Handwoven November/December 2023

Weaving is compelling on its own, but there are many other aspects of a weaver’s life. This “Venn diagram” issue looks at how weaving overlaps with those other parts. The 11 projects reflect the designers’ interests, including cooking, gardening, puzzles and games, quilting, history, butterflies, and grandchildren.

In the articles for this issue, we continue along the same line of how life and weaving intersect. The Traditions article talks about wool sample quilts from the early 1900s, and the Idea Gallery includes a method of translating musical scores into treadlings. If your passion is mid-century modern, you’ll be interested in the Dorothy Liebes exhibit covered in What’s Happening.

On the technical side, Tom Knisely looks at scale and investigates how changes in yarn size or the length of pattern repeats can affect a cloth’s appearance. Elisabeth Hill explains how to weave tubular hems for double-sided cloth pieces without hem splay. In addition, Deanna Deeds describes changing your tabby/pattern relationship in overshot to create matelassé-like cloth, and in the Yarn Lab, baby alpaca yarn is taken for a spin and found to be a joy to weave with. Finally, if you are worried, as many of us are about preserving your guild’s library and history, the Endnotes offers a solution. Check it all out and find new ways to connect your life’s passions to weaving with this issue of Handwoven.