Preparations! (for Fringeless)

Preparations! (for Fringeless)

So I made a mistake. Maybe.

The jury is still out.

There is a whole industry around teaching online classes and I have taken many classes in how to build successful online classes.  And I have built some great ones, so clearly the information I've learned is useful. 

But all of those experts advise opening registration in your online class before the class content opens. Build excitement they say. Get them invested with a little bit of content they say. Get them all pumped up they say.

So for Fringeless, I decided to do that.

And I found out that tapestry weavers are an amazingly enthusiastic bunch!

Where did four selvedge warping come from?

Where did four selvedge warping come from?

Four selvedge warping for tapestry is something I've been interested in for years. I've followed the adventures of weavers such as Susan Martin Maffei, Michael Rohde, and Sarah C. Swett as they used this technique in their work.

As Sarah Swett and I were shooting the video for our Fringeless: Four Selvedge Warping online class, Sarah talked some about how four selvedge weaving has changed the way she practices her craft. Listen in the video below.

Weaving four selvedge in the Wasatch

Weaving four selvedge in the Wasatch

I'm a conference spouse this week. I figured that the internet at Snowbird would be at least as good as ours at home (it's better)  and that I could just as easily work from a room with a view as from my studio. Who knew being the one who was NOT teaching or presenting could be so great?! I feel like I'm on vacation even though I'm still working.

But, it turns out having this view outside the 12-foot wide floor-to-ceiling window is just a tad distracting for someone who loves hiking as much as I do.

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Sheep keds, belly wool, and how much fleece do you need for a sweater again?

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Sheep keds, belly wool, and how much fleece do you need for a sweater again?

I love the Estes Park Wool Festival. To be fair, I haven't been to any other wool festival except Taos, but one thing especially draws me back to Estes every year.

The fleece and fiber judging.

Oh sure, I love the rest of it, but being able to learn so much from the fleece judge is such a treat. This year's judge was Amy Wolf. I suspect she hears a lot of jokes about her name being Wolf, but she definitely knows her sheep! She raises sheep herself, is a shearer, and a handspinner. So she can comment about the producer side of the fleeces as well as what is attractive to handspinners. Her advice about how to prepare and spin different kinds of fleece and deal with problem fleeces was invaluable. And as you may be able to tell from the photo below, she has a great sense of humor as well as a huge desire to help people understand these animals and their fleece.

Today was the white fleece judging.

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On sheep street.

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On sheep street.

I love learning about sheep and fleece. The heart of the matter is the material. The art I make starts with wool. Wool doesn't come in just merino. It comes in a fantastic variety of characteristics grown by a large number of sheep breeds.**

As tapestry weavers, many of us are used to just purchasing whatever "tapestry yarn" is available and leaving it at that. I think we can and should look a little more closely at the materials we use. After learning the techniques to weave tapestry, it is important to start thinking about how different materials contribute to the final piece of art.