Setting Up For a Museum Exhibit

winding spools to build the warp

A sweet little collaborative project came our way in recent weeks. Kate was approached by the Old Stone House Museum in Brownington, VT to set up a loom for a year-long active exhibit on-site. We will be reproducing the fabric for a piece in their collection. The finished product will be a 2/2 twill in wool singles to make a man's frock coat with.

First I skeined several pounds of wool singles, and then dyed it a deep indigo in a two-day process. Next, the warp was built, with the same indigo and a natural wool, which was a great experience in getting more acquainted with using a tricky yarn and multiple spools coming off a skarne, something I am getting more comfortable with, project to project. There are specific hand movements and grips which facilitate greater ease and efficiency in handling the tension and the 'stickiness', and while watching Kate do it has not always made so much sense to me (the precise way she uses her hands and fingers), I am finding, on my own, that each of these maneuvers has its purpose, and that it really works and can actually make skarne warping with many spools fun!

We dressed one of our looms and will do all the threading at our studio, then take the whole assembly off our loom and bring it up to theirs, where we will get everything set up for their demonstration of weaving. It sounds like a wonderful exhibit, and I hope I get a chance to do a bit of the weaving, as the fabric in their sample looks lovely.

It sounds like they have some great things going on up there. I'll try to find out more about how this weaving piece fits into the whole exhibit. Stay tuned for more developments on this.

And for more information about the Old Stone House Museum, you can visit their website.