

I managed to turn out three pieces and I'm inordinately pleased with them. I've worn the scarves multiple times already and the table runner is happily sitting on the table right now.

Steadily weaving - for five hours...

In process - my new scarf

And here are the three pieces I finished:

Chenille in gorgeous olives and oranges

Wrong & Right sides of the table runner

Pinwheel in purple, green, and natural

Of course the downside to all this is that I'm now in the market for a floor loom. I've got searches out up and down the east coast and if it wasn't winter I'm pretty sure I'd have headed to Maine once already. So far I haven't found the magic combination of price, location, and loom type. It'll happen though. Wish me luck!