One of my favorite things to do when visiting my mom in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia is to go to the local thrift store. Tucked in a corner is a section where the staff and volunteers sift through the donations and pick out special items to set aside for silent auction. I’m grateful that …
Stripes are the backbone of woven design—the workhorse of colorwork. When warp and weft stripes meet, beautiful things happen. Perhaps the three most common terms used to describe woven colorwork are stripe, check, and plaid. In general, I try to be precise with my language while trying to avoid some of the traps of being …
Rigid-heddle weavers regularly ask me this question or a variation on this theme, essentially wanting to know if they will reach a limit with their rigid-heddle loom. All looms have constraints. Syne Mitchell, a dedicated multi-shaft loom weaver and author of Inventive Weaving on a Little Loom, talks beautifully about the concept of constraints throughout her work. …
I met Sarah Anderson a few years ago at a National NeedleArts trade show, where she as promoting her book The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs. As a spinner, I have long admired Sarah’s work in making sculptural, highly functional yarns. She introduced me to the wonders of xanthan gum as a sizing material—a coating …
Every once in a while, my work forces me to look up and marvel at the place I have landed. This past week was a perfect example. The students in my Weaving for Techies class at New Mexico Tech University are getting ready to tackle weft faced weaves. I wanted to give the students a …
Thanksgiving is a time to contemplate gratefulness and reconciliation. I am both thankful for, and recently reconciled with, failure and its cousin perfectionism. I just finished reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. It wasn’t a book I was drawn to by the subject—living the creative life—but rather by the author. Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, Committed, …
I found this post in my Google Docs and I assume I wrote it for something or other back in the day, but I don’t remember where it landed. For Throw Back Thursday, I give you Dale Dougherty and my meandering mind on the Maker Movement ala 2010. I’m publishing this post as I found …
For the past few weeks I’ve been immersed in weaving traditions from all over the world. It started with a trip to the Folk Art Market in Santa Fe hosted by the International Folk Art Alliance. Hundreds of artisans from around the globe come to this event to represent their countries’ finest folk art traditions, sell …
Since I started #weaverwednesday a few short weeks ago, I’ve been thinking of all the weavers who have laid tracks for those of us who have stumbled upon the weavers way. I first met Sara Lamb when I was working on the SOAR staff back in the early aughts. She was the first one to show me how velvet …
