Alice Schlein Visits sutherland

Our floor has never looked better than when Alice Schlein spread her jacquard triptych on the floor for better viewing by the group of 15 weavers, friends and spouses who gathered at sutherland to hear about her latest book.

The studio was buzzing with decades of combined experience represented by the people who gathered there last Friday morning. We saw many other samples of Alice’s beautiful jacquard and dobby weaving and learned that this self-taught weaver decided to write her new book, The Liftplan Connection: Designing for Dobby Looms with Photoshop & Photoshop Elements, because so many dobby weavers were interested in the design techniques described in The Woven Pixel, which she co-authored with Bhakti Ziek. Several guests of this special Web Chats AT sutherland helped lighten Alice’s load, buying up copies of The Liftplan Connection, The Woven Pixel and even Alice’s very last personal copy of Network Drafting. Alice graciously autographed every one.

The event also brought together friends, former teachers and students, and even two of the newest weavers enrolled in Weaving I at sutherland. Barb and I were so thrilled with how everything worked out that we will try to plan more visits by notable weavers who live near Asheville or may be traveling through Western North Carolina. If you have a suggestion for a special Web Chats guests, just let us know!

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New Pups on the Block

When Karen and I first started talking about opening a shop together last summer, we talked about looms, classes, and yarns. we would each go back home and think and email and Google, and then talk some more about all the ideas swirling around on our heads. Karen even started keeping a notepad in her bathroom because she said all her great ideas popped into her head while washing her hair!

Well, nowhere in all the planning and talking did we ever think we might need more than the four Schacht Baby Wolfs we either had already or would soon purchase second-hand. I don't know about Karen, but I felt like we would be lucky if we filled up one class. Who knew her class list would be so popular we would end up purchasing three new Schacht Wolf Pup to keep up with the class demand? I hope this is not a fluke and the interest will continue. Weaving is such a lost art and the only way to preserve it is to continue educating. In one of Karen's classes she has a student in her early twenties. Needless to say we are thrilled.

And in all this excitement we are pleased to announce sutherland is now an authorized dealer for things Schacht!

Karen worked really hard to get these Pups all put together in time for her class this past Monday. The photo shows her success.

Tomorrow will mark another milestone for sutherland--our first book signing. Alice Schlein, an authority on sophisticated pattern design for multi-shaft and computerizes dobby looms will be joining us from 10 a.m. to Noon. We will have an informal discussion while Alice sells and autograph copies of her latest book, The Liftplan Connection: Designing for Dobby Looms with

Photoshop® and Photoshop Elements®.

Same But Different

With my weaving blip behind me as told in my last blog note, I have gotten back into the 'theme' scarf idea. Not really sure where this plan was taking me, I just started to weave. The first scarf in this series was the one I wove for my friend, Walker and I called it "Sixty Years of Walker". (Ha Ha--it was a birthday gift. ) As I mentioned, I loved the pattern and wanted the series to use this as the basis of the theme.

Next I decided to use a space-dyed alpaca and tencel as the weft with a Gemstone silk from Halcyon in a sky blue color.

Then today I wove like a madwoman--i had my warp chain ready to go as I had done that last night while watching the Olympics. I was using a the same tencel in the warp and weft to see what effect this had on the pattern. As I started I quickly saw the pattern was not nearly as noticeable using this dyed yarn, but i love the tweed-like look it has while still on the loom. I have wet finished the cloth and it is drying. One of my favorite times is when I awake the morning after I have wet finished a piece to see what it looks like, what the hand is like, and finally pressing it to see the finished result. Tomorrow will be one of those lovely mornings.

I am not through with this series and will continue with several more pieces to see how this pattern works with different yarns. As I weave them I will post photos along with my thoughts on how they look.

Let me know what you think as well.

Waiting for the loom truck

…warps in hand! The second session of Weaving I began at sutherland today with three new students and one from the Sunday class who decided Mondays work better for her. Even though delivery of the three new Wolf Pups we ordered from Schacht Spindle Co. got delayed by snow from Ontario to Indiana to Colorado and finally to Asheville, NC, we started our first class focusing on planning, estimating warp and weft needs, drafting and winding our warps.

I had promised our Schacht rep my students and I would be eagerly awaiting the arrival of the delivery truck, warps in hand. She said, “I’d love to see that.” So I snapped these pictures today of the students and their warp chains. The looms are expected Wednesday or Thursday, so the students will begin warping next week.

This also means sutherland Handweaving is now a Schacht dealer. While our space does not permit us to carry a lot of inventory, we will be able to order looms and equipment for students or anyone wanting to order from Schacht. 

Our Storefront Has a Storefront

Our signs have arrived, so we’ve loaded our front door with information to help our CURVE studios & garden visitors understand all that goes on in here and hopefully entice them in. I snapped this picture yesterday afternoon during the 3 hours of sunshine we got between winter storms.

Last night we had a lovely Web Chat AT sutherland in the studio with a couple of our friendly area weavers, learning more about their work, looking at wonderful show & tell pieces and hearing more about the wonderful rich history of weaving in Western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina.

We already are taking reservations for our very special Web Chat AT sutherland Feb. 26, from 10 am-noon, featuring a book sale and signing with network drafting guru  Alice Schlein. Alice’s newest book is called The Liftplan Connection: Designing for Dobby Looms With Photoshop® and Photoshop. We’re very excited to have her discussing her latest research and seeing some samples of the work. We’re expecting a big turnout, so please register in advance, as we may need to borrow some floor space from our studio neighbor. Just email us at sutherlandstudios@gmail.com  There is no charge to attend the web chat, but Alice will be selling copies of her books.

We’ve redecorated at sutherland

Barb and I (with Pattiy’s assistance) were busy rearranging the furniture at our studio today to make the shop more comfortable for shoppers and make room for more looms and students.

Even stripping a screw that held our scarf rack to the freestanding wall couldn’t stop us. Pattiy and her vise grips to the rescue. Then we hoisted the large, heavy angled wall through the studio, out Pattiy’s door and into the CURVE space next door that will soon be occupied by encaustic painter Constance Williams. We moved the bookcase of yarn to the open corner, the secretary (our office) into the corner where the bookcase was and a new three-sided wire display rack into the space where the secretary was.

A little vacuuming and merchandising later and our new look was ready for business and classes. It’s a good thing, because three new looms are on the way for the three Weaving I students who will start class on Monday afternoons this month. Whew!

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So, as Karen and I so often do, we were working away in the studio several days ago while throwing around ideas for new projects. I, for one, am pretty consistent with the work ethic of warp the loom, weave 6" of the project, and start planning the next project. Works for me every time.

Karen mentioned her husband, ever the trusty sales guy, thought having a "theme" scarf quarterly or seasonally might be a good idea. we tossed it around, decided we liked the idea, and promptly shelved it on the to do list in our collective brains.

Last week I put on a warp at home on my wonderful Harrisville loom with enough length for two scarves: one for my dear weaving friend Walker, who turns 60 this week, and the other to sell. After I wove, wet finished, and pressed it I brought it to the studio for Karen to critique.

She loved them as much as I did. That's when she mentioned Jeff's idea of the seasonal scarf. I started thinking about it and told her i agreed. Almost in unison we said what about doing a tone-on-tone piece. I have successfully started warping my Baby Wolf (back to front no less) with this gorgeous 60/2 spun silk. Tomorrow I will start threading and can hardly wait! It sits at 40epi with a weaving width of 15". Just so you don't have to do the math, that is 608 warp ends, taking into account the floating selvedges. Got to love a weaver who loves tedious! That's me.

I am now continuing this blog entry several days after the above portion. Why, you ask? First, let remind you I am just past 50 and the mind is not like it used to be. It happened like this: I sat down to thread this lovely silk and as soon as I did I head-slapped myself. I had wound the warp on a 4 shaft and not an 8 shaft loom; hence I would not be able to use the planned pattern discussed at length in the above section.

Never daunted, I sat down with Anne Dixon's 4 Shaft Pattern Book and found just the one. And boy oh boy did I ever hit the jackpot.

I carefully threaded and tied the warp to the front beam and started to weave late this afternoon using 60/2 Tussah silk. Karen was in the studio and was able to share with me the beauty of the cloth beginning to take shape before my eyes. Is there any better time for a weaver than when he/she sees the magic of the warp and weft coming together to form something beautiful. Well, this cloth is giving me chills.

And We’re Threading…

It’s the second session of the Weaving I Three Warps Three Towels class at sutherland, and three of the four students are here threading towel 1 today in a straight draw.

We hope to get these warps wound on the beam, and tied onto the front by the end of the day. Our students could even be weaving later. Welcome to Lennie, Donna and Martha. Our fourth Weaving I student will rejoin the class in a few weeks after a little vacation.

Another Milestone-Curvelinear

I think I can speak for both Karen and myself on this--already in this New Year we have reached several milestones we had not dreamed possible this quickly.

First, we have had the great honor to be included on the Haywood County Arts Council exhibit in Waynesville, NC called Curvelinear. The show opened January 12 and will run for about 6 weeks. We dragged along the Mr. Weavers (aka husbands) with us to the Artists Reception last Friday night and even they had to admit they were impressed. We have to give a big hand to the phenomenal efforts of our curator Greg Vineyard. He spent much time setting up this beautiful exhibit and everything about its presentation exudes his care and artistic ability. These few photos I have posted do not really do his hard work justice, but I have tried.

Secondly, Karen's 8 week Beginning Weaving class is overflowing. Not only did she fill the 3 Baby Wolfs we have for class, she added Hardy, a very enthusiastic new weaver who has his own table loom to bring to class. And just when we were celebrating this achievement, we had not one but two others express serious interest in class as well. So here we are with the delightful dilemma of having students and not enough looms! We are hoping this is not a fluke and the interest continues. It is infectious to see Karen's enthusiasm for teaching new weavers.

Thirdly, and this is very much related to the previous topic, we are already busting at the seams. A problem, but another delightful one at that.

With all these things, in the next few days we will be in serious discussions concerning how to work towards getting these new students all taken care of as well as setting up a dealership with Schacht ASAP.

We have met so many new friends on this new venture who have all helped add to our enthusiasm. Thanks much to all of you here in Asheville and beyond who have encouraged and assisted us. Karen and I are both grateful.

CURVEilinear reception invite, revised

A little clarification of the directions to Gallery 86 is in the following. Hope to see you there.

CURVEilinear exhibit includes sutherland

How exciting. We just opened our handweaving gallery & teaching studio in CURVE Studios & Garden in Asheville’s River Arts District, and we’re just in time for an exhibit at the Haywood County Arts Council’s Gallery 86 featuring all the artist at CURVE!

The exhibit runs Jan. 11-Feb. 6, 2010. Gallery 86 is at 86 North Main St. in Waynesville, NC. Hours are Monday-Saturday, 10am-5pm. Greg Vineyard, one of CURVE’s artists, is curating the exhibit. He stopped by one day last week to pick up pieces from both Barb and Karen.

The artists reception will be Jan. 16 from 6-9 pm. Everyone is invited!

Web Chats AT sutherland on Monday

Just a reminder that the inaugural meeting of Web Chats AT sutherland – face-to-face networking for weavers—will be this Monday, Jan. 11 from 4-6 pm. Area weavers and weaver wanna be’s are invited to join us in the sutherland handweaving studio for conversations about what you are weaving, why you’re not weaving, what you’d like to show off and what you’d like help with.

We’ll keep everything informal and casual, but hopefully you’ll go home with a tip or lesson you didn’t know before. If you can join us, just contact Barb or Karen at sutherlandstudios@gmail.com so we know how many to expect.

Hope to see you Monday afternoon!

Just do it

Sometimes we get so sure of ourselves, we forget the basics our weaving teachers taught us. Take sett for example. I threaded a lovely variegated alpaca and tencel blend on the studio loom for two scarves. A little stretchy, it was hard to get a good reading by winding on a ruler. Looking similar to Zephyr (JaggerSpun’s merino/silk blend), I decided to start with 24 epi for a broken twill. For the first scarf I chose a purple wool/kid mohair yarn that was thicker than the warp. I beat it very lightly, knowing it would full and not wanting it to hide the warp colors. I struggled a bit to keep the beat even and selvages nice, but I liked the overall look. Here it is on-loom.

For the second scarf I wanted to try another treadling with a weft that would weave more balanced. In my stash I found a wonderful blue untwisted cotton I had found during a visit to Habu Textiles in New York. It is just slightly thinner than the warp. The tension was working well, so I just rolled the first scarf on the cloth beam, left some fringe and started the blue one. About three repeats in, I noticed my beat was getting harder, even though I was trying to keep it balanced. I took out the last repeat and tried again, then kept weaving, checking the ppi after each repeat. After weaving about 8 inches (at what was averaging 28 ppi), it dawned on me what I should have done, sett the warp closer.

Yes, I knew this. Yes, the need to sometimes adjust your sett is one of the first things I tell new weaving students. But the prospect of cutting this Habu weft out, cutting the first scarf off, resleying and retying was just not appealing. I ate my lunch and walked around for a while, before finally deciding that I would be much happier weaving this scarf if I followed Nike’s advice. So I just did it. Here’s the purple scarf after being cut off and the warp ready for resleying. It’s now sett at 28 epi and is weaving much easier. However, if I use this yarn again for twill, I’ll probably try it at 30 epi.

Lesson RE-learned. 

sutherland in the News

We’re introducing sutherland to the local media and received a nice story in The Laurel of Asheville announcing our January classes and events. Scroll to page 25. For those unfamiliar, Barb is in the picture foreground and Karen is behind her.  Asheville has welcomed us warmly. We even had a story on the local TV news during our grand opening in December. I’d post a link to that, except while they found us interesting enough for the Sunday evening news, we didn’t make the website. It was nice, nevertheless.

Resolutions

Happy New Year! I'm not much for resolutions, since the only one i have really ever kept is to floss daily; but I have made one for this year. I am going to to do a better job of weaving documentation. If you are a weaver, you know all about this. Every teacher I have ever had has stressed this point, along with sample, sample sample. I'm still not a convert to sampling for sampling sake, but I am resolving to be so for documentation's sake. My method may not be a perfect one, but it is mine and I like it.
As part of the documenting process, I have been taking photos of my pieces to help jog my memory and to post on this blog.
So, as the New Year is being rung in, I am starting my resolution. This piece is being woven with 60/2 tencel hand-dyed in variations of lovely steel greys. The weft will be 120/1 silk by Habu, with a finishing touch of seed beads on each end. I have 40 epi with a width in the reed of 15 inches. I had quite a blast dressing the loom and loved the feeling of the tencel while I was doing it.
So, here is a toast to every weaver who struggles to document well. May everyone's New Year be full of love, laughter, and happiness.

Treadle on...

Weaving Deficit

We never discussed it outright, but both Karen and I came into the studio today and started new projects. When I started to think about it while driving home this afternoon, I decided our actions most likely were due to what I might term "weaving deficit". This can be defined as the following: when life gets in the way of a weaver's need to put into action a project on their loom.

We both have been consumed with the holidays in the middle of getting the studio up and going, as well as talking/planning the future of this fabulous new venture. And Karen has also been wearing the hat of journalist extraordinaire, to which she has been devoting much time.

Any weaver will tell you the process of weaving is very calming and almost 'spiritual'. This is not to be confused with times we want to pull our hair out from threading problems and the like. So today Karen and I had a relaxing day of planning our individual project (ie math), warping the board, and beginning to dress our looms.

Karen is putting a warp long enough for two scarves on: one for her son's girlfriend as a gift, the other for sale. What is most amazing is she emailed me over the Christmas holiday she had dragged (I am almost positive she used that word) her son into a knitting store in Asheville to pick out the yarn. She fell in love with this delightfully soft wool blend in lovely blue/orange dyes. Well, when she showed it to me today, I reminded her I had used the exact yarn from the same store to weave the first scarf after moving into our new studio. Amazing how our creative minds think. And in all the planning did she have enough? Nope, but I had a nice sized ball left from my stash she was able to use. Funny how things work out.

I am putting on some 60/2 tencel hand dyed by Just Our Yarn in shades of steel grey. The epi is 40 and I will be using a 120/1 silk from Habu for the weft. If all that doesn't mean anything to you, then just picture a very light and gauzy piece of cloth and you will have the right idea.

It is always nice to see how a project moves from warping board to loom to completion. Photos help with this and so I have added them for you to see just what our 'weaving deficit" has produced.

Welcome to sutherland!

We are happy to introduce sutherland, a new handweaving gallery and teaching studio inside Curve Studios & Gardens in the popular River Arts District of Asheville, NC.  Barb Butler and Karen Donde are the weavers, presenting a variety of handwoven scarves, shawls, garments, household textiles and fiber art for sale.
sutherland is also a teaching studio with a full schedule of weaving classes for novice to advanced weavers. We also hope to be a resource for local and visiting weavers offering Web Chats AT sutherland twice monthly, which we are describing as face-to-face social networking for weavers in our studio, and other weaver-friendly services.
Please visit our blog often to see what we have on the looms and what classes are coming up. And if you're in Asheville, please stop in to say hello.