Workshops

Current Workshop Status

The following workshops have seats available:

• This Doesn’t Look Like Plain Weave
• Collage to Cartoon…and Beyond
• Design from Scratch: Handwoven Towels on Four Shafts
• Weaving Outside the Box: 12 Projects for Making Dimensional Cloth
• Manipulated Forms – Dark Windows
• Double Rainbow
• Tablet Weaving Sampler
• Rep Runners: A Study in 4-Block Design Using Linked Blocks and Solid Stripes
• Split-Shed Weaving
• Lace Weaves and the Rainbow Connection
• The Art of Transparency

The following workshop is full:

• Spin the Rainbow

Workshop Information and Images

Information about the workshops and images of the workshops can be viewed and downloaded from the following link:

2023 IWC Workshop Descriptions and Images

3 Day Workshops

• Weaving Outside the Box: 12 Projects for Making Dimensional Cloth
• This Doesn’t Look Like Plain Weave
  
• Collage to Cartoon…and Beyond
  
• Design from Scratch: Handwoven Towels on Four Shafts
  
• Double Rainbow
  
• Tablet Weaving Sampler
  
• Rep Runners: A Study in 4-Block Design Using Linked Blocks and Solid Stripes
• Split-Shed Weaving
  
• Lace Weaves and the Rainbow Connection
• The Art of Transparency
• Manipulated Forms – Dark Windows
  
• Spin the Rainbow

Denise Kovnat – Weaving Outside the Box: 12 Projects for Making Dimensional cloth

Weavers usually think of color and structure as the most expressive elements in our craft. But what about texture, which is often overlooked? To promote this aspect of weaving, Denise Kovnat has written a book, Weaving Outside the Box: 12 Projects for Making Dimensional Cloth, which serves as the basis for this workshop. Weavers will choose one of the projects from the book (for 4, 6, 8, or 16 shaft looms) and arrive at the workshop with their looms warped and ready to weave. During the workshop, we will study the factors that contribute to dimension in weaving: structure, active and inactive yarns, and finishing techniques. The magic happens in the finishing, as our samples develop pleats, puffs, crinkles, and curves after washing. For intermediate to advanced weavers: those who know how to dress a loom and read a draft.

Material Fee: $40

Experience Level: Intermediate to advanced – must know how to dress a loom and read a draft

Equipment Provided by Students: Loom, shuttles, warp and weft yarns, and all the necessary tools for weaving

List materials to be provided by Workshop Leader: Copies of the book, Weaving Outside the Box, plus additional weft yarns for experimenting

Karen Donde – This Doesn’t Look Like Plain Weave

The over-one, under-one plain weave interlacement is the foundation of numerous weaving patterns and techniques, including Beiderwand, deflected double weave, double weave, color-and-weave effects, thick and thin, warp rep, Ms and Os, handwoven lace, tapestry, transparency, etc. Participants will experiment with several of these weave structures, studying them from the perspective of their plain weave roots. Breaking complicated-sounding structures and/or techniques down to demonstrate commonalities with something as basic and familiar as plain weave is intended to encourage weavers’ technical development and creative exploration in a non-threatening way. This is a round robin.

Experience Level: This workshop is designed for weavers with basic weaving skills who may be hesitant to explore more complex structures. It is also suitable for intermediate weavers for whom these structures may be new.

Equipment: 

• 4 or 8 shaft loom-pre-warped
• Yarn (will vary with draft and be specified in advance)
• Pen/pencil
• Graph paper & 4-6 colored pencils
• Usual weaving supplies & gadgets: scissors, pins, measuring tape, threading & sleying hooks, etc.
• Fray Check or masking tape for securing raw edges of samples
• Bobbin winder (can be shared)
• Wash-safe tags and laundry marker for samples (old Tyvek envelopes work well)

Some supplies or tools needed for certain techniques will be described with warping instructions.

Material provided by instructor:

• WIFs and PDF drafts for structures
• Detailed digital handouts with all weaving instructions, for printing by students as needed

Material Fee: $0

Molly Elkind – Collage to Cartoon…and Beyond

This is a sequel to Molly’s popular Collage to Tapestry Cartoon workshop. Veterans of that class and new students will both find it useful. You’ll start by making your own patterned and painted papers with a variety of media, then cut, tear and paste them into collages that will be the design for your tapestry. Learn step by step how to translate your collage into a cartoon you can weave. Then, break out of the box and consider open warps, irregular edges, and adding stitch and non-woven elements. How far can you push your woven tapestry toward a mixed media collage? If you’re ready to move through the design process to start weaving, Molly will provide grayscale yarns to sample your design with, so bring a small loom and basic tapestry tools. You’ll leave with design ideas, a cartoon ready to weave, and time permitting, a woven sample.

I will provide some Weavers Bazaar grayscale yarns in Medium weight because until you make your collages you won’t know what colors you’ll need for sampling. That said, if you always work in the same palette or have a particular color palette you know you’ll be aiming for, feel free to bring yarns from your stash in those colors

The emphasis of our class is on the design process, NOT the weaving. You may not get to weaving at all, but focus on making collages that you are excited about translating into cartoons for tapestry. I will not be teaching tapestry technique except as required to clarify a point about the translation process. I will urge that you think of any weaving you might do as a sample for the final piece.

If you think you might want to sample, bring a small loom (see Equipment below); a floor loom would be overkill here! Plan on a 3-5” wide sample, as long as your small loom will allow. Plan on using the warp and weft yarns you are already comfortable with. Remember, weaving a sample is optional!

Experience Level: Intermediate to advanced tapestry weavers. Students must have some experience with conventional tapestry technique.

Equipment: Students should bring: blank paper or sketchbook at least 8.5 x 11”, colored and patterned papers (such as scrapbooking paper, wrapping paper, magazine pages), glue stick, Scotch tape, markers and/or colored pencils, Sharpie marker, scissors for paper, OPTIONAL: small tapestry loom (no pin looms, Zoom looms or rigid heddles), warp yarn to warp loom (possibly more than once), usual tapestry tools including scissors, tapestry needles, sewing thread, fork or beater, optional bobbins, optional weft yarns, optional found object(s). Students should provide their own looms and weaving supplies as listed above. No special safety requirements.

Material Fee: $35. This is for the set of Neocolor II watercolor crayons you get to take home with you.

Sarah Jackson – Design from Scratch: Handwoven Towels on Four Shafts

The primary goal of the workshop is to teach students how to create their own designs for handwoven towels. Students will complete the workshop with a thorough understanding of the necessary components for good design. They will leave the workshop with woven samples and a specific plan for weaving towels based on their samples. Designing from scratch is an exciting, satisfying component of weaving and is something every weaver is capable of doing well. In this workshop participants will formulate a plan for their own design based on discussion about color, weave structure, sett, warp and weft calculations, and sampling, plus the Fibonacci sequence and profile drafts as design resources. This workshop is a combination of presentation, discussion, and weaving; it is not a round robin workshop.

Experience Level: All levels. Students must know how to dress a loom and read a simple draft.

Equipment: 

• •Photographs or fabrics with colors the student would like to work with./li>
• Variety of colors that relate to the photographs of one type of yarn: 8/2 cotton, 22/2 Cottolin, or 10/2 cotton.
• 4-shaft loom in good working order with 12-dent reed
• Warping board (can be shared) & choke ties
• Lease sticks
• Threading/sley hook
• 2 shuttles
• 5-6 bobbins
• Scissors
• Crochet hook, size 3/D or blunt-end tapestry needle
• Note-taking supplies
• Measuring tape
• Scotch tape
• Shelf/rug liner to fit underneath your loom (table looms, only)
• 1 empty paper towel roll, split lengthwise for the cloth beam
• Loom weights and 2 empty film canisters/prescription pill bottles (to repair broken warp threads)
• T-pins (1 or 2)
• Fray check

Material Fee: $10

Jennifer Moore – Double Rainbow

2 Layers, 4 or 8 Shafts, 6 Colors – Endless possibilities! This is perhaps the ultimate color sampler! You will begin by winding a warp and setting up your loom according to Jennifer’s system for working with multiple colors in a rotational sequence and bringing it to the workshop. A basic two-layered structure will enable you to mix and match our colors, creating an amazing array of color mixtures. As you weave and your warp colors move past each other you will experience a visual feast of iridescence and moire patterns. We will also experiment with single-layered structures such as warp rep and warp-faced twills and the effects that they create on this versatile warp. Those set up for two blocks on eight shafts will also be able explore an unlimited range of block combinations. The workshop includes a comprehensive lecture on block doubleweave that will give you the tools to create your own block designs in doubleweave for as many shafts as you have. This sampler will provide a remarkable education in color theory and how optical mixtures work in weaving, as well as a great source of inspiration for future weaving projects. This is not a round robin.

Experience Level: No prior experience in doubleweave is necessary, but students must know how to warp a loom.

Equipment: 4-or 8-shaft table or floor loom warped according to instructions.

Material Fee: $10

John Mullarkey – Tablet Weaving Sampler

You've tried tablet weaving. You've even enjoyed it, but what else is out there? We'll start with Egyptian Diagonals, also known as Double-Card Double-Turn Diagonals. This technique gives a nice foundation for many techniques that are diagonal in nature. On the second day we'll explore what happens to threaded-in designs when we supercharge them using 6-hole cards. You'll get many tips and tricks for weaving with 6-hole cards. Lastly, we'll look at a traditional technique from an Indonesian Island called Sulawesi. Beautiful designs that are like double-faced tablet weaving, and then not like it at all..

Experience Level: Advanced Beginner, should have some tablet weaving experience.

Equipment supplied by students: 

• Inkle style loom (an Ashford Inklet is unacceptable because of its small size)
• Belt shuttle
• Twenty (20) 4-hole cards
  
• Scissors
• Five balls or cones of mercerized or un-mercerized cotton between 5/2 and 10/2 (all should be same size) or #10 crochet thread. The five balls or cones should be two of one color, two of a contrasting color, and one of a third color. At least 1 ounce of each.

Materials provided by workshop leader:

• Twenty (20) 6-hole cards
• Documentation

Material Fee: $10

Rosalie Neilson – Rep Runners: A Study in 4-Block Design Using Linked Blocks and Solid Stripes

This workshop is for weavers who want to develop their design capabilities. Participants will design a warp stripe and thread their loom prior to the workshop. Using the same profile draft, weavers will thread an 8-shaft loom with 4 or 5 different colors of 3/2 or 5/2 mercerized cotton to design a table runner. (The warping instructions and color directions will be sent via email upon registration.) The runner will feature a series of 4-block motifs in the center, with borders featuring 2-block motifs in opposite colors (created by the linked blocks). The border will be separated from the center by a solid colored stripe. Weavers will select motifs from Design Pages from An Exaltation of Blocks, a book about symmetric block design written by Rosalie Neilson. The workshop will begin with a PowerPoint Presentation showing the concept of independent and linked blocks, as well as the development of 4-block designs. Design Sessions will focus on developing 2-, 3-, and 4-block symmetric motifs, converting profile drafts into threading and treadling plans, and developing a skeleton tie-up. Demonstrations include Cavandoli knots as the finishing technique. This is not a round robin.

Experience Level: Intermediate to Advanced. Skills needed for the workshop include how to read thread-by-thread and profile drafts, how to warp using two different colors, how to beam a longer warp (4 to 6 yards), how to place paper or sticks in warp while beaming to prevent threads from falling off the edges, and know how to correct crossed warp ends. Weavers will work exclusively on their own looms.

Equipment: 8-shaft loom with 16” weaving width – textile will be 14” wide. Drafts will be modified if there are narrower looms. Warp: 3/2 or 5/2 mercerized cotton (4 to 5 colors). Weft: 8/16 Mop yarn (Maurice Brassard - Woolery) or Midi string yarn (Vävstuga).

Material Fee: $20

Deborah Silver – Split-Shed Weaving

Break out of blocks with split-shed weaving. Weave curves and blend colors using continuous wefts on a 4-shaft loom with no special equipment. In this workshop, students will learn to weave multiple combinations of weave structures using only four shafts and a straight threading. Only tie-ups and treadling are changed between samples. Most of these combinations would normally require a minimum of eight shafts. Students will experiment with combinations of twills, tied weaves, double weave, Han damask, taqueté and more! Woven samples include continuous, complementary, and supplementary wefts, as well as wefts which combine to produce shading for pictorial weaving. (This is similar to the color-blending process Deborah Silver uses to create her art.) Students will also learn to make a cartoon on cloth that will advance with the warp and will not wrinkle when beating. Although students will not be able to complete all of the samples in class, they will leave with the ability to complete them at home with all of the drafts and instructions.

This workshop will progress from structures that use one continuous weft to double weft-faced structures and double weave, using two wefts woven “on opposites”. Students will then sample tied weave combinations using pattern and tabby wefts. Finally, they will learn to combine two or more wefts to create blended colors. Students will work at their own pace. This is not a round robin.

Experience Level: Students should have the ability to warp and weave a basic 4-shaft fabric.

Equipment: Although this workshop can be done on a table loom, a floor loom (jack or direct tie-up) is preferable as it speeds up the weaving process. Looms will need to be pre-warped. Students will provide their own warp and weft yarns. Students will also need two 10” – 14” flat shuttles and one other shuttle of their choosing that will be comfortable to use with an 8”- 9” wide warp.

Material Fee: $15

Robyn Spady – Lace Weaves and the Rainbow Connection

Lace weaves AND color in one workshop???!!! What could be more satisfying? Traditionally, lace weaves are woven with the same yarn in the warp and weft. But, no more! Applying color in different ways can transform a simple lace threading into a versatile warp that can be manipulated in different ways with additional colors to create amazing fabrics. In this class, application of color in different lace weaves, such as huck, Atwater-Bronson, and Swedish lace will be explored. Participants will pre-warp their loom from a small set of different lace threadings. They will also explore the fundamentals of lace weaves and color and strategies for combining the two. Four-shaft loom minimum. (Note: This is not a round-robin workshop.).

Experience Level: Adventure-seeking beginner through Advanced weaver.

Equipment: Loom or other equipment required: Pre-warped loom. Warp loom per instruction (provided 6-8 weeks prior to the workshop), two shuttles, wefts, scissors.

Material Fee: $15

Laura Viada – The Art of Transparency

Transparencies are fun to weave and present a wealth of opportunities for expression and design. A close relative of the tapestry, the distinguishing characteristic of the transparency is the contrast between opaque areas of pattern inlay and the sheer background cloth. Transparencies can be stand alone art pieces, or they can be functional items such as window coverings, table linens, and wearables. This workshop introduces students to basic transparency weaving techniques, and to all the possibilities transparency offers. On day one, we will explore the basics -- yarns, sett, weaving techniques, creating shapes, etc. On day two, we will explore design sources and methods and students will create an original cartoon. On day three students may continue experimenting with yarns and techniques and/or begin weaving from the cartoon designed on day two. A substantial amount of time will be devoted to weaving on each of the three days. This is not a round robin.

Experience Level: All levels.

Equipment: 

• Pre-warped 4 shaft loom. Detailed instructions for yarn choices and warping will be sent prior to the workshop.
• Weft yarn
• Shuttle for weaving background fabric
• Several sheets of printer paper
• Pencil
• Eraser
• Black Sharpie
• Colored pencils (optional)
• Straight pins
• Scissors
• Tapestry needle
• Note taking supplies

Material fee: $25

Linda Lugenbill – Manipulated Forms – Dark Windows

This workshop takes the traditional ‘cathead’ basket to a contemporary level by exploring shaping, color placement, rim finishes and twill plaiting techniques. Sound construction methods will be emphasized. Hand-shaping creates the unique corners of the twill plaited base as well as the rounded wall of the basket. We will learn hand positioning and control of tension to make this happen while weaving with another twill pattern. The finished vessel may be symmetrical or not and will be topped with unique rim treatments. A variety of rim finishes will be demonstrated. Participants will be encouraged to incorporate openings or slits while weaving the wall. Form changes will be developed into design elements. The finished project displays a striking effect of recessed dark windows. This is a result of specific placement of dyed and natural stakes and their interaction with the twill weaving pattern. Color blending will be discussed as additional color is added via over dyeing with one or more dyes. Embellishing possibilities will also be considered. You will gain experience and understanding of shaping, weaving with twills, finishing with unique rim treatments, and color placement variations. Additionally, students will gain understanding of sound construction methods, materials preparation, materials handling, and dyeing.

Experience Level: Open to all skill and experience levels.

Equipment: Students will need to wear suitable clothing for working safely. Remember, basket reeds can snag your clothing. Also, we will be setting up dye stations on the last day. Please bring an apron and 1-2 old towels for covering your basket when not weaving. Also needed are craft scissors, an awl, pencil, measuring tape or ruler, 6 wooden spring type clothespins, and a smaller bucket or basin for soaking your weavers. Do not buy any of the above if you do not have them as I will bring extra for shared use in class.

Material Fee: $63

Jillian Moreno – Spin the Rainbow

Are you ready for the ultimate color class? Over our three days together we will experiment, explore, and play with a variety of methods of working with color in spinning.

We will study and spin braids. Spinning singles and plied yarns we’ll mix and blend color, we’ll also keep colors as clear as the braid they came from. We’ll take the time to examine different dye patterns in braids, decoding how the patterns translate into yarn. Experimenting with color layering, we’ll see what happens when we work with more than 2-plys, with boucle, cables, spirals and other textured spins. Combo draft, combo ply, combo spin and marls, after this class you’ll know the difference and be able to execute and manipulate each technique. We will blend color with hand cards, working to understand tint tone and shade, how to match color, enhance and duplicate colorways, and create your own from an image. Capping off this workshop we will discuss and get hands-on experience planning color for a whole project. Using the color techniques you’ve learned in class you’ll quickly plan a project, including the sampling. Consistency, measuring and stretching fiber for a project will all be touched on. Your materials for this class will come from a traveling stash, a huge array of fibers, dyed, handpainted and natural. There will be different breeds and blends, different preparations, including batts. We will have open studio time for you to experiment, practice and sample techniques that have sparked your curiosity. We may have time for a marketplace field trip to look at fiber and color in their natural habitat. My goal is for you to leave this class with confidence in spinning color, and with a few more tools in your spinning toolbox.

Experience Level: If you can spin a continuous thread and have made a plied yarn, even once, this class is for you.

Equipment: A wheel in good working order, at least four bobbins, a lazy kate, a niddy noddy, a pair of handcards ( I will have an extra pair to share), tags to mark samples and pen and paper to take notes. Knitting needles they like to use with your default yarn. Any other tools you like to use when you spin.

Material Fee: $90