Two Heads are Better than One!

One of the reasons that draw us to the Center every week is the relationships we have formed over the years. Whether it is planning a new project, dressing the loom, serging the ends of cloth hot off of the loom or sharing what is going on in our lives, most of us have been together weekly for some time and it shows in these pictures. Linda and Rhonda, Patty Dana and Coleen, Cathy and Joycelyn and Dana and Coleen are all here to join in the fun.

Marie had to order some 8/2 cotton last week and of course we had to check it in and get it onto the shelves.

The morning flew by and it was soon time for Show and Tell! Patty showed off a Rice Bag that she had made and a series of small shawls that she has made from sock yarn scraps!

Betsy has made some curtains for a new bathroom sink cabinet in her house. She is waiting for her Husband to get the hardware so that she will know how long to make the curtains.

Rhonda has made a table runner for her Sister. She used Crochet cotton for the weft and it really looks and feels wonderful!

Both of our students have finished their first projects. Angie has made a table runner and Coleen has made some Place mats.

Before I sign off this week I took some pictures of the projects on the looms and I wanted to share them with you.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We will see you next week, until then this is Tina, for all!

Round and Round We Go!

There was a lot happening in the Studio today! Lots of prep work and a finished warp, let's start with the prep work. Susan #3 is getting ready to make a rug using Tshirts as her weft. She chose several shirts with many different colors and she sewed them together in a long circle. Today was the day we got to cut the strips. It is helpful to have 2 people to do this job! Here is Susan and I at the table.

We worked for awhile and we finally got the strip cut out and loaded onto the rag shuttles. Here is the warp that is already going onto the loom and I think you can actually see the shuttles on the bench that are ready to work!

Liz #2 is also cutting rag strips but she is making placemats! This fabric is a tight squeeze around our table!

Liz, Dana and I worked almost to closing time but we got the strips cut and Liz is taking them home to fold them while she loads them onto the shuttles. Also, here is the warp that Liz is using for her placemats.

Jenny was doing some prep work as well, this time she is adjusting the heddles for her new project that is really heavy with heddles on the first shaft.

Angie, one of our new students has finished her first warp! Soon after this video Patty was helping her navigate the steps of planning a new project. Now it is time for Show and Tell! Jenny finished another skein of handspun yarn!

I brought a book in that I recently purchased. It is about sewing period accurate clothes to wear for demonstrating or reenacting. Our new Challenge for January 2026 is going to be the "What are you waiting for?" Challenge. So for this challenge I am going to make myself a new skirt and maybe a top to wear at the Museum of Appalachia where I demontstrate handspinning and sometimes weaving.

That is all for today, be sure to join us next week to see what we are getting into. Until then this is Tina, for all!

Transformation!

Last week Marie put in an order for 8/4 cotton. This week it had arrived and was ready to be checked in, marked and put away. However, one of the friends of the Tuesday Weavers had brought in some yarn for us to look through and buy first. Once the yarn had been admired and some of it had been sold, Karin and Marie had space to open the big box and take inventory and then Susan and Barbara helped them put it away.

We have had a cold blast the last couple of days and there was even a dusting of snow! That is early for us here in East TN and I have still not made myself mittens to wear to the barn! ( I ended up wearing wool socks!) So, I pulled out some of my very early handspun yarn and began to look for a mitten pattern!

You may remember the warp that Liz had wound last week for placemats and how amazed she was that it was so much faster with thicker yarn. This morning she wound the warp onto the loom and before you know it she had it threaded through the heddles. Liz then went out to the Annex to look for fabric to make into strips for weft.

Just like that it is time for Show and Tell! Let's start with Jenny today! Jenny brought in her hemmed and washed table runner, she also finished a handspun homeknit hat that is perfect for this kind of weather!

Thats not all! Jenny also brought in 2 skeins of handspun wool, and some of the samples she worked on at her class on mending at John C. Campbell!

Susan finished her napkins with a slip thread technique last week, so today we got to see them hemmed, so lovely!

Rhonda took a class of spinning on an electric spinning wheel and she brought in a skein of said yarn to prove it! She also brought in a warp weight that her husband had made for her.

Mark brought in another placemat for Show and Tell! He said "Surprise"!

Now for the transformation, it is kind of a story really. I went looking back in the blog to find the beginning of this story and I finally found it in January of 2018. You may all be aware that we hand dye a lot of our bamboo warps, sometimes the measurements are not quite what the tag says and sometimes the colors are differnt that the usual. This is the story of one such warp, it was marked as 2 shawls when if fact it was 4, and the color was, well, very very pink.... I would have to dig further into the blog to find when it was dyed but I do know when it finally got onto a loom. Carol made us put it on the loom because we had all been avoiding it! Marie ended up weaving the shawl warp because she has the perfect beat naturally to make a beautiful and even fabric. Carol chose a chocolate brown as the weft, I may have doubted the choice, but shouldn't have, it was beautiful. Over the next month or so Marie wove the 4 shawls and they were lovely, but they didn't sell very well. I know that we donated one to a fundraiser and I guess 2 did eventually sell, but we were left with the final shawl that was in the shop and went to every show since it was finished in early 2018. That is a long time! As we were packing up the booth last weekend we were talking about it and we wondered if we could make a top out of it. Last Tuesday we took the plunge and Patty cut it in half, Nikki serged the edges and Patty took it home to make a top in the new styles they have been making. She brought it back today and I have to tell you that it has already sold! Marie and Patty with the new top!

Judith the proud new owner with her early Birthday present!

That is it for today, Until next Tuesday this is Tina, for all!