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I've really had a great time the last week!! I spent it at the univeresity  in Emporia Kansas! Midwest Weavers Conference is always inspiring. You meet the nicest people who think like you do, that weaving is great fun and having looms all over your house is just ok! yarn stash a must and enabling others at the conference great fun!

So I go for the whole thing, including the preconference class. This year I took Robyn Spady's class On the Double using double 2 tie structures. She has great lectures, explains it well and we each got notebooks with detailed instructions on what to weave. I had put 4 yards onto my Ashford table loom and found at the end that it wasn't enough. My last dozen or so samples were about an inch long just so I could do a bit of everything. Also, a bunch of us ran out of warp by early afternoon the third day of class. Sure makes it easier to bring the loom home but next time, if I decide to replicate the samples on my own to try it again, I'd put at least 5 and maybe 6 yards on there!

 

Our instructions were not to buy any yarn, just use what you have at home so some had 10/2 and others 8/2 for their warps and we all had our bits of yarns along and shared with others that didn't have enough color choices especially when you realized what worked best to see the structures. I did take a few pictures of looms around mine on the second day so you could see the various warps on looms. This wasn't a round robin. You just wove all of them on your own loom.

 A big part of the conference is the exhibit hall. There are guild exhibits and also individual exhibits. I took some pictures just to remember them all. One guild had done a friendship coverlet project like our local guild did years ago. They also had other pieces in their exhibit. I thought they had done a nice job on this one.

 Dishtowels. Lots of dishtowels...

 The tipi exhibit of rugs won viewer's choice award for the guild exhibits.

 Another guild had taken a picture, cut it in sections and then each person took a section and felted their part of the picture. I think it's still needle felting somehow because the colors are all bits of felt.

 Not being a felter, I don't quite understand the process, but the end result is quite remarkable. I don't know if they saw any of the other's pieces during the process but I suspect not. What a delightful surprise that must have been when they got them all together. This was a group from Kansas City.

So that was just a hint of the exhibits at Midwest.
Yesterday, I left Emporia about 7 am and drove several hours before I picked up Linda at the designated McDonalds and we drove on. After 11 hours of driving, I decided to call it quits. We could have gotten home to Knoxville but it would have been late and driving that long isn't a good idea so we stopped in Clarksville for one more night of relaxing!
Tomorrow I'll bring some of the things I have to weaving for everyone to enjoy. The goodie bag we got was phenomenal, full of neat little things. Someone counted how many samples we could do in Robyn's class and I think it was about 56. I did manage to do a bit of each one and I"ll bring my long roll of fabric along and the book we got of information. I find it's always good to see what all we can weave and what others are doing in the weaving world.
So, til next Monday, weave on!!
Carol