Tag: weaving

Posted on

Winter 2025 Classes

This winter I’ll be continuing classes at The Fiber Loft, A Place to Weave and The Unruly Stitch.

At The Fiber Loft, I’ll be adding a color palette class and a tablet weaving class to my usual weaving and spinning lineup. The Color Palette class is appropriate for all fiber creators – weavers, spinners, knitters, crocheters, quilters, and felters. One session will be offered during February school vacation week, when students aged 8-12 are welcome to join the class with an adult.

At A Place to Weave, I’ll be teaching some select specialized classes, including a new class on documenting weaving designs.

I’ll be back at The Unruly Stitch on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of the month, and am adding an advanced beginner spinning class to the basic wheel spinning and drop spindle classes.

Lineup at The Fiber Loft

Inkle bands
  • Beginning Weaving on a 4-shaft loom
    • Fridays 1/24, 10am-5pm and 1/31, 10am-4pm (snow date 2/7)
    • OR
    • Saturdays 3/29, 10am-5pm and 4/5, 10am-4pm
  • Intro to Inkle Loom
    • *Friday 2/21, 10am-3pm
    • OR
    • Sunday 3/2, 10am-3pm, (break for lunch)
  • Intro to Inkle Writing and Pickup
    • Saturday 3/8, 10am-3pm, (break for lunch)
  • Drop Spindle
    • Saturday 3/1, 2-5pm
    • OR
    • Friday 3/28, 2-5pm
  • Beginning Spinning on a Wheel
    • Saturday 2/8, 10am-3pm, (break for lunch)
    • OR
    • Friday 4/4, 10am-3pm, (break for lunch)
  • Intro to Tablet Weaving
    • Sunday 4/6, 10am-3pm, (break for lunch)
  • Creating Color Palettes
    • *Monday 2/17, 1pm-4pm
    • OR
    • Saturday 3/1, 9am-noon

*These classes are offered during February vacation week. People ages 8-12 are welcome to come with an adult companion at a discounted rate.

Lineup at A Place to Weave

Shawl woven on a continuous strand triangle loom
  • Continuous Strand Weaving on a Triangle Loom
    • Sunday 2/23 1:00-4:00
  • Intro to Inkle Weaving
    • Sunday 3/30 11:00-4:00
  • Documenting Your Designs
    • Sunday 4/27 1:00-4:00

Lineup at The Unruly Stitch (2nd and 4th Mondays)

Spinning wheels at The Unruly Stitch
  • 13 January 2025
    • 10am-noon– Beginning spinning on a wheel, part 1 of 2
    • 2pm-5pm – Drop spindle spinning
  • 27 January
    • 10am-noon– Beginning spinning on a wheel, part 2 of 2
    • 2pm-5pm – Drop spindle spinning
  • 10 February
    • Until 1pm – private spinning lessons*
    • 1pm-4pm – Advanced Beginner Spinning
  • 24 February
    • 10am-3pm (with a break for lunch)– Beginning spinning on a wheel
    • 3pm to whenever needed – private spinning lessons*
  • 10 March
    • 10am-1pm – Drop spindle spinning
    • 1pm to whenever needed – private spinning lessons*
  • No classes 24 March
  • 14 April
    • 10am-3pm (with a break for lunch)– Beginning spinning on a wheel
    • 3pm to whenever needed – private spinning lessons*
  • 28 April
    • Until 1pm – private spinning lessons*
    • 1pm-4pm – Advanced beginner spinning

*To ensure that I am available, it’s recommended that private lessons be pre-booked.

Posted on

A Moment of Fame

A couple weeks ago, I got a suspicious contact through my website, someone wanting to come interview me about weaving and take some videos in my studio to be used on a morning television show. In today’s world (and maybe because I watch too many crime shows), we have to be careful about things like this, right? But I checked it out anyway.

It turns out that Levan Reid is a real person, and he really does collect “happy news” stories for WBZ Boston (a CBS affiliate). My first impression of him was his radio announcer’s voice! He told me what he was looking for and about the process. It sounded like a unique opportunity for me, so we got the ball rolling.

The next week, he came to my house with a cameraman, Richie Lourenco, and we spent 45 minutes up in my studio talking about weaving, looking at my looms, and chatting. Levan was so professional and so friendly. He made the whole experience seem easy.

Since he had put the idea of “happy news” in my head, my thoughts went immediately to one of my current projects. The Weavers’ Guild of Boston’s challenge this year is to weave something for a child that is inspired by a book. The products (a pillow, blanket or bag, for example) will be given to children afterward. I had gone to The Silver Unicorn in Acton MA and found a cute book by Jory John called “The Sour Grape”. Besides having an appropriate life lesson moral, I loved the colors used by illustrator Pete Oswald!

I decided on some 8/2 Valley Cotton yarn and a warp long enough to make several projects. First off (after sampling, of course!) was a book bag for my 21-month old nephew Sebastian, which was sent along with a copy of the book. In addition to another book bag that will be submitted for the WGB challenge, there will be some dish towels in these very fun colors.

I think in this photo he is trying to make a face like the Sour Grape. Hehe! Photo by Kendra Leonardi

Back to the WBZ news story. The video was featured several times through the day on Friday 20 January 2023. They had decided to run it as a break in the snowstorm coverage that was otherwise dominating the day’s news. I was so pleased with how Levan and his team condensed the whole story to just 2 minutes. They captured the vibe of my studio, my “happy place”. To me, my engineering career seems like a different lifetime (ending 22 years ago!) but looking at this I recognize what an impact in had on current thinking.

Posted on

Weaving Shorts

What’s new? I’ve been teaching classes on Zoom and have recently joined the ranks of YouTubers!

It’s so nice to be back to teaching after these months of separation. I’ve really missed it! I’ve been teaching beginning and advanced beginning weaving classes as well as some specialized topics. The beginning and advanced beginning classes are 5 sessions, 2 hours each. We cover a different step of the weaving process in each session, and students complete that step as homework. Project planning, drafting, tips & tricks, weaving equipment and finishing techniques are also covered, at the appropriate level.

Teaching on Zoom has its own challenges, but that’s part of the fun. Teaching from my own studio means I have all my own tools right at hand. I do the exercises along with my students using a mix of live demos, videos, show & tell and lecture based instruction. Connecting my phone as well as my computer camera to the Zoom session enables me to show different views to focus on the action.

My students also often connect their phones so they can show me their looms and what they are doing. Sometimes it gets pretty funny trying to describe what I want them to do. “Pick up that thread, the one to the left of your index finger. No, the other thread…”

That’s where some of the video shorts come in handy. These “weaving shorts” demonstrate some of the small steps in the weaving process, and students can go back and watch them after class as many times as they need to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs7exv5cm4E

My YouTube channel is https://www.youtube.com/PennyLacroix for those who want to delve deeper. The videos are simple, but hopefully helpful. I’ve been adding them as I recognize the need in my classes and intend to keep adding more. Suggestions for future videos are welcome!

In addition to some standard classes through The Fiber Loft, I recently taught a morning workshop for the Weavers’ Guild of Boston on how to create a doubleweave V-shaped shawl with no sewing. I mixed videos, interactive worksheets and live instruction to keep participants engaged.

It was alot of work to put together, but the folks I worked with in the Guild were extremely helpful, and we were able to present a high quality workshop on Zoom. A year ago, who would have thought this would be our normal now? So many new challenges and new opportunities. I’m loving it!

Verified by MonsterInsights