New England Weavers' Seminar
July 28 - August 1, 2027
Westfield State University
Westfield MA
H-4: Pine Bark Baskets
Instructor: Jennifer Lee
1 day Thursday, July 29, 2027,
8:30 am - 4:30 pm, $160
This style of basket is called a Mokok, which is a Northeast Woodland Native American style container made of bark and stitched with spruce roots. This White Pine bark basket is easier to make than Ash Bark. They don't require so much hand strength, they smell delicious, handle like leather when wet, and dry like wood. The bottom is rectangular. The top is round or oval. They were originally used to harvest and store food and accoutrements. In this class you'll learn to sew with spruce roots, which you'll prepare. If the roots are thick enough you'll split them. An inner and outer rim is made by splitting a Red Osier Dogwood stick that is bent gradually. Different stitching patterns will be suggested. All materials are sustainably and locally harvested by the instructor.
S-3: The 3 Ds of 3-D:
Deflection, Differential Shrinkage and Doubleweave
Instructor: Ruby Leslie
3 days, Thursday, July 29, 2027, 8:30 am -
Saturday, July 31, 2027, 4:30 pm, $480
Head off the beaten track, where it’s delightful, it’s deliberate, it’s deflected. Using a myriad of weave structures and commercially available yarn (NOT overtwisted or unbalanced), subtle to amazing transformations can occur in woven cloth if you understand how to control the variables of fiber, yarn grist (i.e. yarn density, twist, yardage), weave structure and finishing techniques. Explore the dimensional landscape of ruffles, ridges, waffles, crinkles, “innies” and “outies” while weaving in round robin fashion. Most of the drafts require 8-S looms (floor or table), but there are a few 4-S designs requiring floor looms. Ruby will contact participants after registration and send custom wound warps for dressing your loom prior to the workshop. Seminar discussion will focus on why these transformations happen, the role that color plays in creating optical movement, and how to manipulate weave structure and fiber to produce texture and dimensionality. Methods of finishing cloth with water and heat will be addressed as well as techniques to document the before and after effects for record keeping purposes.