March 31, 2010

Three Knitters take a Weaving Trip

Aka- Rachel, Denny and I go to The Spinning Loft for Sara Lambs cut pile class.  (A photo-essay with sort of random captions.)

1. I drove through the city to fetch up Denny and Rachel.  I really, really, really don't drive much, partly because I don't need to, and partly because it makes me anxious. Turns out that owning Daniel the GPS has removed some of the anxiety of driving for me.  Used to be that I worried about killing people by accident and about getting lost. Now I just worry about killing people by accident. 

2. Rachel and Denny were happy to be fetched.  (I have no idea why Denny's laughing like that. Probably because Rachel is carrying her luggage.  Hard to tell.)

3. It is a 5-6 hour drive.  I drove, Rachel navigated and Denny amused herself in a variety of ways.   She had a chicken. (I don't know why.)

She used Rachel's headrest as a skein holder.

She made jokes about dysoning a bison.  (I think you have to be there for that one.)

4. We got to the US, and the border guard didn't ask us a single question past "What is the purpose of your visit to the US"

This is probably because the answer was "We're going to a cut pile weaving class!  We have three looms in the trunk and Sara Lamb is going to teach us how.  We spun our own yarns for it and knotted cut pile is how some of the oldest rugs in the world were made. We're making bags though.   Have you read The Virgin's Knot ? That's what the girl in the book was doing.  Weaving and tying knots. You can do it with a rigid heddle loom, which is really why we can put three looms in the trunk, you know.. other looms are big... anyway .....
It's, um... more interesting than it sounds."

Oddly, waved us right through.

5. We arrived and got to work right away, warping our looms on Friday night, then getting down to the beginning of our weaving on Saturday. 

Saturday just about exploded my brain.  We learned how to do soumak, twining, the turkish knot--- it was crazy.  So many things. So. Many. I wove all day, and at the end all I had was this:

which is way more than it looks like because I did a sample first.  

6. The next day we learned cardweaving for the straps, and that, my friends, is frighteningly simple and cool.  I had no idea.

7. The only downside of the whole thing is that we trashed Beth's shop.

8. Beth was the loveliest hostess,  charming, funny and able, and we all did some serious damage to our wallets. The best score though, was a gift from Beth.  In a moment of perfect serendipity, she'd purchased some silk at the SOAR where I didn't make it to the market - and check this out.

Yup.  Meant to be mine.  To create an even more perfect moment.. .turns out that silk was dyed by... you guessed it.

Sara Lamb.

9. These dolls have nothing to do with anything, except Beth was selling them and I thought they were great.


10. Then we went home.  Denny enjoyed a yarnified backseat all the way home,

and I'm 1/3 of the way through my beautiful cut pile. 


How was your weekend?


Posted by Stephanie at March 31, 2010 5:02 PM