Category: News

Beginning Weaving Class

Weave a scarfSaturday, March 4 and Sunday March 5, 2017 No experience necessary. This is a chance to explore a craft for the first time or refresh your skill from years ago. Students will warp, thread, and weave a scarf from silk and wool. All materials and equipment are supplied. The class is limited to 6 students.Cost including materials and lunch: $195. Please contact us for more information or to sign up.

Hand Weaving Class

Understanding Patterns for Multiple Harnesses – a theory and practice classSaturday, January 21 and Sunday, January 22, 2017 The class is limited to students with basic weaving knowledge. The object of this class is to develop a sense of what is possible when more than four shafts are involved in creating weave structures. The concentration will be on designing with twill and block weaves to create functional fabrics for interior furnishings. We will use Olsner’s “A Handbook of Weaves” along with traditional multiple harness drafts form the 19th century to explore patterns.Cost including materials and lunch: $195. Please contact us for more information or to sign up.

Please Join Us For Our Second Annual Open House

Please join us for our second annual open house this holiday season, where you can take a tour of the mill, watch our historic looms run, see our current projects and buy holiday gifts from our showroom. Open House Schedule:  We are located at 143 Baxter Road in Cherry Valley NY 13320Phone: 518.284.2729

Designing and Drafting Pattern Weaves for Hand Looms

On October 15-16, 2016, Rabbit will be teaching a class at the Mill on designing and drafting for pattern weaving. She developed this class for weavers of any level who wish to understand more about weave structures and how to design patterns.  The class starts with an overview of basic skills of reading weavers’ drafts and translating patterns from historical draft books into several weave structures. This class is more theory than practical weaving but in the end, this approach should help free you from having to use “cookbook” recipes for creating beautiful pattern work. Some of the weave structures will be very familiar to students, like twills, satins, double cloth and block weaves, but it’s important that weavers be able to design their own work.  Cost for the weekend is $175.00 We will be announcing this via our newsletter later this month but thought you might want to know about it early. Please contact us for more information or to register.

Schedule for Textile History Forum, April 29 – May 1, 2016

Friday April 29 9:30am: Introduction to Hyde Hall by Jonathan Maney 10am: How do we know what we know? Basic textile identification with Rabbit Goody 12:30pm: Lunch 2pm George Clarke, The Builder – Receipts That Tell Us So Much by Jill Maney 3:15pm: Break  3:30-5pm: Hands-on identification…practical experience in fiber analysis and technical recording of textile information. Dinner on your own. Saturday April 30 9:30am: What should the windows look like? with Bruno Lopez Poulin 10:30am: The special textile collections at Hyde Hall – identifying and dating the red worsted damask and cataloging textiles for Hyde Hall 12:30pm: Lunch 2pm: More special textile collections at Hyde Hall – Identifying, dating and cataloging textiles for Hyde Hall 5:30pm: Wine and cheese reception for the Board of Trustees and donors at Hyde Hall and dinner with Hyde Hall Staff  Sunday May 1st 10am: The Textile Roadshow – identification of participants’ textiles 12:30pm Lunch 2pm: Trims and their importance: The Collection at Hyde Hall and Tassel and Trim Making in the 19th Century. Hyde Hall has an extraordinary collection of curtains and gilt valances from the Great House Dining Room and Drawing Room. Together we will piece together the physical evidence and work with experts to understand and reassemble the parts of the surviving drapery so that we can reconstruct the magnificent window treatments as they once were. This is a unique experience for anyone who is interested in textile history. Together we will “remake” history at Hyde Hall.

Register for the Textile History Forum 2016

When: Friday April 29 through Sunday May 1, 2016Where: Hyde Hall in Glimmerglass State Park, Springfield, NY 13333Click here for driving directions. Please join us for a very special Textile History Forum on Friday, April 29 – Sunday, May 1, 2016. This year we are planning a hands-on forum to identify and date the surviving drapery fabrics at Hyde Hall. This is an unprecedented opportunity for anyone interested in historic fabrics to work with experts and help catalog this amazing collection of early 19th century fabrics and trims. Hyde Hall has an extensive collection of curtains and gilt valances from the Great House Dining Room and Drawing Room. As a group, we will piece together the physical evidence and, with the help of experts, reassemble the parts so that we can reconstruct the magnificent window treatments as they once were. Lunches and one dinner are included in the registration fee of $225.00. Single day participation is $100.00 Please contact us if you have questions. We look forward to a great experience at this wonderful historic mansion. Click here to register.

Annual Open House Showroom and Mill Tours

Our annual Open House Showroom and Mill Tours are slated for Saturday, December 5 and Sunday, December 6, from 9-5pm each day. The mill will be open weekdays starting December 7 for the rest of the Holiday Season. The showroom will include our historic bed hangings, carpets, and drapery fabrics. New historic patterns from our jacquard loom will be available as scarves, shawls for the Holiday Season. The showroom will remain setup through the end of the year but our Open House weekend will allow visitors to see all of our historic machinery in action.  This year the mill has been weaving the drapery fabrics for Lincoln’s Home in Springfield Illinois. The original damask fabric used by the Lincolns in their home circa 1862 survived in the archives of the National Park Service. It was reproduced in the 1980’s by Scalamandre and now is being reproduced again by Thistle Hill Weavers. Using the existing fragment as a evidence, the worsted wool yarn was spun in Maine and dyed in Philadelphia; the silk was spun and dyed in Japan. These draperies will hang in the front and rear parlors of the Lincoln Home. Thistle Hill has also reproduced the other draperies in the Lincoln Home, gossamer dimity for the bedrooms and the hall, and embossed moire worsted for the library.  Besides weaving drapery for the Lincoln Home, Thistle Hill has been busy weaving “Lincoln” shawls for Beekman 1802 Mercantile, in the style of the shawl that Abraham Lincoln wore which survives in the Smithsonian Institution collection. Thistle Hill’s reproduction of the shawl appears in the trailer for the movie “Lincoln, A Team of Rivals” released a few years ago.

Flash Sale – One Day Only – November 14

We are having a FLASH SALE of our over-run fabrics on Wednesday, November 14 from 9am to 5pm. Don’t miss this opportunity to clean up while we clean out our over runs! This one-day-only sale features prices ranging from $30 to $95 per yard. Minimum yardage is a 1/2 yard. If you come and find a fabric that you want us to make into items, we will also take orders for the holidays. Also, please mark your calendar and save the date: our Holiday Open House this year starts Saturday, December 5 and goes through Saturday, December 12. We hope to see you then.