Lots Going On in the Studio

Lots of stuff happening today at the Weaving studio of the Appalachian Arts Craft Center of Norris TN. We are in the Studio every Tuesday from 10am until 2pm, we are located north of Knoxville TN, just off of I-75, exit 122. If you are travelling this summer and get a chance to come by, we sure hope you do!!!! We start off this morning with several process pictures. First, last week we heard that purple 8/4 cotton was once again in stock, so we ordered it along with a few more colors. Today, we got our yarn order and put it on the shelf. Betsy is hard at work doing math for her next project. She is going down to 8/2 cotton instead of 8/4 for a special towel project. I also caught Dana winding her next warp.

Phyllis is needle weaving to fix some errors in her scarf, Erin cut off her towel project and I got Judith's colorful warp in some lease sticks and set her up to thread the heddles. Here is some of the fabric that will be used on the first rug.

Now for some weavers and their projects. Linda has a new scarf project on her loom, and Liz is having fun with her colorful towel warp.

Towards the back of the room, Joycelyn is working hard on her towel warp, Bonnie is weaving towels and Laura is weaving what we call lawn chair towels.

Now for Show and Tell! Shannon brought us some key fobs she had recently woven, a scarf she had finished and a bag she had made to hold shuttles at the Center where she demonstrates weaving. Jenny showed us some felted slippers she had recently made. Jenny said that the yarn was from 1988!

Another thing that happened in 1988 is that the Leclerc Dorothy that I found this week in a local Thrift shop was built in 1988! Betsy has been working on a towel warp that you can wrap aroung a gift bottle of wine, 8/4 is too heavy so she is switching to 8/2. Here is the towel she saw that gave her the idea.

That is all I have for you today, until next week this is Tina, for all!

A Colorful Warp

Today we put a colorful 40 yard warp on the Studio rug loom. Last week we chose colors and worked out the threading. Next it is time to get the tension box and yardage counter out! I loaded the tension box with Judith's help since I was having to work around a pole and the back of the loom. We had 14 two inch sections to wind, 2 sections were going to be different so we wound them first. After that we rethreaded the tension box and set to work winding the other 12. While Judith worked the crank of the loom, Samantha was holding the tension box steady and made sure that the yarn didn't tangle.

At the same time Liz, Karin and Shirley were right beside us putting a warp on a baby wolf and Alice was trying to weave! I can tell you we did our best to stay out of each others way! By the end of the day both looms were ready to thread next Tuesday.

While all of that was going on Bonnie was weaving on towels and John Paul was hemming the rugs he took off of the Studio Rug loom last week!

In another part of the room Dana and Jenny were putting a hand dyed bamboo warp on Jenny's loom. As I was leaving today Jenny was already finished threading and had moved on to sleying the reed. In still another part of the room Betsy cut off her towel/wine bottle wrapper warp.

Now for Show and Tell! Betsy showed off the warp she had just cut off her loom, and she also had some childrens scarves that she had recently finished at home. Linda brought in the shawl that she had cut the warp off and taken it home to twist the fringe.

Patty brought in a shawl with a double twist, and Mark brought in some Lunch napkins that he finished this week.

That is it for today! We will have more fun for you next Tuesday, until then this is Tina, for all!

An Ending and a Beginning

I walked in the door this morning, and John Paul waved for me to come over to his loom. Sure enough, he was at the end of his rug warp, and it was time to cut it off.

He took it off the clothbeam and rolled it out. There were 10 rugs on the beam, Patty had woven 2 of them and John Paul had woven 8.

Judith will be taking over the rug loom for awhile, so we talked over what pattern and colors she wanted to work with. Patty suggested the Anderson Rug pattern from Janet Meaney's Rag Rug book. Judith chose 6 colors and with Karin's Iweaveit program on her ipad we set to work plugging in the pattern first then adding the colors. Since I will be warping sectionally I am trying to make it easy on myself. ( I am still working on the pattern at home this afternoon). Once we confirmed the colors we pulled them from the shelf and loaded them on the spool rack, next week we will probably to a 40 yard warp.

The shawl warp that Patty wound a few weeks ago is underway!

Now for Show and Tell, Laura brought in a tool that she has come across, we don't know what it is so I thought I would put it on the blog to see if any of our readers knows.

Carol brought in a project that she had done in a class. The technique is called "Split Shed Weaving". Mark brought in a stack of fun napkins that he has recently finished.

That is it for now, until next week this is Tina, for all