Shielagh Tacey Handwoven

I’ve just been looking at my Aunt Fran Curran’s  Hartford Artisans Weaving Center website. Here’s a photo of the weaving centre I took when I was visiting, as you can see it is a fantastic place packed full of looms.

I found this page explaining the weaving process. I thought I’d post it up for those who are interested in finding out what is involved in weaving from winding the warp to beating the weft.

I am also going to use my blog to document my own weaving process from the start to finish of a project. To start with here’s a picture of a baby wolf loom with all the parts labelled. This is the sort of loom I have although mine does not have the castle shelf.

Marguerite Porter Davison‘s A Handweaver’s Pattern Book is a must have for all weavers.

I used this book endlessly when I was learning to weave and still use it as a reference when I begin projects. I also like the fact that due to the age of the book the patterns are in black and white and so it is up to the weaver to imagine colour effects. There are similar modern books but I don’t think anything else comes close.

A Handweaver’s Pattern Book is currently out of print, but can be bought second hand from Amazon.

Here’s a post for my weaving friends in America and in particular NEWS. I went to their weaving conference in July 2009 where I met so many amazing people and enjoyed every minute. Here’s a photo of one  my weaving classes:

Each loom was set up with a different weave structure and then we rotated round the room using every loom. In this way by the end of the day we were able to take home our own sample of weaving from each loom. It was also a fun day because I got to try out lots of different looms! I still use these samples to help me design new work.