My Students
May 28 - 30, 2019 Ken - "Introduction to Weaving”
Kenneth (Ken) Wong lives in Washington State. On Wednesday’s he drives 3 or 4 hours to the home and studio of well known and amazing tapestry weaver and teacher, Kathe Todd-Hooker who lives in Oregon. I arranged for Kathe Todd-Hooker to teach tapestry weaving to members of the Las Vegas Fiber Arts Guild on May17-19, 2019 at my home. Ken signed up for the class too.
Ken, a mechanical engineer, loves to design and build. He creates and builds tapestry looms for Kathe’s students. Kathe and Ken came to the class with loads of looms for the students to use and purchase if they want to.
Ken decided that he wanted to take my “Introduction to Weaving” class. It was totally different than what he had been weaving. He drove to my home May 28-30, 2019 for the class. I gave him a loose leaf notebook with all of the patterns in it. I told him that by the time the class was over he will have woven 60 different patterns.
I showed Ken how to make a butterfly which is a figure 8 out of yarn. These butterflies will be glued into his notebook so he will know exactly what warp and weft he used. I had different cones of 5/2 pearl cotton on my table and told him to pick 4 colors to use as warp. Each of these 4 yarns will be threaded according to a different pattern.
Below you will see the step-by-step process that Ken went through to create a wonderful sampler. I was so proud of him.
Winding butterflies.
Gluing butterflies onto paper.
Writing warp colors on paper.
Writing warp colors on paper.
Number of warps and colors written.
First warp color being wound on warping board.
Warps are counted every 20 wraps.
Colored yarn is wrapped around counted warps.
Color 1 is complete.
Winding Color 2.
Counting his 20 warp ends.
Color 2 is completed. Tying on Color 3.
Warping makes Ken very happy.
Color 3 is completed.
4 colors of warp are wound.
Tying the cross.
Cross is tied in 5 places plus 2 extras.
Side view of 4 warps.
Warp comes off loom by making a chain.
Lease sticks go into the cross.
Lease sticks are tied onto both sides of the loom.
Close-up of lease sticks and raddle.
Warp is spread out and placed in raddle on back of loom.
Close-up.
Ken is spreading out his warp.
Paper is inserted to separate warp when rolled onto back of loom.
Warp is threaded through heddles forming pattern.
Front view. Color 1 is threaded.
Color 2 is being threaded.
Color 2 is threaded.
Great job Ken.
Color 3 is threaded. Front view.
Color 3 is threaded. Rear view.
All heddles are threaded.
Close-up of back of loom.
Threading the reed which determines threads per inch.
Back view of reed.
Back view of loom.
Reed is threaded.
Tying warp onto front beam.
Warp tied on. Front view.
Great job.
Bows are made and waste yarn in white is woven in.
Side view of loom.
Front view of loom.
Weaving has begun.
Weaving continues.
Close-up of bobbin winding.
Ken winding a bobbin.
Weaving continues.
Ken pulls the levers to form a shed for the pattern.
He puts the shuttle thru the shed to weave.
Continues.
Continues.
And continues
Butterflies of weft are glued into notebook.
Instructions for weaving.
More weaving.
More weaving.
Weaving continues.
Finally finished.
Close-up of sampler coming off the loom.
Untying the bows.
Fantastic job.
Cutting the warp off the back of loom.
Side 1 of sampler.
Side 2 of sampler.
Ken and his sampler - Side 1.
Ken and his sampler - Side 2.
Small tapestry loom that Ken designed and made.
He made these for Kathe Todd-Hooker a world famous tapestry weaver.
One of Kathe's creations.