Tapestry Weaving
Rebecca Mezoff
Testing out the Duet tapestry beater from ...

It is no secret that I love my tapestry forks/beaters with metal tines. Many people make them with dog combs. The metal tines slide through the warp easily and if the handles are shaped well, they provide a nice snap for work on tapestries large or small.

Over the years I’ve purchased many tapestry forks from Magpie Woodworks, Thomas Creations (Threads Thru Time), and Timber and Twine. These are beautiful hand-crafted tools and every tapestry weaver should have at least one of these in their toolbox.

But I have had so many students who were unable to get one of these forks or had to wait many months just because when a tool is hand-made one at a time, it takes a long time to produce them and more people want them than can get them.

Testing out the Duet tapestry beater from Schacht

crankers

The land of Garrison Keillor... crankers and all

I've spent the last four days in Minnesota which I affectionately think of as "the land of Garrison Keillor". I haven't seen much of the city except for the airport terminal, the Textile Center, Pizza Luce, and Bobbin House Studio. But I feel that was enough for this go-around.

I met a dog named Huey. He came with a marvelous introduction to both an Aino Kajaniemi tapestry and an Erlbacher knitting sock machine. I'd take all three home if I could. Unfortunately I took no photos of the tapestry, the dog, or the knitting machine.

My trip started with a very very close call on I-25. I was within a breath of being rear ended badly and the quick thinking of the school teacher in the car behind me (I pulled left, she pulled right) saved me that. She was rear-ended by a big truck and her day went much worse than mine did I am sure. (Little reminder that life can change in an instant... be grateful for every moment.)

I made it to Minneapolis, gave my Sand in my Shoes lecture, and met some fantastic fiber people. There was a three-day Color Gradation Techniques for Tapestry workshop to follow and some lovely time in the best little vacation rental I've ever seen. Bobbin House Studio comes highly recommended by me and everyone else who signed the guest book.

The Textile Center completely blew me away. I've never seen such a marvelous resource just for fiber. They have a couple galleries, a big space rented by the Weaver's Guild of Minneapolis (for whom I was teaching), meeting space, classrooms, and an amazing dye lab. All of that was incredible, but it was the library that really impressed me. They have a huge collection of fiber books--bigger than I've ever seen. In case you don't believe me, here is a photo for evidence. All of those books are about fiber. All of them! And it is a circulating library. If I lived there I could have taken some of these treasures home with me to read at my leisure.
The Textile Center library, Minneapolis
Here are a few more photos of my Minneapolis tapestry adventure.
Textile Center of Minneapolis
I bring as much yarn in as many colors as I can fit in two huge suitcases. This is especially important for classes like this where we are working on value and gradation.

We had Mirrix looms, a Glimakra, a Schacht tapestry loom, a Schacht Baby Wolf, some copper pipe looms, a picture frame loom, and a Louet table loom that made me change my mind about my "all table looms are bad for tapestry except that great one I saw in Michigan" stance. The Louet Kombo definitely holds its own in the tapestry loom department. (FYI, the Michigan loom was a Kessenich.)

Some of my samples including warp size samples, simultaneous contrast sample, vertical gradation samples, and a new thing I'm working on with four selvedge and shaped pick and pick.

Kaz and Carol concentrating on their weaving
The Glimakra loom. Despite the small beams, this loom works great.

Kristin's beautiful hachure piece. Isn't the blending of the orange and salmon colors lovely? Value people, value.
Just some of the colors I brought.
You can find many more photos of the workshop on Robbie LaFleur's blog. Thanks for this wonderful post Robbie! http://robbielafleur.com/2016/03/09/rebecca-mezoffs-tapestry-workshop-variety-was-the-theme/

I stayed at the most wonderful place, Bobbin House Studio. I loved this place. It was so comfortable and my hosts Tom and Steve taught me so much about fiber and art in Minneapolis!

Bobbin House, sculpture by Tom Skogstrom
One of the most fascinating things I learned about from Steve Pauling was knitting machines for socks (there are a few photos on his website). One of Steve's many fiber pursuits involves repairing sewing machines. He is the best of the best at this. He also repairs sock knitting machines and is a sock machine knitting aficionado. He has an Erlbacher that he uses himself and he let me crank it. It was marvelous. What a beautiful piece of machinery. I would love to have one of these and I don't even like knitted socks that much. It was just so mesmerizing to see the little hooks do the wave around the canister.

I had no idea that there were whole groups of people called "crankers" who were into sock knitting on machines. They congregate in places with lots of sheep and fibery stuff going on. I'm fairly sure there must be such a group somewhere in Colorado given the high sheep numbers and the high population of fiber folk here. Crankers.  (giggle)

I managed, once again, to maneuver this luggage through a rental car return and into the airport and then back to my own car in Denver. I have to figure out how to teach classes that don't require me to bring any materials. Ah, who am I kidding. I can't imagine teaching a tapestry class where I didn't bring at least some of my own hand-dyed gradations for students to use.


My next teaching gig is at YarnFest in Loveland, Colorado. I still have a little room in all the classes. If you're going to sign up, now is the time! I'm finishing up the samples for the Simultaneous Contrast color class this week. The yarn table is going to look even better than the one pictured above if that is any temptation at all.

More info on my website here: http://www.rebeccamezoff.com/workshops
and in a set of blog posts linked HERE.
See you there!