Barnsdall Weaving Class

I started a weaving class at Barnsdall Art Park earlier this summer and after much time setting up the warp, have finally started weaving!!The white yarns are just filler for those gaps in at the beginning of the warp. Setting up the warp took about 3 classes which involved winding the warp yarn onto a warp frame, tying it onto the loom, then the tedious task of separating the yarns into the heddles and the reed. This is the plain weave. You can really see the teal colored warp through the brown colored weft. The warp yarn I used, is a varigated, meaning it's not perfectly even yarn, but thinner and thicker in some places.I decided to use the free to use yarns Barnsdall has and not to plan so much. I love all these unwanted muted, colors probably from the 70's. I am practicing creating organically. There is so much control designing on the computer, that you forget how nice it can sometimes be to have parameters.This is how far I got in about 3 hours, not quite a foot. It is about 12" wide. Starting from the bottom, you can see the alternating plain weave and basket weave, which the yellow/green solid area creates a twill effect. Also played around with vertical stripes, horizontal stripes and checkerboard when I added the cram color. You can see how some areas are more packed than others. Packing is pounding the weave down, a little bit violent, but will often hide the warp with thinner yarns and techniques like the basket weave.

The reality is that weaving is a third world skill that you will make no money at because machines can seriously do this thing in a second. So, our wonderful instructor Carolyn encourages us to do something you couldn't buy in stores, experiment and be creative.

Next week, I will continue this sampler with a big zig zag!!