Textile Goodness

I know I've mentioned that at Village Faire, I took a wonderful class showing how to build a pvc tablet weaving loom.  I had been wanting to do this for a while, as I didn’t want to invest in a nice wood loom until I knew for sure if this was an art I wanted to spend time with.

Now that I have my loom, ideas are sneaking through my head of what to do with it.  I’ve already bought red and black thread for it, and I now have the shuttle that my father-in-law made for me.  (Which is very cool, and I think I might eventually paint it something heraldic.)  I’ve been trying to ignore all these sneaky little thoughts, as I still have a good amount of knitting to do before Christmas.  I’m not quite sure if I will make it that long, however, and it’s not all my fault.

Last night, some friends of mine told me about something evil.  (Thank you Your Excellencies!!)  On the web, there is a site with a card weaving pattern generator.  Yes, you heard me right.  And you can download it to you computer.  And it appears to be free.  Yes, yes, I know, right now you’re looking at the screen and saying “you plan to share, right?”.  Well, obviously, that’s the whole purpose of me telling you about it!  The website is called the Card Weavers Studio and all the information is right on that page.  I played with it a little, and it appears to be very cool.  Hopefully when I get home tonight I can download the program onto my computer and have some fun with it.  If anybody else downloads it, let me know what you think!

So as all things do, one thought led to another and I started looking at some of the other sites that had come up on my search.  I found the site Textile Techniques & Tools which looks very yummy.  There are scads of links on this page, some I already know and lots that I don’t.  I really haven’t had any time yet to go through them, but there’s enough that I know is good to make me want to share.  I also found Þóra Sharptooth’s page.  She has loads of links as well, and I’ve heard from lots of people that she is an amazing resource for textile information.

Calontir has a very cool website for the Fiber & Needle Guild.  There are several very interesting articles and links on this page alone, and I didn’t really go through the rest of the site.

I found a really cool page that talks about Tablet Weaving for Kids.  This isn’t really pertinent for somebody wanting to learn tablet weaving themselves, but is awesome for those wanting ideas on how to teach it, especially to children.

There are lots and lots of other pages out there, so I won’t even attempt to list them all.  If you have a link that you have found extremely helpful and informational, please share!

Village Faire 2010 - Spinning, Weaving, & Personas...Oh My!

This past weekend was my home Barony’s (Darkwater) Village Faire event.  This has become one of my favorite events of the year, as it is jam-packed with classes.  This year I was not part of the staff, so I actually got to take a few of the classes.

Spindle Spinning:  Since I started knitting over the summer, I’ve been reading various blogs by other knitters who also spin.  While I’ve seen this numerous times since I’ve been in the SCA, I never had a particular desire to try it out.  It looked interesting, and like something I would enjoy learning at some point, but that was about it.  Suddenly spinning has taken on a whole new interest for me, however.  The idea of being able to spin my own yarn, which I can then knit, is intriguing to say the least.  I’ve previously taken a class on spindles, and saw how they work, but I didn’t own one so I couldn’t try it out.  Then a very kind Laurel in my Kingdom offered to send me one with some roving to practice with.  I was ecstatic!  As soon as it arrived I tried it out, but had no idea what I was doing.  Then I saw that there would be a class at the event all about this.  I showed up a few minutes early, with spindle and roving ready.  It was AMAZING!!!!  Lady Gwenhwyvar Threadgould taught the class, and I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher.  By the end I understood the mechanics, and was actually starting to develop some consistency (just some!).  I am completely infatuated with this new art.  I’m already eyeing the roving I have left, thinking I will need to purchase more so that I can keep practicing. 

Tablet Weaving Looms:  the very kind lady Siobhan was teaching this class, and was even willing to teach it twice.  I showed up at the end, as I had something else I had to attend that hour.  She pulled back out all of her supplies, and spent the next hour showing me how to put the loom together, and giving me basic instruction on reading patterns and doing the actual weaving.  I’ve been interested in trying card weaving for some time, but did not have the instructions on how to create the pvc looms, nor the funds to buy a wooden one.  I now have a loom I can play with!  And I know how to build more if I need to.  So I’ve asked my father-in-law to make a shuttle for me, since he is an experienced woodworker.  As soon as I have that, I will be warping up (?) my loom and seeing what I can do!

In addition to the classes, Village Faire is also where the Baronial novice art/sci competition takes place.  Last year we added a category for persona interviews, and I was determined to enter this year.  I am very proud to say that I did so, and according to the judges did very well!  I didn’t win, but I am still very pleased.  The winner did an amazing job, and based on the description of her interview that I heard I hope I will eventually have as thorough a knowledge of my persona as she does hers.  I did manage to answer most of the questions accurately, and even pulled a few answers out of thin air when I couldn’t remember or didn’t know the correct information.  I made it through, however, and am very much looking forward to next year.  I already have plans for what I need to research.  *grin*

Speaking of personas, Baroness Adelheid and I hosted an in-persona luncheon.  The idea was to bring your lunch and join us under the Baronial pavilion, while staying in persona the entire time.  We had several people join us, most of which managed to avoid mundane topics.  In my opinion Adelheid and I did a very good job of sticking to our goal, and managed to not break character once we had started.  I found that I love the challenge of putting what I want to say into persona-appropriate terms.  We’ve decided that we will definitely have to do another luncheon, although we haven’t figured out when.

Overall I had a wonderful time at the event.  While there were some very interesting classes that I wasn’t able to take due to time conflicts, I made it to the ones that were most important to me.  This alone made the event worthwhile.  Add in all the great persona practice, and I think this will go down as one of my most memorable events.