Earlier this year you were promised a blog on the tartan weaving class, and it’s finally here!
The class was last week and my goodness it was a lot of fun! It was run by a lady called Jan Beadle and took place at Farfield Mill in Sedbergh. The drive was, let’s call it interesting. The UK weather decided to embrace a typical British winter and it was wet and windy for a good part of the drive. Thankfully it wasn’t flooding. That was in the opposite direction to the one we were travelling in.
If you live in the Cumbria area and haven’t made a trip to Farfield Mill, would absolutely reccomend a trip. It has a museum but which tells you about the history of the spinning and weaving history of the mill as well as a number of art studios and artist work for sale. the coffee shop is top notch and serves really nice food too!
Admittedly, due to the weather, we got there about 10 minutes late, but we didn’t miss much. Jan was really helpful and took time after the initial demonstration to go over what we missed with us.
The Ashford looms were already setup when we all arrived so it was as simple as following the instructions she had on the loom for the leaver combination and how many rows of each colour to do. And with that we were off, quite literally a crash course in weaving.
Honestly, even being a beginners course, having never woven before it was quite a lot to take in, remembering to do the leavers, count the rows, count the colours, get the tension right. There was a lot to think about all at once. But we both got into the swing of things quite quickly! My mother in law took to it quite a bit quicker than me and hers looked much much neater at the edges too!
By lunch time we had made good progress and we had a chance to have a bit of an explore outside the mill to get some fresh air. The views were honestly stunning and the river was wild due to all the rainfall which weld had in the last 48 hours.
After lunch we were right back at it, and we were starting to get into the swing of it and the rhythm of the weaving needed. It was fascinating to see the squares coming together and how changing the colours out created the pattern which was appearing. Mid afternoon the confidence was really starting to come through and unpicking rows was achievable to undo mistakes and looking out for loose edges and correcting the was becoming easier too.
The surprise of the course is how enjoyable the weaving was. Consuming as much fiber arts related content that I do, weaving has not really struck my fancy before. The draw of the course was learning about the Tartan (though if you are looking for a history of tartan and how tartan is designed, that’s not what this course is about.) not so much the weaving. However, absolutely left the course wanting to try more weaving. (because what we need is another expensive hobby which requires more space than we have haha!)
So, final thoughts. Definitely proud of what I produced, it’s a bit wonky, but it’s not bad for a first time! absolutely want to learn more about Tartan and how and why it is the way it is. (Being able to design my own and then ultimately weave it would be a really cool project!) would also love to learn more about our weaving and the different types of weaving too. So if anyone can figure out how to create more hours in the day, please let me know!
If you are near the south lakes and you are curious about weaving, would really recommend checking out some of Jan’s classes or going for a trip to Farfield Mill!
GeekySquidoo 