Learn to Weave in a Weekend Results

As I try to learn WordPress, I am humbled by my own naivete. I have uploaded the pictures from the Learn to Weave in a Weekend class to my Flickr account (maidensweaver), and have done the administrative stuff for flickr to share them, but am to brain tired to figure out the rest tonight.
I’ll upload a few pics here, and my impression at the end of the class….just for you. Then, if you want to see the rest of the pics, you can check out flickr, until I rest, and educate myself.
We began Friday night with 2.5 hours of class. The students received a vocab list, a syllabus and a tour of the building. We talked about each student’s expectations for the class, and their goals regarding weaving in general. One lady owns a loom.
Once I knew their needs, I could determine my role in this. We planned their projects, determining epi, warp length, etc and made a guide string. The lady with a loom has a warping board, so she learned on our board, instead of using the warping mills. Then we tied the warp with choke ties, and ties that preserve the cross, inserted lea sticks, and ties the lea sticks to the loom. That ended Friday for most of us. One student began winding on, and she threaded the heddles completely on Friday night.
Saturday, we had 6 hours, so those who weren’t threading heddles began. So on Sat, we threaded heddles, and sleyed the reed until about 2 pm, then we began weaving.
The students wove, under my supervision until 4pm, and then the days class was over, and I had to leave. They used the remaining hour that the art center was open for open studio time.
Sunday, they finished weaving off their pieces, and some hem-stitched, others ties fringes, etc.
One student made a 8″ change in her weaving right in the center. That meant that as she approached the end of her weaving she came up short. Not wanting to disappoint, I attempted to help her get min. waste by extending the back apron rod so it came to within an inch of the heddles, and we removed her reed from the beater. Well, it worked. We had to have another student lifting and really pushing down certain harnesses, but the student was able to achieve a balance of the symmetery of her piece. I learned there is such a thing as zero-waste weaving!
You will see this in the flickr photos.
Here you will see a tapestry wall hanging in rag and yarn, a tapestry rag rug, and 2 basic, plain weave rag rugs. I enjoyed these students. They were very focused and positive to work with.
Thanks for a fun weekend.
Cherri

Learn to Weave in a Weekend

Tonight, this class begins at the Visual Art Center of Richmond. It seems like a good subject to kick-off my WordPress blog. I’ll post pics, and get started here. I really like my Blogger blog, but WordPress seems to have better Bells and Whistles.

Let me introduce myself. I’m Cherri Hankins. I weave,spin,felt,dye,crochet (a bit), embroider and really much more. But I also teach these activities, and video tape a lot of this so I can use those videos to assist my students (and to put them up on Youtube). The art centers I teach for right now are:

The Visual Arts Center of Richmond

The Cultural Arts Center of Glen Allen

Bay School of the Arts

Touchstone Center for Crafts

Brookfield Craft Center

and the newest for me:

The Art Center in Orange

Bay School will be opening a satellite location very soon (probably this fall) to bring the arts and arts education to more rural communities in Virginia. Kudos to my friends at Bay School: Kim, Grace, Virginia, et al.

I also have 2 teaching studio of my own (I don’t own them). Each studio accomodates about 4 weaving students and 1 or two spinning students. It is not unusual to have the weavers and spinners in group lessons together. During the first 2 nights of a weaving session, I don’t invite spinners in for lessons because these are usually very demanding classes, so you can see that it’s all tailored around the success and satisfaction of the student.

My own work is varied. For several years, my sole commissions were tallitot (jewish prayer shawls), but I have begun to do more and more chiengora work (I weave and spin peoples dog hair and cat hair into works of art as commissioned works). Both of these types of work are extremely satisfying, as I spend a good bit of time interacting with the client, getting to know them and appreciate them in order to create something that seems like an extension of who they are.

Welcome to my blog, and I’ll jazz it up as I have time.

Cherri

Learn to Weave in a Weekend

OH, what a fun class. I have 4 students with enthusiasm and a very positive attitude.
This group of students has flown through the process of dressing the loom, and are now inserting weft to weave off their projects. One is doing a rag rug, and two of the others are doing rag runners while the 4th is doing a wall hanging incorporating rag, charged yarn, balanced yarn, and other inclusions. I also had a make-up class today with the student I would be neglecting tomorrow due to being in the WiaW class.
She is making unbelievable progress. On day one, she almost completely dressed her loom. She came in during lunch this week, and completed threading heddles, and today (lesson 2), she sleyed the reed, tied onto the front of the loom, inserted header, and began weaving. She is doing a fairly simple rag piece using t-shirts.
I am truly blessed to be their teacher. Life is Grand.
Check out the pics. Don’t forget that I will be using WordPress to parallel this blog until I know whether I like it, then I will be (sniff) shutting this one down for the other.
My username at wordpress is Rivercityweaving
Bye for now, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Cherri

Tess’ reversing twill

My student, Tess, did a really nice reversing twill that I wanted to show you.
She began weaving in the fall, and wove in my classes in Oct and Nov, then started back in the spring. She bought a 4 harness counterbalance loom, and a table loom.
She continued through 6 (?) months of weaving, and then we halted for the summer. She has become fairly accomplished. Look at what a fine job she has done. And all the time she has been with me, she has been in school, working on a post-grad degree!That’s dedication;0)
Remember that if you click on the photos, you can see a great deal of detail, as they become much larger.
Cherri

Tess’ reversing twill

My student, Tess, did a really nice reversing twill that I wanted to show you.
She began weaving in the fall, and wove in my classes in Oct and Nov, then started back in the spring. She bought a 4 harness counterbalance loom, and a table loom.
She continued through 6 (?) months of weaving, and then we halted for the summer. She has become fairly accomplished. Look at what a fine job she has done. And all the time she has been with me, she has been in school, working on a post-grad degree!That’s dedication;0)
Remember that if you click on the photos, you can see a great deal of detail, as they become much larger.
Cherri

Gone to Press!

WordPress that is. I really enjoy Alice’s blog. I always thought she was a computer whiz because of all the bells and whistles her blog has. She assures me it’s not her, but that wordpress automatically does those things. So, I’m moving. This blog will stay here for a good while, as I decide whether like the new neighborhood, but check out the new site, and see if you don’t like it better.
the url is different….obviously, so watch for
http://www.rivercityweaves.wordpress.com
It’s a Richmond thing. Probably, a lot citys on the river adopt the nickname Rivercity,
but I like it, so we’ll see how it goes.
Let me know what you think, ok?
Cherri

Why am I slow to post lately

I know I haven’t been posting regularly this summer and there is good reason. I hate to just write to you and not add photos of the work that’s going on. Well, I started a warp at Roseneath in beautiful alpaca/silk. It’s a long warp and I intended to make a tallit-like garment for my son. Being slow to weave some projects, I left it in stasis while weaving other things. Finally, I began crossing it with handspun silk. I love it. Then I took a commission that the remainder of that warp would be good for, and I made a treadling error that I didn’t want to take out, and didn’t want to keep. The option was: cut the offending section off, use the remainder of the warp for the commission, and weave on! Right! So no pics there. My loom in the home studio has a long warp with the cognac colores alpaca/silk. And you have already seen that, so no point in more pics of the same old. The loom I was going to use at Glen Allen, was stalled with a 11 yard warp that started out to be burgundy and slate grey. I was adding stripes of a variety of colors, and some time during the week, I decided I hate the colors together, and hate that warp. I drove all the way to Glen Allen just to hack it off the loom, and throw it away! Some things are just not going to work for me. Well, I have now measured out an alpaca/silk warp (hmmmm looks like a common thread here if you will pardon the pun) for the loom at Glen Allen, but I have a new month beginning in a week and a half. That means any loom I put this warp on may be unavailable for July, and I would have to just cut the warp off.
You know……some of you do, how often I cut warps off so a student can use the loom. Well, not going to happen to my precious alpaca/silk warp. Once I get the head count for jUly, I’ll be good to go.
While I wait, I’m going to order some bamboo yarn. Although I hate to spin it, I’m lovin’ the feel of Amy’s most recent scarf. If it’s OK with Amy, I’ll post pics. She is a good weaver, and has a very good design ‘eye’.
So, I’m slow to post because I’m gardening, enjoying weaving,don’t have much to photograph, and I’m busy ripping off warps!!!! Good thing my favorite thing about weaving is ‘dressing the loom’.
Does anyone else just love to dress the loom, and really not care if they weave it off?

Cherri

Diversions

I’m distracted a little. Until today, I haven’t had a commission that had to be done, and in the interest of a little nurturing in the wake of Mom’s death, I have been gardening a little. I have this great little courtyard outside the studio door that I have always loved, and never had time to keep up properly. Well, my DH gave me a refurbished, old fashioned wooden-frame screen door for Mother’s Day, and it has inspired me to step out a couple of times a day and week, plant and generally stimulate the growth of beauty.
Most days, we have morning coffee here, together. We greet the day listening to the birds sing, and mentally documenting the growth of all that we plant and cultivate together. (eeeewwwww, that doesn’t sound like us at all, but it’s true)
So I decided to post pictures of our efforts.
This is my little courtyard. I’ll post pictures later in the summer, so you can see how it progresses. Beyond the courtyard and the grape arbor, you will see the garden with our beautiful squash blossoms! They are probably our favorite summer gift to one another.

Hello world!

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Summer Challenge

Sorry not to post for a week. I’ve issued a summer challenge to my students, and will do the same to you. It’s for the weavers. It’s just to get you planning your projects, and to inspire you to think of ways to use color and the interconnectivity of color and your draft. The challenge is as follows:
Let’s get the creative juices flowing with something to stretch your
imagination. Looking at your draft….assuming it’s 4 harness, I want
you to choose 4 colors. color 1 is a shade or tint of color 2. Color
2 is a pure color (primary- it doesn’t really have to be the primary,
but not mauve, or some other secondary or tertiary color). Color 3 is
the compliment of color 2 on the color wheel, and color 4 is a neutral
(black, white or grey).
Now for the hard part.

The dominant will be whatever color you put on the harness that
appears most in your draft.
So if your draft is 1,2,1,3,1,4,1,3,1,2,1, whatever color you put on
harness #1 would be the dominant color. Whatever you put on 4 will be
the diminutive color. Each color has a specific harness.
So all threads on harness #1 will be the same color, on harness #2
will all be the same, etc. You get to choose your pattern, but no
straight twills!

Are you in?
Cherri