Category: News

Explore Weave Structures: Designing and Drafting for Hand Weavers

Saturday and Sunday February 18-19, 2023at Thistle Hill Weavers143 Baxter Rd Cherry Valley NY 13320 This is a basic drafting course for hand weavers. Learn to recognize, develop and design your own work in several different weave structures. The goal of the class is to teach the fundamentals of weave structure including spot, block structures, complex twills, crepe weave and satins. When we understand weave structures, we can design fabric that is both beautiful and functional. This is an opportunity to explore how different weave structures affect drape, durability and surface texture. Explanations of weavers’ drafts, both modern and historic, will serve as teaching tools for understanding how to draft patterns. Students will then design in several different structures and then have the opportunity to develop their own patterns to use in their own weaving. The class will be taught by Rabbit Goody at Thistle Hill Weavers and is intended for weavers of any level who wish to understand more about weave structures. The class starts with basic skills of reading weavers’ drafts and translating patterns into several weave structures. Students will then design a project for their own looms using different structures. This is a theory class rather than a weaving class but looms will be set up with a few different structures to demonstrate different aspects of structure. Cost for the weekend is $175.00Lunch and materials are includedSaturday and Sunday February 18-19, 20239:30am – 4:30pm both days.For more information or to register, please contact us.

Thistle Hill Weavers Holiday Open House

Come visit our working studio on Saturday, December 11 and Sunday, December 12, 10am – 4pm – we would love to have you stop by. You can see the mill working, eat some snacks and buy some of our fabrics, scarves, shawls and hand towels! We want to show you our old machines and our workshop. This year we are very busy trying to complete orders for our clients and production must continue. We will not set up a formal showroom, but please come and see what we are working on, meet our new staff members and enjoy the holiday season. Contact us for information and directions

What We’ve Been Doing and the Upcoming Holiday Season

Greetings, We hope that this email finds you as safe and as healthy as you can be. Thistle Hill Weavers is continuing to create fabrics but to keep our staff as safe as possible we have been working split shifts and with a smaller staff. There are some new faces that I hope in the future you will meet, and we have said goodbye to some of our good friends who have worked with us over the past years. Some really interesting projects have been ongoing these past few months We are still working on The Gilded Age which is an HBO production. Jodi Zanetti, of Z Stitches, is now well trained on our embroidery equipment. The trailer for Jingle Jangle has been released; it looks like fun! We wove four fabrics that are seen in the trailer. We finished the large project for the Church of Latter Day Saints at Nauvoo, Illinois, and now we are working on another project in Salt Lake City. The Emily Dickinson House in North Hampton Massachusetts will be new project over the next year and there are several projects for Hyde Hall. We continue to work with designers for sustainable fabric development.  Our farm clients who produce fiber are very active as well. Harmony Fields in Oregon has beautiful throws and table runners made from their wool. Amy Crate of True Vine Farm is developing alpaca products, and Franny Kansteiner of Gun Tree farm is working on some incredible tweeds for the upcoming season incorporating her wonderful merino wool spun at Green Mountain Spinnery with silk and bamboo. But what should we do about the Holiday Open House? We are in the same quandary as everyone else. We want you to enjoy our mill and pick out nice interesting gifts but we also want everyone to stay safe and healthy. We would invite local folks to make an appointment to come visit during the weeks before Christmas starting December 5th. We will be available on weekdays and weekends by appointment. We will limit the number of people at a time and during the entire day. We will ask you to wear a mask and we will take your temperature before you enter the building. We will not give mill tours at this time. If you live at a distance rather than travel, check out the on-line store which we will get up and running especially for the season. Please call to chat with us about things you see on-line. We understand it is hard to buy textiles on line, but this year is different and we want our staff to stay safe and healthy and our clients to be happy. If you have suggestions or you know ahead of time that you may want something special, now is the time to get us going. We hope to hear from you and we look forward to being a part of your gift giving. We offer you our sincere appreciation for your support and we know that everyone is coping as best they can. Hail to the Skillful Cunning Hand, Hail to the Cultured Mind,Contending for the World’s Command, Here Let Them Be Combined

February 15th and 16th at Thistle Hill Weavers – A Two-Day Workshop on Double Cloth, Double Width and Layers on Layers

Sorry for the late notice but there are still a few places in my weekend workshop This weekend workshop will explore how fabrics can be made in layers for structure, design or expanded width. This is NOT a project workshop. A basic knowledge of weaving is important, but you do not have to own a multiple harness loom. The participants will have the opportunity to try many different systems and understand the technical aspects of creating layers of cloth in different structures. The class will be working on different types of looms already set up to demonstrate several different layered systems. Students will be able to take samples home but the main part of the class will be theoretical, exploring weave structure, density and layering concepts. This is a two-day workshop:

Call For Papers for the 2020 Textile History Forum

The 2020 Textile History Forum, scheduled for July 31 – August 2 at Hyde Hall, Springfield NY, & Thistle Hill Weavers, Cherry Valley NY, seeks papers and presentations on all aspects of textile history, from the Pre-Columbian period through the twenty-first century, including textile technology, costume, quilts, weaving, dyeing, spinning, technological innovations and textile availability. For this year’s Forum, we are looking to include additional aspects of material culture i.e. how textiles fit into their cultural and social places, how textiles are valued, ceremonial use of textiles and the individuals who made and used them. An important aspect of this year’s Forum will be a discussion of where and how private textile collections should be housed over the next several decades. The Textile History Forum encourages the submission of scholarly work from historians, anthropologists and economists as well as independent researchers, individuals working in the field, crafts people and collectors. Current and unpublished research is especially encouraged. Those interested in presenting a paper at the Forum should submit a one-page proposal. Authors retain copyright on all printed publications and are free to publish their work in other venues. The Textile History Forum brings together textile historians, students, researchers, museum curators, independent scholars, artisans, dealers and collectors from around the country for three days of intense exchange. Participants will have the opportunity to take a behind the scenes tour of the Hyde Hall textile collection. This collection is unparalleled in its surviving early damasks, trims, tassels and ornamental drapery hardware. Forum participants will also have the opportunity to examine the hand textile tools located in the storage facility of the Farmer’s Museum in Cooperstown, NY. Please encourage others to share their research with us.

Please join us for our Holiday Open House!

Friday, December 6, Saturday, December 7 and Sunday, December 8 From 9am to 5pm each day Watch our antique looms run! Listen to the noise and watch those gears! Enjoy some holiday cheer!

2019 Hands-On Textile Forum Lead Us to Some Interesting Places

This year’s Forum was a hands-on, up close and personal look at textile technology in transition. The group followed the changes in hand and powered technology as it brought factory spinning and weaving in competition with hand process. We took a closer look at the ingrain carpet patent head and the hand jacquard head to begin the conversation about carpet and coverlet weavers of the 19th century. And from this we have forged ahead with plans for 2020. When I began the Textile History Forum in 1998, I did it with the hope that we could present both academic papers and spend time in historic collections to examine textiles and textile tools. 2020 will give us that opportunity and more. Hyde Hall, a Regency great house located inside Glimmerglass State Park, Springfield NY, will be our home base. The vast collection of coverlets and textile tools including spinning wheels, looms, reeds, and small tools at the storage facility of the Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown will be our laboratory. Pre-Forum visits may include Thistle Hill Weavers production mill, a workshop on dating and identifying textiles and a visit to the New York State Museum storage facility in Rotterdam, NY. Panel discussions are being planned for the Forum: what should we do with our private collections? Primary research methods for non-academics, and cataloguing personal collections will be among the sessions. We are now seeking papers for publication in the 2020 Proceedings on all topics of research relating to textiles, dyes, tools, and process.Mark your calendars, get your thinking caps on, submit your proposals and join us for a Textile History Forum 2020, to be held on July 31 – August 2, 2020. Contact us for more information and registration.

Textile History Forum 2019 – Final Schedule

Marshfield School of Weaving and Kate Smith’s Eaton Hill Textile Works Saturday, July 27 – Sunday, July 28 The Mechanization and Powering of Textile Production 1700 to 1860. This July, explore transitional textile technology with us. How did innovation create tools, and machines that allowed for the powered production of textiles that ultimately changed the way we wear and use cloth? The forum will be both discussion and hands-on demonstration of some of those processes and equipment that changed fiber preparation, weaving and cloth finishing. Unlike other forums, this will be an intensive two days in which participants will learn and discuss some of the technology that allowed the development of ingrain carpet production, coverlet production, the production of napped and sheared cloth, the cheap production of cotton fabrics for the poorer classes and the interplay in rural America between the fancy weaver, the clothier and the local production of fiber. Some equipment will be set up for hands-on opportunities for participants. The registration fee of $225 includes all sessions and lunch on both days, as well as the optional visit to the Vermont Historical Society on Friday afternoon.  If you have already registered but want to join the Friday Tour, please Contact us to confirm. Saturday morning session Saturday afternoon session one: Saturday afternoon session two: Sunday morning session Sunday afternoon session one: Sunday afternoon session two:

Winter Weaving Classes

Weaving Fabric for Clothing Saturday, February 2 – Sunday, February 3 Students will explore the process of choosing yarns, densities and weave structures that are suitable for weaving fabric for fine garments. Each student will choose yarns and patterns to create a series of samples during the workshop. The samples will allow students to choose a pattern, color way, and sett for their clothing fabric and create a plan based on their woven samples that will allow them to weave garment fabric at home.  This workshop is designed for students who have some weaving experience and want to explore making fabric for clothing.  Class cost is $150.00 per student. Class is limited to 5 students. All materials and lunches are included in the fee. Introduction to Pattern Hand Weaving for Beginners Friday, March 8 – Sunday March 10 Weave a luxurious lightweight scarf in silk, bamboo, and alpaca – no experience necessary! This is a beginning weaving class that will teach you from start to finish how to set up a warp, wind, beam, thread, sley, weave and finish a beautiful scarf of your own. The class is limited to 5 students. Class hours are Friday at 1pm-4:30pm, Saturday 9am-4:30pm and Sunday 9am-4:30pm. Cost is $225.00 with all materials, equipment and lunches included.