Barbara Schutzgruber – Storyteller & Weaver

The Michigan Fiber Festival held at the Allegan County Fairgrounds in Allegan, Michigan the third week of August.
I’ve been attending on and off for the past 20 years
[See blog post August 2016 City Mouse…. Country Mouse…. part 2]
and it is a feast of creativity and inspiration.

This year I took 3 one-day workshops: Hand Painting Yarn pt1 and pt2 with Ellen Minard (Norwich, VT), Building a Warp Weighted Loom with Gail Hollinger (Wayland, MI) and Weaving on a Inkle Loom with Joan Sheridan (Lake Orian, MI).

Day 1
I don’t work with dyes very often so signing up for both Part 1 – Intro to Hand Painting Yarn (morning) and Part 2 – Fun with Hand Painting Yarn (afternoon) was a wonder chance to spend a day learning and playing.

The morning was a review of safe working practices,

an introduction to basic dyeing principles,

and then working with 5 different techniques.

In the afternoon I had the opportunity to dye several skeins of un-dyed wool yarn I had in my stash.

Day 2 – Building a Warp Weighted Loom
I saw one for the first time at the 2001 AGWSD Summer School held in Bangor Wales and have been fascinated ever since. This style of loom has been used for thousands of years. My instructor Michael Crompton had been asked to build one for an exhibit near York, England and partnered with a woodworker who used only the tools available in the 7th Century: axe, adze, draw knives, saw, chisels, and mallet.

We were not going for a historical recreation so we used 21st Century power tools!

We had been sent instructions for bringing our lumber already cut to length and spent the morning drilling

and assembling our frames. Mine is 6 1/2 ft tall so it can fit in my small car.

One of our class members built hers 8ft tall!

The afternoon was spent winding out a warp,

attaching it to the header beam

and hanging the weights – 2lb bags filled with pea gravel that we made in advance.

We hand crocheted cord to act as a reed keeping the warp at the proper width

and attached heddles to pull the back warp forward when weaving.

This was as far as most of us got by the official end of the workshop at 4pm. I decided to stay longer so I could do some actual weaving.

When the mosquitoes came out at dusk, it was time to dismantled the frame, wind the cloth and warp around the header beam, and pack everything into my car. This was a LOOOONG day but one filled with accomplishments!!

Day 3 – Weaving on a Inkle Loom
Inkle looms have also been around for thousands of years and are used to weave bands and belts. I have woven bands using a backstrap loom [See blog post September 2015 On the Road and Across the Sea] but have never worked with an Inkle loom.

I had been given one awhile back but had not yet learned to use it so this class was a perfect opportunity to have an introduction.  When I arrived at class it was apparent that my little loom (7″ W x 14″ L x 8″ H) might well be homemade as it did not look like any of the other looms there and our instructor Joan Sheridan had never seen one like it!

In the class we learned how to make string heddles the proper length for our individual looms

and Joan devised the best way to warp my little loom.

The rest of the morning was spent weaving straight and tubular bands.

In the afternoon we wound out a second warp and continued with some other patterns.

Of course there was shopping too and a walk through the livestock barns to check out the sheep, goats, rabbits, llamas, and alpacas. The weather was humid and hot – it is Michigan in August! I was glad I did not camp this year because sleeping on a real bed in air conditioning was very nice… especially at the end of Day 2.

The big warp weighted loom is very roughly made so I will be redoing parts now that I know how it all goes together.

The little Inkle loom will be nice to take when traveling.

And my colorful skeins will find their way into some future project.