I’ve got a significant life event on the horizon that I’m not quite ready to talk about in the Internet yet (don’t worry; it’s positive), but let’s just say for now that I have a lot on my plate — even by my standards. Meanwhile, there’s a newish place, nearish to me, called Handcraft Studio School that I’ve been wanting to check out, so I signed up for a weaving-slash-indigo-dyeing workshop this past Sunday morning, and it was a lovely little respite. Weaver Meghan Bogden Shimek (aka @nativetextile) had pre-warped some simple cardboard looms and loaded up the tables with all kinds of yarn odds and ends — some undyed and some indigo-dyed — and we each just picked up our tapestry needle and went at it. Co-instructor Kathryn Davey (love those dolls) had prepared some buckets of indigo, and when we were done weaving, we popped them off the looms and into the blue soup they went. Done and dyed.
Ever since my little foray* with my home-grown frame loom a couple of summers ago, and my acquisition of this little gem, I’ve been wanting to learn proper skills and apply myself to weaving in some considered and useful fashion, but I just loved how low all the barriers were with this workshop. There wasn’t even time for me to fret about my composition — I had to just dive in and weave and let it become whatever it became. I think I might need to take that as a larger lesson …
*Did I really never post a picture of the pink and orange weavie I made for Leigh?
Lately, I’ve been seeing lots of pins on Pinterest about indigo dying. Love the color, but yeah, the dye does dye everything. What are you going to do with our little woven thingie?
First to rinse it again, since it’s still super transfer-y. Then I don’t know!
A soak in vinegar will set the color.
love the idea of this studio. i’ve bicycled past a thousand times. I think there is a morning of tassel-making in my future…
Oh, I’ll be SO jealous if you take Cathy Callahan’s class. I am always out of town when she’s in town teaching.
Love this! Love the tassels at the edge!
Everyone was doing fringe across the bottom, but I had a Rosa Pomar photo pop into my brain at that moment, which was a little patchwork drawstring bag with a tassel on each corner. So I went with it.
early congratulations on your news karen! i’ve never dyed with indigo, can’t wait to give it a try.
your weaving! i want to try that too, someday…
Looks like so much fun! Looking forward to hearing your news!
What a great weaving you created. Thank you for mentioning the studio on your blog. Hope to see you at the studio again soon Karen. Our next Indigo workshop is coming up on June 22nd https://handcraftstudioschool.squarespace.com/workshops/shibori-workshop-622