Greetings from the Weaving Room! I don’t know about you, but I love the beautiful grain lines of wood almost as much as fiber. Since I am not a woodworker, this means that I treasure and appreciate hand-crafted wood tools to use in weaving. And that has lead to an excited buzz around here as we unpack the boxes of beautiful looms and shuttles from Jim Hokett of Hokett Would Work. It’s always fun to get new things here, but you know it’s really special when the staff are already laying claim to most of the first order.

The Hand Looms are sweet, small looms perfect for tapestries and weaving small samples to test ideas, colors, hand, etc. The center part is shaped so that you can hold it in one hand while weaving with the other. We have 2 sizes plus it is available in a kit which includes a little beater, tiny stick shuttle, needle stick, skewer and enough carpet warp for a couple project and instructions for warping and weaving.

And then there are the end-of-warp shuttles – petite and gorgeous (sigh, that wood grain gets me every time!), these shuttles have a very narrow profile, making them ideal for situations when you have a small shed. Instead of a bobbin, the shuttle has a paper quill held in place with a spring-loaded bar (kind of like those pins in watch bands) which is easy to pop in and out yet stays firmly in place while weaving. Although the name specifiies skill in narrow sheds, I also plan to try them with my rigid heddle because their light weight should allow them to sail across a wider warp without nose diving to the floor.

And, finally, my nominee for the “Genius why-didn’t-I-think-of-that Idea” are the Floating Sues. They look so innocuous, yet are brilliant in function. Hang them from your floating selvages with the hook on one end. If you need more weight, add it to the hook at the other end. Voila! Couldn’t be simpler. They also work well with broken warp ends and I love that I will no longer search for random stacks of pennies.

I’m now pondering my first foray into tapestry weaving and looking forward to working with such beautiful tools. Do you have special hand made tools that you use for weaving?

Our newest 40th Anniversary draft is a fun freebie! The WEBS is forty draft from Micala Sidore is a great primer for branching out with your own tapestry explorations and with 40 colors of Valley Yarns Northampton to choose from you’ll have almost endless color combinations to choose from.

Micala says, “Using words as design elements in your tapestry gives you freedom to express yourself in many ways. The look of the tapestry, the words chosen, the “font” created, and the colors can all lend meaning to your work. To celebrate WEBS’ 40th anniversary, I chose to weave the word “forty”, but tapestry can be any word or number or symbol that is meaningful to you.

You also need to consider positive and negative space as you create your design. Remember that you will be weaving a background as you weave your word or number, and you have to think about how the background can enhance or overwhelm your main image. Everything happens in relationship to everything else, so don’t forget to give equal thought to all the elements of your design. I suggest you begin by working with three colors: a ground color, a color for the letters, and a third highlight or accent color. I have used red in the “o” of forty as a surprise accent. Consider the dots of “i”s, the interiors of letters like o, b, d, etc. as opportunities for accent.”