18th Century Domestic Textiles Workshop

At the end of March 2022, I was lucky enough to attend a 3-day round robin workshop at Red Stone Glen in York Haven, PA on the topic of 18th century American household textiles. This particular course topic attracted me because I'm very interested in history and historical methods, but so much of what's extant and/or well documented is all the professional stuff that's beyond my capabilities (or desires) as a home weaver on a hand loom today. At the moment I have no interest in operating a power loom or even a Jacquard machine. It's the cottage industry and everyday domestic scene that captures my imagination.

The class was a combination of informal lectures and hands-on weaving time. There were 15 pre-warped looms all set up to make samples of different patterns and weave structures. I came away with 15 samples, but there were one or two looms that I skipped in favor of returning to another one for a second attempt. The only downside of the whole round-robin experience was that one of my samples was tragically lost...probably still attached to someone else's, or given away by mistake. That was a real shame, too, because it was the linsey-woolsey and that's something we mention during the demonstrations at the Flax Scutching Festival every year. I'd have liked to show it off, but I suppose I'll just have to make my own now.

This was only my second class at Red Stone Glen, but just as before I experienced many personal "firsts." This time around that notably includes weaving with 6 and 8 shafts (as opposed to my usual 4), weaving with linen, weaving with finer threads than I've ever used before (20/2 cotton and 40/2 linen), and weaving with wool warp. For my personal growth as a weaver, what I'm ultimately most thrilled about is that I picked up some basic tips for becoming a better production weaver. It turns out that all of the weaving styles I'm used to, from overshot to krokbragd, are the incredibly slow ones with two or more shuttles and overly many picks per inch. This class convinced me that with a single shuttle is ridiculously preferable for speed! There is still more overshot and krokbragd in my future, of course, but no longer exclusively.

And I'm finally able to let go of my bad nitpicky habits and weave without touching the selvedges, something that has long eluded me due to the nature of the kinds of textiles I've focused on in the past. This development is groundbreaking enough to warrant its own paragraph, lol!

I didn't quite remember to take pictures of every sample while it was on the loom, but here are the ones that I did manage to capture: