Workshop in Las Vegas

When we were at the IWC workshops in Durango, I got to eat lunches and get to know several of the workshop leaders.  I decided I wanted to take a workshop from Sarah Jackson on weaving fabric for clothing.  She said that she was teaching in Las Vegas and Beth (my travel companion) said she had a daughter in Las Vegas and we should go.  We signed up and had a great time.

Threading the Woolhouse for the second time.

I had only threaded the Woolhouse once before and I am not used to threading Texsolv heddles.  I had to line them up in the order I needed for the pattern.  Fortunately, it was straight draw.  With 300 warp ends to thread, I got lots of practice threading them.  I hope I will be able to get faster threading them.

With sley hook

With Fingers

I tried threading with a sley hook and with my fingers.  I don't use a sley hook normally, so I ended up just using my fingers.  I think if I had more than eight shafts, I would need to use the hook to get through the heddle eye and put the thread through it.

The weather in Las Vegas was great.  I had only been there in the summer when it is so hot, and this time we had temperatures in the 80's and some rain.  It was lovely.  The house that the workshop was held in had a great back yard with metal art pieces and plants.  The birds were out there in the bird baths and I enjoyed listening to them.  I ended up weaving in the screened porch area and the breeze was great...I like it a little cool.

You can see my loom in the foreground.

Sarah's class was just what I needed to look at my samples differently to provide more information for the project that I am working on and additional possibilities for future pieces.  She encouraged me to put all three colors on the warp to get more information out of the pieces.  I had two ideas for the dress warp and I was able to test them both and also explore additional options.

Here's the first sample with some float experiments.

On my second sample I added some supplementary warps, both boucle and slub yarns.  I really like the look of the slub yarn in the green.  That is a really good possibility for the dress fabric.  The pattern making the warp spots with the green and blue is a good possibility for the matching jacket.  The scarf looked really good on that sample.

Any thing I could find for weights

I forgot to bring warp weights...not the only thing I forgot...so I emptied my bags and used anything I could find to tension the added warps.  Here you can see them hanging off the back of the loom and off the table.

Sarah had lots of examples a great clothing for us to check out.  I love the quality finishing that she does on them.  One vest was so beautifully lined that she decided to use it reversible.  

A collection of clothes and totes

I love the shape of this vest

I love the way she added additional texture and glitz to this lace fabric

The inside of the house was also a treat.  The home owner had traveled and collected wonderful things all around the world and had some great photos of her travels.

The main room had a wall of photos and art for us to look at.  On the other side, above the kitchen cabinets, she had some wonderful pots that she had collected.

But the bathroom really blew me away.  Every part of the walls were covered with wonderful things to look at.

One small part of the wall.

I loved looking at all the things from around the world.  I need to work on displaying more of my stuff.  I have collected some things and I have put them up.  I tend to rotate mine.  I have never thought for covering the walls quite this much...except in my studio.  Those walls are covered with all sorts of things.

A close up of those wonderful fetish dolls.

I think the workshop was a success.  I started looking at my samples with an eye to plan to get more information from them.  I need to get to the sewing now.  I have more than a few pieces of fabric that I can work on.