People Around the Barn These Days

Karen builds a warp for a ruana

Zoe has been here doing research on resist pastes 

Kate has been busy this month, fielding many requests for fabric

Lynnette has been re-habbing from her broken arm in March

Jackie finished a blanket and is taking the summer off to travel

Pat warped for a summer blanket

Sandra has been weaving a very long scarf in a complicated pattern

Susan is weaving a summer blanket

Stevie is starting to weave some upholstery fabric

Lisa was here from Texas to work on countermarche linen

June was a busy month at the barn, with an increase in commissioned work for Eaton Hill Textile Works and many new and returning students walking through our doors. Our crew of regular local students is still going strong, although in the summer many of us take nice days off to work in our gardens or go away for fun, because it's easier to do that in the summer than when the snow is on the ground.

Kate has been very busy fielding the many inquiries and requests for the new embossed upholstery fabric produced by her business Eaton Hill, while still juggling a full plate of intermediate and advanced teaching, and managing a queue of other production dye and fabric jobs.

Karen Sutherland wound up a few-month-long stint with us with a commissioned project. She spun all the wool yarn, which we dyed black, and then she wove a beautiful ruana with alternating stripes of herringbone twill and basketweave. She's applying for a Vermont Folklife grant to come and work with us for a longer stretch.

Zoe has been working part-time on researching resist pastes for indigo block printing, and will be one of the presenters at the Indigo Dye Intensive later in July. She's also been processing a mountain of fleece up in Kate's barn.

Lynnette broke her arm in late March and after a period of time out of the weaving action is back again at the loom, getting her strength, motion, and flexibility back with increasingly more complex weaving. Meanwhile, her chickens have been cranking out the best eggs on the planet, and her garden strawberries have been fabulous additions to our summer lunches at the barn.

Jackie finished up a beautiful blanket for her daughter as a wedding gift, and is taking the summer off from weaving at the barn to travel and to take the knowledge and experience she's been accumulating here and put it to work on her own loom at home. Before she left she shared a lot of wonderful vegetable seedlings with all of us...she has a big garden and grows wonderful vegetables all season long.

Pat wound a warp for a summer blanket in June and then took some time off to travel and visit family. She'll be returning to weave that in July.

Sandra has been weaving a very lovely and complex pattern in fine wool...it was meant to be a scarf, but it's going to be a very long thin scarf now, as she just continues to weave off all that yardage. I'm sure it will be just gorgeous doubled up and wrapped around a neck multiple times...a new take on the idea.

Susan has been weaving a summer blanket, and she's able to spend more time working on it since she left her job in the doctor's office. It's really great to have you around more often, Susan!

Stevie has started to weave some of the upholstery fabric jobs for Eaton Hill, and her huge garden thrives over in Chittenden County. She'll be taking time this summer to travel as well.

Lisa Hardaway was here from Texas for a week, learning our warping techniques and how to set up a countermarche tie-up, as she has an 8-harness Cranbrook at home that she wants to be able to work fancy patterns on. She'll be back in early August for another week of rug weaving.

The weather has been typically Juney around here...which means pretty rainy, some hot days sprinkled here and there, but mostly on the cool side. Great for the gardens, but we sometimes get a little antsy, waiting for the real summer weather, I think because we live in winter so much of the year!