A Little News About Jerry Osterman

Jerry using his spindle

using the great wheel for long-draw spinning

knitting socks with his handspun, hand-dyed wool

a skein of Jerry's beautiful 2-ply yarn

Susan baking sugar cookies in her Vermont kitchen

Jerry Osterman is the husband of Susan, one of our weekly students here at the weaving studio. In November of 2009, Jerry decided he'd like to learn how to spin, and took a week-end-long class with Norman Kennedy, where he learned first to spin with a spindle, and then on a great wheel, with Norman's unique method of traditional long-draw spinning.

He went home and began practicing everything he'd learned, encountering over time the necessity of training himself to spin consistently in differing yarn sizes. After some time he was building up quite a stash of yarn, and one day at the studio, Norman inquired with Susan about how Jerry was doing with his spinning, and when she replied that he was spinning up a storm, Norman said, "And what is he doing with all that yarn? He should be knitting!" So Susan taught Jerry the basics of knitting. And Jerry started knitting hats, and more hats, and even more hats. And he liked it, that knitting, just as much as all the spinning.

Feeling the need to broaden his horizons, Jerry then took a knitting class at The Knitting Studio in Montpelier, where he started knitting his first sweater. And then he branched out into making socks, and designing his own hats. And kept knitting, and spinning, and knitting some more...

He gives everything away to friends or enthusiastic admirers of his work because he just loves doing this. He even takes his knitting projects to work (he's one of the partners at Osterman & Burke, an accounting firm in Barre), and can be found busily knitting away while taking a lunch or coffee break. His work is wonderful and earthy and creative, and we love it that he enjoys his spinning and the fruit of it so very much.

In Her Own Words...

Mary Margaret at the loom

her beautiful summer blanket/winter sheet

finishing up the indigo dyeing for an upcoming project

It does not seem like I have been in Vermont for nearly two weeks!  I am enjoying every minute I spend in the studio. I am currently weaving a summer blanket/winter sheet.  Because it is so much wider than the dishtowels I have previously done, it has been a bit challenging, but I really like the way it is coming along.

Yesterday we started dyeing the wool for my next blanket. I am so excited to learn about natural dyes!  I love the indigo vat and I can't wait to see how the pomegranate turns out.

After each day in the studio I get to come home and look through the books Kate has lent me from her library. I have never seen such an extensive collection of books dedicated to historical textiles!  Right now I am working on one book all about coverlets woven in Tennessee and another about textiles and equipment used in early Canadian settlements.

There is such a vast wealth of knowledge at the Marshfield School of Weaving. I hope to soak up as much as I possible can during my time here!

Carpets for Winter

Silas Burton carpets

Silas Burton carpet woven by Kate Smith

warp-faced carpet woven by Susan Osterman

a run of small carpets woven by Lynnette for our holiday studio sale

indigo venetian carpet woven by Lynnette for one of our Eaton Hill clients

detail of the indigo carpet still on the loom - very luscious underfoot

Izzy helping Deb Livingston measure her hand-dyed ikat stair runner, fresh off the loom

Warp-faced carpeting is one of the favorite projects woven by students here at the school, and because it is a plain weave it is one that beginning students can weave without too much difficulty. The most complicated part of the process is actually in the design work and warping but once it's on the loom the weaving is pretty straightforward. Most of our carpets these days are all hand-dyed from a beautiful custom spun 2 ply English long wool yarn. Our friends at Jagger Brothers in Maine did the spinning of this yarn from imported English wool and the result is a yarn that takes the dye well and holds up famously for carpets.  We use either a cotton or linen filler for the weft.

A Winter Intensive Study

Summer Blanket/Winter Sheet

Overshot and Summer Winter

Checked Blanketing

Linens - pillowcases and sheets

Fancy Bedcover Weaves

Linen Towels

Checked Linen

Tow Linen Bags

Kate Smith (left) and Mary Margaret Kirkpatrick (right)
work up a draft in the studio

Welcome to our opening post for 2011. We are excited to be starting our first long-term study program this month with a young college student from Memphis, Tennessee, Mary Margaret Kirkpatrick.

She is going to be here for the winter, studying and weaving the textiles that would have been included in a 19th C. woman's wedding dowry - blankets, linens for the kitchen and bedstead, and a fancy bedcover.

She will learn natural dyeing, spinning, and all the appropriate finishing techniques for each piece. There will be a strong historic element to her study of these textiles, and she will have access to our vast library of books and collection of antique textiles.

She will keep you posted on her progress in upcoming posts.

We are currently in the process of developing a curriculum for continuing intensive studies in historic textiles. Here is an outline of what we're going to be offering:

CLOTHING FABRICS      8 week intensive

    Scottish Tweed

    Linen Checked Shirting

    Worsted Drugget Skirting

    Silk Twill

    Cotton Stripes

    Singles Wool Shawls

19th C. DOWRY TEXTILES      8 week intensive

    Summer Blanket/Winter Sheet

    Checked Wool Blanketing

    Linen Towels

    Linen Pillowcases

    Fancy Bedcover

LINEN INTENSIVE       10 weeks

    Linen Towels - Huck & M's & O's

    Linen Tablecloth - Spot Weave

    Linen Shirting - Singles Plain Weave

    Linen Sheets

    Linen Pillowcases in Bird's Eye

    Checked Linen Napkins

ETHNIC RUG TECHNIQUES       6 weeks

    Shaker Rag Rugs

    Swedish Krokbrog

    French Canadian Warp-Faced Jaspe

    Scottish Ingrain

    Kilim Tapestry Weft-Faced

    19th C. Venetian Carpets

Rag Rugs

Lila's beautiful blue-themed rug

Alison's ingmar bergman rug

Taylore's wonderful experiment with velvet and sari fabrics

Jackie's colorful striped warp

Lynnette's a wizard when it comes to unique color combinations

Amidst all the weaving of warm floor coverings that's been happening around the barn, there have been several beautiful rag rugs flying off the looms.

The warps have been set up with a 8/4 cotton, set differently according to whatever pattern the weaver wishes the warp to contribute to the overall design. We had started using a standard white yarn, but then Lila, Kate's 12-year-old apprentice, decided to use a blue warp, and her rug was the stunning beginning of people experimenting using color in the warp.

For her weft, Kate used some printed linen scraps that she had in her rag bag, but for the most part the rest of us have been using rayon dressmaking scraps from a local clothing manufacturer, which are often beautiful textures and colors. Lynnette mixed old flannel sheet scraps with rayon, to great effect. Taylore brought in velvets and old sari fabric from her stash at home, which make for a rich, luscious texture and visual appeal. 

There really seems to be no end to the spontaneous creativity possible with this kind of rug making. It's a quick and gratifying useful sort of project.

Jacques' Dishtowels

Kate's original cottolin towel

Jacques' design, inspired by Kate's original, also in cottolin

Sandra's version, in 8/2 cotton

Susan O's version, in 8/2 cotton

Susan's second version, in 8/2 cotton

more of Jacques' original run of towels

Stevie's version, in 8/2 cotton

There's been a recent frenzy of dishtowel weaving, everyone getting ready for winter gift-giving and such. Many of the towels have been Jacques' Dishtowel Pattern (which we capitalize the spelling of because they have become a nearly holy thing around here).

It all started five years ago when Jacques Tremblay, one of Kate's students, wanted to weave a run of dishtowels for his house in France and to give as gifts to friends across the pond. He was inspired by a cottolin towel that Kate had designed which was kicking around the studio at the time. In his typical fashion, and true to his colorful french canadian background, he fashioned the prototype for what we now call "JDT" with bold colors and a distinctive twill pattern.

It's a straight twill that changes direction on the warp color changes, with a couple of interesting twists; one is that in the middle stripe of each wider band there is a herringbone, and the other is a very interesting section in the middle of the towel that is threaded as a straight twill, but is woven with two shots of one color, followed by one shot of another in sequence. Depending on the weft colors chosen, this section can be tremendously effective in creating an unusual pattern for the eye.

This year many of the local weekly students have made their own unique versions of this dishtowel, with some incredibly lovely results. It's taken some work to write up a draft based on Jacques' original design, mostly in counting the exact number of warp threads needed to create a centered herringbone in the middle of each stripe, but by now it's practically a yak route, so many students here have made their own. 

visual cat poetry

they really are so beautiful, our sweet little ginger babies.

*all handwoven products carefully inspected by our quality control team