a weaver of words

tonight was the final lesson of my weaving class. the timing is good, as i'm about to move to the other side of the country and start a new job (not necessarily in that order) and i wouldn't have been able to continue anyway. i think the classes were a wonderful introduction to weaving and they were even more than i hoped they would be. i feel very fortunate to have gotten my start with such a good teacher. i had to take one last wander around the little house where the weaving association has its looms. if i counted correctly, there are 19 looms there of varying sizes. here are a few of them:

a loom just like the one i bought.

i've taken loads of pictures of this loom because it's like the one that i bought. i'm a bit worried since i've never seen mine when it's put together. i'm sure all of the pieces are there, but there are an awful lot of them and it looks really, really complicated.

large loom without a project

final set-up before beginning.

setting up the loom is actually the most time-consuming part. it's complicated and requires a level of gymnastics, climbing in and out of the loom itself, before it's ready. i'm already pondering what project i want to be the first on my own loom when we get it set up sometime in the late summer/early fall.

the 7 different 20cm x 20cm patterns that i did during the lessons

i finished my piece last week and took it off the loom then. in the end i finished 7 test patches of 6 different patterns. the last one is really only a half, as i came to the end of the warp i had on the loom. it was a marvelous exercise to do it this way, as i learned about changing the various configurations of the pedals (which may not be the right term - i'm learning this in danish, so i don't know any of the english terms!) to get different patterns and i can see a big improvement from the first to the last of the pieces, as i grew more comfortable with the loom and how tight or loose things needed to be. using three colors, i learned a lot about how the colors interact. i've cut them apart and i've got them in pockets with their patterns in my own weaving notebook, which is a story that's just beginning to be written. 'til now, i've been mostly a weaver of words, but i hope to become a real weaver as well.

i will miss the lessons and the people. but i will find a new vævkreds, as it's called in danish. i'll live close enough to the museum in randbøldal to be able to join the lovely ladies there, which seems fitting since it's where i first discovered weaving last autumn.

but another very good thing has come out of my weaving...i get to photograph one of my teacher's beautiful rugs for the july issue of the british magazine home & garden on thursday. and i'm so excited! i hope the sun shines so that we have good light!