It's been a busy summer!!

I apologize for our absence here this summer but there weren't enough hours in the day to do it all! Needless to say, we had alot going on...both in our regular classes and our special workshops. Starting in July we had two of our regulars come back for a month intensive....Zoe, who had just spent the three previous months in Italy, and Lisa Hardaway who was here last summer from Texas. Here is Lisa weaving an incredible tapestry rug from her handspun, hand-dyed wool which came after a beautiful warp of 40/2's dyed linen napkins (which I don't have pictures of unfortuneately!)

The finished rug....

Detail of triangles

And then there was Zoe.....she had three or four goals for her month here....one of them to help us design a plate for our eembossing that we could use for the moired fabric and the rest involved weaving fine cotton and doing some printing experiments with madder.  Here she is with some of the test fabrics lined up with different mordants.

Before going in the dye bath....

After the dye bath....

One of our big projects this summer for Eaton Hill was to weave 20 yards of black calimanco to be glazed for the tailors at Colonial Williamsburg.  After soaking the fabric in hide glue it was necessary to dry it without creases or wrinkles so Zoe came up with this arrangement that worked wonderfully.

One end nailed to a beam and then tied to a tree.....

Norman, Lisa and Alison tying the other end to the shed.

Norman, Zoe and Alison with the end result.

Stevie was busy this summer reproducing a blanket
from a fragment of an early bird's eye blanket in three colors.  She dyed the yarn and then wove enough yardage for a double bed blanket.

Sandra and Pat admiring Stevie's blanket

The first weekend of August was our second Indigo Intensive and it was a blistering hot weekend with four new students.  The indigo vats....all four of them...were working well ...thanks to the heat and everyone dyed lots of beautiful yarn, fabric and fleece.  Besides the fiber dyeing we also did some resist printing and shibori tieing.

Some of the printed fabrics hanging out to dry.

Alison's printed piece from the Zinc/Lime vat.

Closeup....

Anne's Ikat dyed warp chains...

Two of our weekend students were going to stay and weave their indigo dyed yarn the following week and here is Anne Johnson who wove this incredible ikat dyed warp faced carpet.

Eileen Crawford and her indigo dyed linen for napkins.

The next week we had two new students who came to weave the striped throw.  Here is Dana (7 months pregnant!) with her husband, Colin, wrapped in her throw....which will no doubt serve as a baby blanket for
baby Silas when he arrives in October!

Celia Lesh, from Berkeley, CA with her throw and Alpaca scarf.

Lisa's final project of a rainbow striped blanket warp and son Noah, who was here studying music at the Adamant music school.