I can’t believe how much fun teaching this weaving class is! I have a full classes of five students and it is amazing watching them. They have completed their samplers and have designed their first “real” project.

This Saturday, they will be measuring off the warp and warping their looms. Every one of them has a different project in mind. One wants to do a table runner using some really cool yarns with silver threads and incorporating beads into it, another is doing a weft-faced wall hanging using fiber and yarns from his own llamas, another is doing a scarf that has a wonderful broken twill pattern, another is doing textured dish cloths using a semi-waffle weave pattern, and the fifth one is doing thick and thirsty dishtowels in a log cabin pattern.

I took my computer with Weave-It Pro on it to help them design their projects. Having the ability to actually see the “fabric” when they enter in the tie-up, threading arrangement and treadling sequence was cool. One person, for instance, chose colors, but when she saw the outcome, she changed her colors a couple of times until she got something she liked. She’ll be happier with her scarf with a color scheme that is pleasing to her.

I understand I already have five people signed up for my fall class. We are hoping that by then, Trading Post for Fiber Artists will be in its new location and we will have more room for looms for the classes. We barely have enough room for the five we have, and one of those, luckily, is a table top, which helped tremendously.

This, of course, means I need to buy another loom. Rats!

Well it’s a new year, and I have several projects all being juggled at the same time.
For starters, I am teaching a Beginning Weaving class on Saturdays from noon until 5:00. The first class is over and there are 5 more to go. I am finding this very interesting and fun. For starters, I am really enjoying watching the new weavers having fun with the looms and seeing what they get when they raise different harnesses. A couple of the students have really taken off with their first sampler and you can see the sparkle in their eyes. One loom is having troubles and we, practically, has to rewarp the thing – it was folded up and transported after warping and I think something happened in the moving process. This student has the greatest attitude! He says that he’s learning how to fix such a problem and if it hadn’t come up in class and it happened to him with him own loom later, he would have had no idea how to fix the problem. You have to love students like this.
Of my five students, I knew only one before the class. It’s interesting to see what their different plans for weaving are. One spins her own yarn and wants another way, besides knitting, to use her handspun yarns. Another owns llamas and wants to weave rugs with the llama fiber and felt it. A couple are learning because they’ve always wanted to learn (one already has her eyes set on a set of dish towels she wants to weave) and the fifth student has an art background and wants to see what she can create once she understands the process.
This is expanding my own thoughts on weaving as well. I am a very practical person and I prefer to weave with a usable end result in mind, whether it be towels or fabric for making clothes. I have been wanting to branch out into more artistic weaving and am spinning some Targhee wool to dye and weave. The end result will be a jacket, but it will be a bit of a departure from my normal designs.
I must say I enjoy teaching. I enjoy watching the students learn and I enjoy passing on information to someone who will use it and, perhaps, pass it on to someone else one day. I love the joy on a newbie’s face when he or she “gets” it. That light bulb moment makes all the tension and frustration up to that point worth it.